Our Favorite Discoveries From The 2013 CMJ Music Festival

Lucius was just one of the many bands worth discovering at this year's CMJ festival.

Becky Harlan/NPR

The View From Bob Boilen's Camera At CMJ

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  "From Cardiff, Wales, it's Joanna Newsom's evil twin Joanna Gruesome." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "The Bots rocked my daytime. A guitar-drums duo like many, but with the kind of youthful, carefree charm that Jimi Hendrix exuded." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Jacco Gardner was way too young when The Zombies recorded Odessey and Oracle in 1968, but it sounds like he was a fly on the wall. Gardner is a 20-something from the Netherlands making music with digital harpsichords. Such fun." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Shark Week sounded great back home when I saw them in D.C., but sound even better in less-charted waters." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Keep a look out for this dreamy D.C. pop duo, Gems in 2014." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Eleanor Friedberger, performing a live noon set for KEXP, at the Judson Memorial Church in New York. Madly love her words." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) at right introduced a decoy band of costumed characters called The Reflektors, shortly before Arcade Fire appeared on a different stage." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "A bit pixilated, but these are the masks the decoy band members were wearing when they rolled up in a limo for the show. Everyone thought they were members of Arcade Fire, but were they?" - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Australian singer Courtney Barnett. I saw her three times during the festival and couldn't get enough of her. One of my favorite performers." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "This may be the best new thing for me at CMJ: complete with robot voice, banjo, samples, drums, and film... and they rock. It's the multimedia group Public Service Broadcasting." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "Brolos with Jimmy Carbonetti of the band Caveman." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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  "This guy fell asleep next to one of the speakers at a Yuck show. Toward the end, Yuck guitarist Max Bloom helped the man to his feet, strapped his guitar over the man's shoulders and walked him to center stage. The man staggered a bit before falling down head over heels. And so ends another CMJ." - Bob Boilen

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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Every fall, hundreds of bands flock to New York City for the annual CMJ Music Marathon, a large festival where independent, new and emerging musicians hope to be discovered. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen was among the countless journalists, bloggers, college radio DJs, record label reps and others who attempted to navigate the sea of live performances, hoping to find new music to love and share.

On this week's show, Bob's joined by music critic Maria Sherman and WSPN's Becka Schwartz to talk about and play some of their favorite discoveries out of the hundreds of shows they saw, including D.C. punks Priests, British multimedia duo Public Service Broadcasting, rockabilly singer King Dude, '60s-era soul from Nick Waterhouse and many more.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2013/10/22/239149947/our-favorite-discoveries-from-the-2013-cmj-music-festival?ft=1&f=37
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