CMJ 2008: New York Music Marathon

There comes a point with any self-organised tour when all the months of planning, scheduling, doubt and anticipation have to be set aside and given over to the hand of fate. Whatever you did or didn't do in preparation for the event, at this moment it's really too late to do anything other than just go with the flow. This truth dawns on me on an American Airlines flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK on an ice-cold Wednesday morning in October. My band and I are bulleting through the rarefied air, six miles above the coast of Ireland in the cattle-class section of a hulking Boeing 777. At 9.00am it's a little too early for alcoho,l even for a rock band, so sipping on a polystyrene cup of tea and with the North Atlantic to traverse, it's a good chance to reflect on the chain of events that brought us here.

We're on our way to the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, one of the biggest musical gatherings on the planet. The CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival (to give the event its full title) is a music festival in the same way that Edinburgh is an arts festival. Manhattan is the site. There's no main stage or roster of million-selling acts; rather it's an exploration of new music of every imaginable style and an opportunity for those that really care about what's happening on the ground to indulge in as much music as they can stomach. Most of the action takes place on the bohemian Lower East Side of the island.

Don't be fooled by the dinginess of some of the venues and the relaxed vibe of the organisers, however, as this is an event with a lot of history and an equally sizable wad of hard-earned kudos. Inaugurated back in 1980 (the name comes from the fact that the first event took place at the same time as the New York marathon), almost everyone who has sold a record has played at the CMJ, from U2 to Eminem, while such legendary figures as David Bowie, Quentin Tarantino and even the Reverend Jesse Jackson have spoken or presented seminars here. This is no 'smudged stamp on the back of the hand' affair, although its ethos lies very much in the world of college radio. CMJ stands for College Music Journal, America's unofficial bible to alternative music.

Wide-eyed and trawling as many flightcases as we can handle, we're easy prey for the taxi touts. JFK, similarly to Heathrow, is a good hour's drive from the city, so there are a number of options to consider when it comes to getting into town — accepting a ride from one of the minicab drivers who will more than likely pounce on you as soon as you get out of the airport is not one of the most sensible. The iconic yellow cabs, however, are obliged by law to offer a fixed amount ($65 including tolls) to the core of the Big Apple, so if you can squeeze your band and all your gear into one of these, it's not a bad option. The cheaper alternative is to take one of the official shuttle buses — you can't miss them outside the airport. American-style minibuses driven by wannabe Robert De Niros, they service pretty much any hotel you care to name. If you're not totally weighed under with drums, amps and so on, then an even cheaper and not necessarily slower option is to take the train to Penn Station (changing at Jamaica Plain), which is about as central as you can get.

It's at this point that we should turn our thoughts to accommodation. New York is an alarmingly expensive city to stay in. Even the more run-down hotels — and some of these can be pretty distressingly run-down — can cost well over $200 per room. This time, however, we really land on our feet. Desperate for that holy grail of cheap, but high-quality accommodation in New York, we had been recommended self-catering apartments in Jersey City, across the Hudson. For the four of us the apartment works out at just under £30 each per night, which, when we open the door and step inside, strikes us all immediately as an insanely good deal. The accommodation comprises two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room/dining room and one of the most breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline it would be possible to imagine. As the sun goes down and the lights come on, it begins to look like one of those unrealistically romanticised backdrops American talk show set designers like to stick behind the presenter, except that this is real, right outside the window, and you can watch it unfold in all its sparkling glory from the couch.

Even though on New York time we've been up since about 11.00pm last night and so have somehow skipped a night's sleep, it's time to put on our party shoes. UK Trade and Investment, the government body tasked with attracting investment into the UK and equally British investment overseas, have done a huge amount to promote British music at this year's event and we, along with the other British acts here, are incredibly grateful for it. Standing in the living room looking out at the rust-coloured Staten Island ferry wend its way into the sunset, it feels unlikely that the British government would end up being one of our biggest allies in this iconic American city. Nevertheless, UKTI is hosting a big industry party tonight and, as a British act performing here this week, we're invited — not only that, but there's free Trump vodka thrown into the deal too! Opportunities like this don't come along often, so we grab it with both hands. We have had business cards and flyers printed, while UKTI have kindly agreed to allow us to add the 150 copies of our single that we sent over a week or so earlier to the goody bags handed to everyone who shows up.

