Another late October and another CMJ come-and-gone. NYC is exhausted, still trying to recover from a week’s worth of assorted free drinks and endless amplitude. Our collective ears still ring, but its all good, because we can sort of remember CMJ. That said, it’s safe to say that if there was a band who “blew the fuck” up at CMJ this year, it was probably Surfer Blood. This was sort of predicted, considering the storm of blog love/record deal signing/all sorts of other shit the band received after their visit to Brooklyn two months ago. The xx were probably the second most blogged about band during CMJ, which makes sense, but sort of isn’t fair because, well, the xx have long been megadarlings of the NME set in the UK. To be honest, it wasn’t that exciting a CMJ, probably due to the speed of information Twitter-holics (I myself included) and blog rats post on new bands, good or bad. If anything CMJ was a catalyst, barometer or deal breaker for band’s who had enjoyed a bit of hype before things actually kicked off here. Harlem, Small Black, the Smith Westerns, Best Coast, Real Estate, Dum Dum Girls joined the xx and Surfer Blood in the category of groups we knew would have a successful CMJ. Maybe we’re just cynical and old, or maybe it’s because nearly all of them have received an immense amount of (un)noteworthy hype in months prior and recently been signed to significant labels, but, all in all, for the most part, each and everyone of them seemed to make the best of their stay in NYC. Throw Suckers, Sharon van Etten, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Javelin, Cold Cave, Neon Indian, and a dozen more I’m too fuzzy to remember into the mix and it was a pretty damn good year for bands at CMJ. Doesn’t seem like any pre-recorded beat problems, excessively boring live show or sound guy problems marred anyone’s career, especially considering the xx, known for being, uh, quite dull in the live setting, were one of this year’s biggest success stories.

Their performance at this past weekend’s Woodsist festival must have caused quite a stir- just after their debut live show, Los Angeles’ Dum Dum Girls (the brainchild of one girl, Dee Dee, fleshed out by members of Crystal Stilts, Crocodiles, and Blank Dogs at the festival) have been signed to Sub Pop. The full length is rumored to be released at the beginning of 2010, but those intrigued by Dee Dee’s fuzzy pop can check out the Longhair 7” on Hozac and the Yours Alone 12” EP out on Captured Tracks. Dee Dee’s MySpace also promises more releases in the near future, including a split 7” with Crocodiles, so it sounds like we’ll be hearing from her on a regular basis leading up to the release of her debut album.

This week’s Singles Collection is awash in the boozy afterglow of South by Southwest, a festival we survived for the 10th year running… but just barely.  If you are a true music fan and have never been, you really owe it to yourself to get down to Austin at least once and experience the mayhem and hysteria for yourself, because a slew of blog/twitter posts really can’t capture the sun-baked surreality that is SxSW. Soap-boxing aside, all of the bands featured this week were part of SxSW in one way or another (ie – lots of unofficial shows) and are well-deserving of your listening time and hard-earned stimulus cash. 

First up this week we’ve got the debut offering from The Mayfair Set, “Already Warm” b/w “Desert Fun” on the Captured Tracks imprint. To be fair, they themselves didn’t play SXSW, but one-half of the group, Mr. Blank Dogs himself, Mike Sniper, did, and since nobody knows if the goddamn Blank Dogs 7″ on DITG will ever get released, we figured we’d give this a whirl.  A collaboration with Dum Dum Girls, this two track taster for the duo’s forthcoming 12″ EP is both deliciously dour and infectiously joyous, mining fragile Comsat Angels territory as the songs waft towards the sun on gossamer wings and loads of FX. Not sure if it’s being billed as such or not, but it’s truly a double A-Side affair, with the lo-fi Cocteau Twins-like incantations of “Desert Fun” just edging out the slightly more rough-hewn shoegazer bliss of “Already Warm” for top honors.  These were just recently released and are available on Sniper’s own Captured Tracks, but probably won’t stick around for too long, so best get to steppin’ if this sounds like your cup of tea.     

Following that up this week we’ve got The Box Elders’ Hole In My Head 7″ on Grotto Records out of Nebraska. A fantastic 4-song platter from one of the most impressive bands of this year’s festival, this little slab o’ wax crackles with a kind of rambunctious, infectious pop energy you just can’t fake; either you’ve got it, or you don’t. The A-Side alone is worth the price of admission, featuring two crackling tunes, the jangle-licious pop romp ”Hole In My Head” and the staggering proto-punk stomp of “One Foot in Front of the Other”.  The hits continue on the flip, with the racing “2012″ pushing all the right buttons before their surprisingly stellar cover of Redd Kross’ “S&M Party”, a damn-near perfect song in its original form, swoops in and delivers the knockout blow.  Absolutely one of the most consistently thrilling EPs of recent memory.  It looks like these are still available on the label’s MySpace page, but if they’re not, the band definitely has copies and are on tour now.  Go see them, you most assuredly won’t be disappointed.

