The best thing about working in the music industry is that, as hectic as things might get, it hardly ever feels like work. This is never more true than at conferences like CMJ.  Since 1981, The CMJ Music Marathon has brought thousands of artists, fans and music professionals to the big apple for a week of concerts, networking, and straight up partying. Once again, Benjy and I were lucky enough to attend on behalf of Sonicbids. In addition having a lot of fun, we got tons of great feedback from artists and promoters, made some promising connections, and hobnobbed with a lot of very cool and talented people.

Benjy and I arrived in New York City on Monday afternoon and headed straight to NYU’s Kimmel Center, the center of CMJ.  Back in my younger days, I used to love hanging out in The Village, so being right in the heart of Washington Square Park felt like something of a homecoming.

After getting the booth set up, we checked into the hotel, had dinner and immediately started checking out music.  The first thing we went to was “The Syn” party, where we saw a bunch of great bands.  The first act was Margot & the Nuclear So & Sos, who I loved.  I saw them play at Summerfest 2006 when they were one of the Sonicbids bands selected for Summerfest’s “Emerging Artist Series.”  Well, they’ve definitely emerged.  We also saw Rival Schools, who were great, along with … And You Will Know Us Be the Trail of Dead.

On Tuesday, we began our booth duty.  We met a lot of artists and promoters, and got leads on some great opportunities.  Some of the highlights of my day were:

• Catching up with Shawn from Palominos, who were selected for Langerado 2008
• Sitting down with Paul from WAM, who is a promoter we work with in Australia, to discuss plans for 2009
• Discussing Irish bands and festivals with Angela Dorgan from Music From Ireland and Hard Working Class Heroes

We saw some great bands that night, including Vivian Girls and Sonicbids members Modern Skirts.

Wednesday morning, we were back at the booth. We met some more artists and promoters, including Allie Shaw of Hyperactive Music Festival (Hyperfest) and Gary Taylor of Canadian Music Week.

I left the booth in the afternoon to head to Chelsea for meetings with Spin and Relix Magazine.  As always, it was great to meet with partners and discuss the best ways for them to discover new artists using Sonicbids.

Wednesday night I met up with Andy and Lou from our Business Development team. We went to a party at the Ben Sherman store in Soho, hosted by Filter Magazine.  A band called Teenagers played, who were really great. Since that night, my song du jour has been a remix of a Teenagers song that you can get on Hype Machine.

Later on we checked out Takka Takka, another Sonicbids artist who has been selected by Summerfest for their “Emerging Artist Series” in years past.  We ended the night with a pretty hilarious schlep across town to see Chairlift, another band who has gotten some great gigs with Sonicbids, including a record deal with Kanine Records. You may recognize them from the iPod commercial that features their song; check it out here.

Thursday wound up being pretty awesome too.  There was the Free Yr Radio Broadcast area on the tradeshow floor, where artists were doing interviews and live performances for Seattle’s KEXP.  I saw Billy from Pela perform and was totally blown away at how beautiful his acoustic renditions were.  I also got a chance to meet fellow Bostonians Pretty & Nice while they were getting ready to do their interview.

The highlight of the day for me though was having lunch with Nick and Palmer from Paste.  We had a great conversation and I heard about some of the awesome artists they have discovered using Sonicbids.  Keep your eyes peeled for new Gig Listings from them in the future.

Thursday night had some great showcases as well.  I saw Oxford Collapse, who, in their pre-Sub Pop days, got selected for CMJ through Sonicbids.  My favorite showcase of the week was The Brother Kite, a dreamy pop band from Providence who mix reverb-drenched Beach Boys harmonies with guitar lines that hark back to The Cure.

By Friday, the trade show had ended, but my desire to keep seeing bands was still going strong.  I started early by going to the Planetary day party and saw some really unbelievable bands.  My personal favorite was Boston’s own  Passion Pit, although both The Muslims and Koufax were great too.

By Friday night, my age caught up to me; I was starting to feel pretty winded. Nevertheless, I mustered up some energy and made it out to the Filter party in Brooklyn. The Black Lips were playing, and they put on one heck of a show.  The setting was weird – a warehouse in the middle of hipsterville – but it suited the music and made for a great vibe.

By Saturday afternoon it was time to go home. I was a little bummed, but my ears, legs and liver were thankful for it. Though exhausting, CMJ was a great experience. The atmosphere was perfect for us to get feedback and find new ways to empower artists and help them get gigs.  There were also plenty of people with events, licensors, magazines, etc who told us how they want to tap into Sonicbids’ artist community. We met cool people, saw awesome bands, and got great leads on new opportunities and new ideas for the Sonicbids community. Are business trips supposed to be this fun?

-David Ellis

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