It's at a place called the Delancey in the East Village. It's a great, very New York kind of club. Even better, it's happening on the roof surrounded by giant plants. It's the most fashionable greenhouse in town! A few shots of vodka give us the courage to start chatting to people and it's while we're pitching ourselves to someone from a management agency that one of our songs comes blasting through the sound system. Sipping free vodka at a music industry roof party in Manhattan while people shimmy to your songs it doesn't get much better than this!

We meet some great people and make some really good contacts, but the combined effects of sleep-deprivation and the diet of in-flight meals and oceanic vodkas is starting to kick in. We all decide it would be a really good idea to get something to eat, so retire to a Mexican restaurant across the street. Our accents get us noticed and invited to a show just down the road at Pianos on Ludlow Street, a bar made famous by the late Jeff Buckley, a resident performer there. Suitably restored, we head over to the Annex on Orchard Street to enjoy one of the 'Bring on the Brits' nights, where sleaze-rockers Dirty Fuzz are shaking out chunky riffs and enormous hairdos.

Our first gig isn't until the Friday, so the following day gives us a chance to draw breath. Our drummer, Jamie, who wasn't able to join us for the party on the Wednesday, flies in today. He had already booked a holiday the week before the festival, so has just made the mammoth journey from Crete to Gatwick, Gatwick to Heathrow, Heathrow to Chicago and finally to Newark. We're relieved to hear that this plan has worked and that he will soon be on his way from Chicago. In the meantime the rest of us take the ferry from Jersey City across to what was once the pier for the World Trade Center, and we stroll up 5th Avenue looking for the kind of shop that might sell power adaptors for our pedalboards.

That evening, there's another British music night, this time at the Webster Studios, an offshoot of the well-established Webster Hall on East 11th Street. It's a good chance to reintroduce ourselves to some of the people we met at the UKTI party and hand out some flyers for our gig tomorrow. We catch a couple of great bands: Unkle Bob, described as a 'folk group for the Coldplay generation'; and Lucky Soul, fronted by Ali, who sings Blondie-esque pop gems with a husky voice (partly due to a heavy cold, she admits). Both bands demonstrate that it is possible to make a respectable living touring in this country. After the show we retire to a bar called the Redhead on East 13th Street, with some of the people we met at tonight's gig and recognised from last night's party.

Friday, the day of our first show, has arrived. We're playing at the Delancey, but first we thought it would be a good idea to put in a couple of hours rehearsal, so we've booked ourselves into Ultrasound rehearsal studios on West 30th Street. It's been good to have a day to acclimatise, as we're scheduled to play at 1.00am this evening, something we'd have really struggled to do any earlier in the week.

When we arrive at the venue to drop off our gear, we find ourselves gatecrashing a Rykodisc company party, so we hand out more flyers and help ourselves to some of the free food (you have to be an opportunist when you're on a budget in New York). By the time the first band comes on, the place is so packed that walking from one end of the room to the other takes dogged determination. It augurs well for our set later on. Unfortunately, it soon transpires that the huge crowd is very much owned by the band Jupiter One, who deliver a great set, but once the last chord has been played and they pack up and leave, they take almost the entire audience with them. Having come so far for this moment, it's a bit of a blow.

The flip side of playing an event like the CMJ Music Marathon can be that there are simply so many bands playing so many venues that there is always the possibility you'll end up playing to very small audiences if you're unlucky with your stage time or venue — or if in our case you're on after a successful American band with a large following, who, by the time you come on, have rocked the place dry. Nevertheless, we haven't come all the way to New York to play a duff gig. We've been itching to play since we got out here, so we throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the performance. It's a decision that seems to be appreciated by the handful of punters who stick around, although not by the equipment we're using. Halfway through our performance there's a loud crackle, accompanied, unbelievably, by a dart of brilliant blue lightning connecting our bass player Chris's mouth to his microphone. Unsurprisingly, he jumps back with a start and is clearly unsettled by this near-death experience for the rest of the show. There are issues with the house drum kit too; we later discover that the kick drum pedal had broken about seven songs in and Jamie had been improvising as best he could. Only myself and Vin, the guitarist, seem to have gotten away without technical problems this evening. It's hardly the start to the event we had imagined, but at least it is a start. And besides, there's always tomorrow

The next day, we awake to discover a grey veil has been drawn across our skyline view, with sheets of rain moving successively across the water. Judging by the way the traffic lights are swaying precariously on their wire at the junction underneath the kitchen window, there's quite a gale blowing down there too. We hope it won't deter people from making the trip out to see us play this evening.