Last, but certainly not least, this week we’ve got Kim Phuc’s “Wormwood Star” b/w “Freak Out the Squares” on Chicago’s mighty Criminal IQ Records. Definitely one of the Top 5 bands we saw at this year’s SxSW, this PGH quintet thrilled in a sweat-and-glitter-splattered set that left band and audience bleary-eyed and thirsty for more.  A-Side “Wormwood Star” is a snarling, riff-ready death ride down a mountain of blood, with Rob spouting off about Babylonian malfeasances and fornicating witches (we think), all before exploding into a furious, piano-laced proto-punk coda that’ll make you weep like you just got socked in the jaw. The flipside, “Freak Out the Squares” is greasier and nastier still; a lyrical tribute to Dawn Davenport (look her up) set to a rhythm that sounds dredged from the bottom of lake Haze and a never-ending barrage of acid-laced riffs that send the whole thing careening into complete and utter meltdown. Somehow still available from Criminal IQ and a host of distros, so get out there and get you some.

As we continue to flush out all the toxins we’ve ingested in the past week, we do want to tell you that we’ve got a really special video edition of The Singles Collection coming your way, courtesy of one of our absolute favorite labels. You definitely won’t want to miss it.

Rez and I headed into Death By Audio expecting a noisy raucous affair, but were treated to a sonic wonder to start the show in U.S. Girls. The one-woman show that is Meghan Remy — a Philly-based noise conductor drenched in fuzz and reverb a la Wavves or the Dum Dum Girls, but with vocals that will send shivers down your spine. Unlike the lazy drawl of many of the lo-fi deconstructionists, Meghan takes an almost R&B vibe on her vocals, and she belted out emphatically over the heavy beats and blips, including her cover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Bits And Pieces”. [Derek Evers]

[US Girls]

And then there’s Fiasco, the band I’ve seen countless times only to keep saying they get better with age. Which was ironic on this night as one of them actually became legal — guitarist Jonathan Edelstein celebrated his 18th birthday with the help of The Homosexuals. With two new songs to their repertoire and the usual array of blistering beats and tapping guitars, Fiasco remain one of my favorite bands to witness live. [Derek Evers]

[Fiasco]

I’d only heard NYC’s Sightings on record and never knew exactly how they concoct their weird, damaged soundscapes. I was pretty impressed to find out that they construct their sound with nothing more than a guitar, a bass, electro-acoustic drums and a bunch of effects pedals. The whole show was like one blistering assault of damaged noise, with guitarist/vocalist Mark Morgan laying down his baritone vocals over the grand cacophony. Their drummer is really sick/technical and all three members are interesting to watch but by the second half of the set, every song seemed to kick its feet into the next and the crowd grew a bit less enthusiastic, rather than the other way around. [Rez Avissar]

[Sightings]

AIDS Wolf tore the roof off the place. I was thinking of adjectives to use to describe the show… “frenzy”…”pandemonium”…”intense.” The band was tight, the singer Special Deluxe was extra vicious on the mic (and looked amazing in her purple sequin dress), and the whole place went fucking nuts. I haven’t danced this hard in a long time and in between paused to snap some glimpses into what basically was sweet, sweet mayhem. [Rez Avissar]

[AIDS Wolf]

[Death By Audio]

So last night I went to a show at Death by Audio that featured the likes of well known noisemakers AIDS Wolf, Fiasco and Sightings. Opening the show was Meghan Remy, a Philly-based noise concoctor who goes by the name of U.S. Girls. I’ve been catching word of her performances for the past few months, but after finally seeing her for myself, I suggest getting acquainted.

A one-woman show drenched in fuzz and reverb a la Wavves or the Dum Dum Girls, but with a much more cerebral approach (see: not as poppy) and vocals that will send shivers down your spine. Unlike the lazy drawl of many of the lo-fi deconstructionists, Meghan takes an almost R&B vibe on her vocals, belting out emphatically over the heavy beats and blips. She’s put out a handful of cassette and 7″ releases, so in an attempt to auralize her wide range, we’re going to offer up an original U.S. Girls track — “Found On The Ground” — and her cover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Bits And Pieces”.

U.S. Girls – “Bits And Pieces”

U.S. Girls – “Found On The Ground”