CMJ Announces initial line-up

CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival (for all intents and purposes, New York City's lesser-known version of Austin's South by Southwest), finally announced its initial line-up today. There are many (many) more bands to be announced soon, but here's what it's shaping up to look like so far:

Broadcast - School of Seven Bells - Múm - Atlas Sound - Zac Brown Band - Japandroids - Portugal. The Man - Margaret Cho - The Budos Band - Pitbull -
The Very Best - The Temper Trap - Crystal Antlers - Cymbals Eat Guitars - Malajube -
Local Natives - Wild Light - The Antlers - Das Racist - Suckers - Pissed Jeans - Screaming Females

So, yeah, even though the majority of the line-up is rather shruggable to me, I'm way pumped to see one of college radio's (WRFL's, at least) favorite contemporary British psychelectronic bands BROADCAST on the top of the bill...

Not because I'll be attending (1300 bands, $475, New York City - it's a little too much on all fronts for me) but because Broadcast is touring North America, which gives me some sort of distant hope for humanity in some way I don't fully understand (even though the band informed me, sadly, that they are unfortunately unavailable to play Lexington at this time...). In comparably exciting news, the tour is in support of their upcoming album, to be released via Warp Records October 13.

Broadcast are touring with Atlas Sound in the next couple of months - check their MySpace for some jams & a complete list of dates.

Discounted tickets for CMJ are available until Sept 22 but don't get your hopes up - they're still (un-freaking-believabley) $285 for students and $475 for the general public. Seems like a complete racket to me too, but apparently a pretty sizeable population of music industry hipsters (and corporate junkies) are willing to pay this - CMJ and it's cousin South x Southwest draw hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country each year for their extreme, hyper-active week of overstimulation/saturation.

I'm really not as bitter about this as I might sound...I have very limited interest in attending this fest so I don't really care how much they're charging...but I should add that for your money, I'd recommend BOOMSLANG....a much more affordable festival (in your own backyard, Kentucky!) that focuses heavily on bands that are tried and true (strange and offbeat as they might be)....

Stay tuned for a post about Boomslang.....soon, I promise, SOON!!....

In related festival news, All Tomorrow's Parties (the New York festival that I am actually tempted to splurge the $285 or so on) continues to slay with line-up additions - filmmaker Jim Jarmusch added recently...