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MUSIC COLUMN BY RICHARD MARTIN Side Effect or Ingredient?: The best music festivals run on a sort of preternatural chaos. Thousands of shaggy-haired musicians, prideful radio programmers, goateed journalists, cell-phone-wielding record biz types, grumpy club doormen and overtaxed soundmen get thrown together for several days and nights of nearly continuous live music. When it's over, everyone emerges with their share of magic moments, drunken half-memories (and accompanying hangovers) and maybe even a forecast of pop culture's immediate future. The annual CMJ Music Marathon, which took place last week, has a built-in advantage over other music festivals: The frenzied throb of Manhattan's regular night life compounds the energy of the four-day event. Yet New York City's bustle threatened to spin this year's festivities into a logistical freefall. For one, the badge-wearing conferencegoers were often turned away from clubs in favor of individuals who had bought tickets or paid at the door, especially when better-known acts like the Afghan Whigs, DJ Spooky and the Cardigans attracted hordes of fans; such scenarios rarely arise at the nation's only comparably sized festival, South by Southwest in Austin. Second, because of New York's crush for conference space, the daytime headquarters at CMJ '98 moved to the labyrinthine Millennium Hotel in Times Square from the less-congested, statelier home of the past two years, the Lincoln Center. The result? Long elevator lines to the upper floors, where panels took place, and a practically unnavigable exhibit area. Musically, CMJ attracted a staggeringly talented lineup. Perusing the near-microscopic print that squeezed 1,000 acts onto an 11-inch-by-17-inch piece of glossy paper, one could find surging hip-hoppers (Black Eyed Peas, Black Star); in-demand DJs and electronic artists (Asian Dub Foundation, Talvin Singh, Faithless); credible major-label rock acts (Built to Spill, Sparklehorse, Beth Orton); indie-rock standbys (Modest Mouse, Versus); and everything from Brazilian jazz to British folk to Japanese noise. The frenetic pace led to happy accidents and pleasant surprises. Built to Spill played its own slot to hype a forthcoming Warner Bros. album, then lent its drawing power to former Northwest benefactors K and Up Records by performing at the labels' showcases. Certified rock star Dave Grohl (of the Foo Fighters) schlepped his own amp onstage at 200-capacity Brownies to play bass with Verbena, whose major-label debut he's producing. The Nashville band Lambchop, which has released several understated Gothic country albums on Merge, grew to a 12-member ensemble featuring all of Yo La Tengo and Superchunk's Mac McCaughan. These bands and many others channeled the zigzagging, relentless activity around CMJ into memorable, inspired performances--sometimes literally. Confronted by a line of registrants who told him that the club wasn't accepting badgeholders, one man grinned and said, "They have to accept badgeholders"; he then lifted his identification tag and revealed that he was Joe Pernice, frontman for the band everyone in line had been waiting to see, the Pernice Bros. Onstage an hour later during an almost note-perfect set, he took a stab at what the conference's initials meant. "I think the 'C' stands for clusterfuck," Pernice deadpanned. Either that or chaos. Portland's Presence: There wasn't much of a contingent this year. Sunset Valley elicited the loudest buzz, filling the Mercury Lounge and earning generally positive word-of-mouth. Former Golden Delicious bandmates Bingo and Pete Krebs played solo sets. Up-and-coming power-pop act Tra La La was the only other Rose City representative. More Portlanders could reportedly be seen in a half-hour documentary that premièred as part of CMJ's concurrent film festival. Directed by Steve Hanft, Strange Parallel is a short bio-pic of Elliott Smith, tracing his rise to fame through his Portland beginnings to his current hometown of Brooklyn and featuring interviews with his friends and admirers here and elsewhere. (Watch this space for word on a local screening.) Timbre's Magic Moments: Los Angeles' Beachwood Sparks, a group including members of L.A. retro-pop bands like the Lilys, played bucolic folk rock straight out of the '70s with the haircuts and groovy threads to match...Andrew Bird, the fiddler for Squirrel Nut Zippers, teamed with a guitarist to conjure memories of Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt in the dark, cozy confines of the underground jazz club the Fez...The Wedding Present's David Gedge brought his Burt Bacharach-inspired side project Cinerama to the Mercury Lounge and crooned his earnest tales of heartbreak with an effective late-night lilt...You Am I, an immensely popular trio in its native Australia but a hard-luck story in the States, packed 'em in at Brownies for a spirited set of Big Star-like melodic pop and frontman Tim Rogers' gregarious showmanship; at one point he climbed into the audience and slow danced with a man, bidding him adieu with a kiss on the lips before returning to his guitar and the music. Spins
of the Week: Beck, Mutations (DGC)--As a follow-up to Odelay, this
plaintive and straight-faced record of acoustic-based melodic songs
is a shock, but after a few listens it becomes evident that Beck is
a masterful songwriter rather than a dilettante.
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