Last night it felt as though we were going on really late. Today it feels as if our slot at the Ace Of Clubs on Great Jones Street is perhaps a little too early — our stage time is noted as 7.30pm. We're supporting another British band, the Sea, who are a two-piece with a huge amount of sonic energy derived solely from an outrageously distorted guitar and a drum kit pounded to within inches of its life. At least we have a few friends coming down this evening to bolster our audience, and although the room is almost empty when we take the stage, by the time we reach the end of our set it has filled out respectably. We also feel we've put on a better performance this evening with an infinitely better sound and, more importantly, none of the technical hitches that plagued our set last night — Chris and Jamie are both visibly relieved. To celebrate, we finish the night running up a frighteningly large bar bill on Mojitos and Mexican food into the early hours.

Sunday brings our last New York show, although we have other dates on the East Coast to play. Given that Manhattan has been deluged with live music since Tuesday, is everyone in the city going to have had more than enough guitar, bass and drums by tonight? Thankfully not, and our gig at Arlene's Grocery on Stanton Street turns out to be our best show of the week.

Arlene's is another one of the many East Village grassroots music venues that give this part of Manhattan its appeal. We're headlining tonight, but at the far more sociable hour of 10.30pm. As has been the way with every show, the quality of the other bands is incredibly high. We're on straight after an act, all the way from Wisconsin, called Sleeping In The Aviary, who not only win the prize for best name so far, but are also the most entertaining act we've performed alongside. They are a kind of cross between Eels and the characters from Scooby-Doo, fronted by a Shaggy character called Elliot. He wears odd socks, no shoes, has a guitar strap fashioned from an old school tie, and looks as if he's probably only recently woken up. To continue the analogy, the Thelma character in the band, Emily, plays the saw on a couple of numbers, which adds a surprisingly eerie and atmospheric dimension to the band's sound. By the time we take the stage, the atmosphere is pure party, which helps make our set go with a swing. We finish with a Sinatra kind of big-band number called 'When The Lights Go On Across Manhattan', which we wrote last time we were here and which has never felt so fitting as it has this week. Thank you, New York, good night!

As the banners come down and the Hoovers come out across Manhattan, we head out of town on our hired wheels on Interstate 95. We've had some good radio support in this part of the world with our album, All The Villains, so it seems like the perfect chance to play to a receptive audience away from the CMJ. The first town that ever took any interest in the band was Boston, a good four hours north of here. We played here before and enjoyed it, so, while reluctant to leave our luxury apartment, we're looking forward to the change of scenery.

Once through the sprawling suburbs and across the looming George Washington Bridge, the countryside opens up before us. After a week in the noise and bustle of New York, it comes as quite a contrast, and the air smells intoxicatingly fresh. We're entering New England too, with its stunning fall colours. By the time we get to Boston it's dark, so we don't get to see much of the city, although the venue we're playing at, the Middle East up near Harvard University, is somewhere we have played before. In New York we'd been lucky to get a soundcheck, but here, where life moves at a noticeably less hectic pace, we're treated to free drinks and an extremely welcome meal (Middle Eastern, of course) at the restaurant that adjoins the club.

The standard of bands is again exceptional, with the Dig, ironically enough from New York, standing out as the most signable unsigned act we've shared the stage with so far. They boast some extremely enthusiastic, if not very drunk, fans and a sound that places them up there with the Strokes, except with a much heavier drum & bass thing and arguably more talent. The DJ who first championed us in Boston is here tonight, as is our American radio promoter. As if that isn't enough, a couple from Texas introduce themselves to us after our set, explaining how they'd won tickets to see us play, on the very radio show hosted by our friend. New York has so much going for it, but this is easily the best gig we've played. "This is our favourite town," I announce. "It's much better than the last one." "Where was that?" someone hollers back. "New York," I tell them, an answer which is met with an enthusiastic cheer. Boston, we decide, is definitely somewhere we'll come back to.

Not having been able to plan these gigs as geographically as we might have liked, Tuesday means a trek all the way back south again for a college gig on Long Island. Hofstra University, a large campus university near the centre of the island, also happens to be where John McCain and Barack Obama had one of their last face-to-face presidential debates a week or so before we arrived, so we imagine the mood could be a little political. It's strange, having seen this place all over the TV news a week back, to now be standing here setting up our amps and soundchecking the drum kit. We assume that this show will be one of our most drunken, or at least that the after party will be, and have therefore arranged to stay at one of the organiser's houses, 10 minutes' drive from here.

