CMJ 2007: Day Two

Ida Maria Photo: Justin Charles

With visions of open-bar afterparties dancing through our heads, we headed back to Bowery Ballroom for Wednesday night's Windish showcase. Ponytail were first to take the stage, and their performance — punctuated by front woman Molly Siegel's energetic screeching and fervent arm flailing — set the bar rather high for the evening. Things just kept getting better, though. When they weren't climbing the speakers or smacking their amps with drumsticks, No Age were churning out dance-infused experimental noise punk and the audience was eating it up. Just as they were finishing up their set, guitarist Randy Randall stuck his arm into the pit and began pulling kids onto the stage. He finally handed off his guitar to an audience member, then hoisted the fellow onto his shoulders for the band's last hurrah. As we suspected, it was the incomparable Dan Deacon who brought the most rawk. He alternated between plunging the venue into total darkness and bringing up all the house lights, while a strobe-light skull pulsed in front of him the whole time. He hosted dance contests. He gave out tag-team high fives. He distributed printed lyric sheets so everyone could sing along to his final song. Oh yes, Deacon worked the crowd into a crazy mob; if everyone hadn't been so intent on dancing, we might have had a riot on our hands. Our second stop was the Knitting Factory for the Oh My Rockness showcase. The super-magnetic Ida Maria led her band through a tight set, and as she ran out into the crowd and writhed around with the energy of a freshly tazered college student, we may or may not have thrown around the phrase, "next big thing." By the time We Are Wolves closed the night out with their bilingual noise rock, any notions we'd held of afterpartying had dissipated. In their place were dreams of hot showers and comfortable beds. (Words: Myla DalBesio / Photos: Justin Charles & Myla DalBesio)

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