It’s the time of year again, when the weather turns crisp and brisk in New York City, leaves begin to fall to the ground, visions of the underworld start to surface in storefronts, and the streets brim with more cool kids than there’s even room for on any given normal weekend in downtown Manhattan. Yes, it’s the CMJ Music Marathon, 2008 style, where your pricey badge will mean next to nothing and you’ll be left out in the cold at least a few times wondering if you have time to hop on the train to get to Brooklyn for that other show. But, you know what: None of that matters because it’s New York fuckin’ City, and for five days straight, no matter what, you’re going to consume tons of beer, tons of bands, and probably walk away from it all with some sort of cold that’ll put you out for the week following, all in the name of experiencing sounds from the best up-and-coming bands in the country and beyond in one of the greatest places in the world to see live music.

Crawdaddy! is tossing itself into the mayhem of this year’s festival to check out panels, films, and the music being offered up. Each page here represents one full day of the festival, where we’ve provided some preview highlights we’re looking forward to, and then we’ll be reporting back each following morning with what we saw the previous day before. No real agenda, no real cause. We’re gonna go with the flow and see how we emerge from the festival insanity that is CMJ.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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