It's only when we settle down in the canteen to get some food in and order beers all round that we're told that it's a 'dry' campus. The thought of a sober student venue takes some getting used to; this is not going to be the gig we had pictured it to be. Nevertheless, it's the largest venue we've played so far and the PA is like a mountain range compared to those in the club venues. On before us is a solo acoustic artist, Mick Mclean, who intersperses his songs with a combination of biting comments about the outgoing government and pleas to the audience to vote for the right one next time — the election is less than a week away. He's preceded by an appalling band with a petulant personality and a can't-be-arsed attitude. They heckle the other acts and then leave before anyone can kick them out. They are, thankfully, the only disappointing act out of the more than 20 we meet during our time out here.

Despite the heckling, we play well and go down a storm with the rest of the audience, having really found our form. We're followed by a band called Vaeda, who demonstrate jaw-dropping musicianship and disarming friendliness. They again urge all those present to "do the right thing and vote", and then dedicate a Muse cover to their new English friends. We vow to tour together if we ever get the chance, but, not having drunk a drop all night, decide to drive on to our next venue rather than spend a night here.

The following night was supposed to be one of the big shows of the trip. We were ending the week with a student television performance at the College of New Jersey. A couple of days beforehand, however, we had received an email from the promoter who explained that due to equipment issues the show had been cancelled. It was frustrating, but luckily friends and family in Hartford (Connecticut) manage to land us an acoustic gig in an Irish bar in town and then a set at a blues club — Black Eyed Sally's — with the promise of a blues jam to end the tour. Two shows in one night and an impromptu blues jam, it sounded like a fun way to round things off. The acoustic show makes a nice change and members of the audience who have heard 'When The Lights Go On Across Manhattan' before — a song that seems to be becoming a firm Device favourite — cheer along. Despite all our expectations of how this tour may or may not work out, we end the trip throwing ourselves into completely made-up blues songs, sharing the stage with a harmonica and a trumpet player. It's been an emotional experience, with a few letdowns, but plenty of unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences to balance them out. Tomorrow we'll head back to New York. The next time we see the sun come up it will be over London, 3500 miles away. We planned, we scheduled, we doubted, we anticipated, and yet we end the tour in a blues club we never thought we'd visit, playing songs we made up on the spot, having the time of our lives and most certainly going with the flow. 0

Making the most of the marathon

Another Brit band, the Sea, at the Ace of Clubs on Great Jones Street.

Richard Powell, Vice Consultant for UK Trade and Investment in New York, tells us how to make the most of being an English band in America.

"The Brits come to New York each year for CMJ, yet in the past little has been done to make the event cohesive and draw attention to a united UK front. The Australians and New Zealanders have been doing showcases for a while, and this year, with pushing from myself, my marketing department in New York and CMJ directly, we were able to come up with a deal and identify ways to obtain the money to help UK bands, labels and delegates, while raising the profile of the UK industry and UKTI in the marketplace. The events have a buzz, and tastemakers from across the US are in New York for CMJ and do visit the showcases.

If you're playing, promote, promote, promote — guerrilla or street marketing if you can't afford a PR company. Whether you're playing or not, network, network, network. Attend every event, reception, gig and happening you can and talk to people — you never know who they are. Have promotional collateral — business cards and contact details — on you. Look for opportunities to cross-promote with major brands that might also have some push behind them. Speak with brands like Top Shop in the UK who are about to launch in the US (New York) or magazines who are similarly looking to establish a base in the US. Once here, don't stop at CMJ. If you have time, try to tag on a mini venue tour or look for ways to team up with other UK bands on the road. Follow up on all leads and, again, network, network, network!"

Getting involved

Although competition is intense, a slot at the CMJ Music Marathon (www.cmj.com/marathon) is potentially open to any band in the world. It helps if you have some kind of profile or previous experience of playing here, such as a tour or radio play. To register for a chance to play at the CMJ Music Marathon you will need to become a member of Sonicbids, an American on-line music portal that links artists with promoters. Registration usually begins a good many months before the event. The organisers then review every artist who has applied via the site and notify selected artists a couple of months before the Music Marathon. Every year thousands of bands apply to play the CMJ, of which only a small proportion are successful, so our advice is to make sure you put together a really strong pitch as to how playing the event will help further your career, upload your best songs and pictures and add an enticing biography and anything else to your Sonicbids page that will make your band stand out above the rest. Don't forget, along with the CMJ Music Marathon there is a host of North American festivals at which to promote your music, the largest of which is SXSW (South By South West), held every spring in Austin, Texas, although there are many others, most of which are advertised on the sonicbids website: www.sonicbids.com.

CMJ 2008: New York Music Marathon

Showcasing new talent