This is the story of CMJ 2006. The characters involved are Rachel, Becca, Inbal, Meg, Brendan and Tim. The story takes place in a magical land called New York City.

The festival went from Tuesday until Saturday. We headed to Becca's house on Monday night where her mom made us delicious, delicious, delicious baked ziti and we met her grandma and pets (all of them).

Tuesday we woke up and suited up in our costumes - four stewardesses and two pilots. The woman at the gas station across from Becca's house told us to watch out for terrorists. We drove down to Inbal's house on Lawn Guyland and ate delicious pita sandwiches full of love. Then we missed our train in true WGSU fashion and had to wait around (which was okay because there were awesome billboards and sassiness).


Honest Abe and his beaver pal miss you!

When we got on the train we took silly pictures of ourselves in costume. One of them, which was not taken in digital form, is entitled "Scandal at 30,000 Feet" because it involves Becca sitting on Brendan and Tim's laps with an arm around each. Scandalous!

We arrived in the city and got a lot of stares at Penn Station. They only grew more numerous as we arrived at Lincoln Center because apparently people in New York are jerks and don't dress up (some did and were awesome, but not as well as us). Lots of people attending CMJ were confused and thought we were in a band. One even had the balls to take a picture of Meg, Inbal and Becca while they were standing around trying to figure out what to do (again in true WGSU fashion).

Later that night we went to see The Rapture at the CMJ opening party at the Bowery Ballroom! We also saw Holy Hail (who were full of sass [see Becca's Facebook]) and the Presets from Australia, the singer of which was dressed as Steve Irwin (too soon? okay? we're not sure). The Rapture came out wearing the same too-small skeleton costumes dancing to the Monster Mash in a cutie-cute choreographed dance. They were also freakin' awesome.


TWINS!

There were balloons and pumpkins a-plenty! They played some new hotness and some old faves, and we got diggety-down! Afterwards we snapped a photo with Luke, the guitarist (sorry about the blur, they didn't allow flash):


Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew

Wednesday we went to a panel about bedroom recording. It was neat because the keyboardist from The Cure was on the panel, and he pretty much just talked about how recording in a studio is dumb and recording at home is great. Nobody else agreed with him about engineer-producer relations, and it reminded Meg about how New Wave is the greatest thing ever. Wednesday night we split up - Tim, Rachel and Meg went to see Strike Anywhere and The Lawrence Arms in a parallel universe, location unspecified (AKA Brooklyn). Also they got chased by a junkyard dog. They had a ton of fun, and every time there was a break the entire audience went out smoking.

Becca, Brendan and Inbal went to see The Knife at Webster Hall on the recommendation of Mr. Russell Lake, ex-music director (he threatened to not be our friends anymore if we didn't see them). On line outside we made new best friends from California - they had a radio station very similar to ours and were very excited about the show. The Knife are an electronic bro-sis duo from Sweden, and this was their first ever show in the United States. It was super-crazy and awesome and we danced a lot. They had a projected visual show and big heads on stage.


WHY IS THERE A HEAD ON STAGE AND NO PEOPLE

Thursday was College Day! We woke up mad early and got a free CMJ breakfast at the Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Center. Next up we went to a panel about how to work well with your host institution. It was very informative, but Becca felt it should have gone for at least another hour and a half. Meg, Tim and Rachel stayed for the Music Directors' Summit while Brendan, Inbal and Becca ran across the city (literally) to get our stuff to check into the hostel (Becca was afflicted with the plague, thanks a lot Andrew Paulsen, and eventually lost her voice and sounded like e Screech Owl).

Also that day we found out that in order to get into the big Decemberists show on Friday, you needed tix, and that they were raffling them off on Thursday. We had to vote in the CMJ College Radio Awards and then attend the ceremony (which was long and disorganized). We almost were super-pissed because they only raffled off four tickets and three of the winners weren't even there - but Brendan ran to the front of the stage and asked the guy if he had any left. He asked how many of us were going and we said "four". He gave us the tickets which were the last ones! JOY!

Thursday night was the big Sub Pop showcase at the Bowery Ballroom, and so we decided to get there super early. On the way, we ran across Rice to Riches, a restaurant which serves nothing but different flavors of rice pudding. It was the hippest place in the world and looked like it belonged in George Lucas's THX 1138. We arrived at the show after getting slightly lost in downtown NYC, and had a bangin' good time. The first band was Lonely, Dear, who were very sweet and Swedish, followed by The Oxford Collapse, who were very... loud and Newyorkish. Then came The Elected, with the dude from Rilo Kiley (AKA Pinsky from Salute Your Shorts) and dueling guitars. Up next was CSS, AKA the most ridiculous band from Brazil in the entire world. Then came The Thermals! They were rockin' and rollin' and the bassist was adorable.


SASSAFRASS

The Album Leaf were delectable but we were all really tired and went downstairs to rest. There we saw David Cross, who was hanging out and being trendy and he apparently put on a little bit of weight. Finally, The Shins came on! They were awesome and they played some new songs (which were really good) and also the songs that CHANGED YOUR LIFE in Garden State (are we being sarcastic? YOU DECIDE!)

Friday we went to the American Museum of Natural History!!11!1!!!!1oneoneone. The sculpture of TR and the Native American (neo-classical?) had a bird on its head, which made Becca say, "Hey Mr., you have a bird on your head". Sometimes, we get really excited about dinosaurs:


RARGH

We saw lots and lots of neato things, and then we saw the squid and the whale. It was terrifying. There was also a baby convention (thousands of babies) in the ocean exhibit... one of them plopped his little BAD self down in front of us, that is why we are all dying laughing.


I'M GONNA EAT YOU!

Next up, Meg and Becca spazzed a tad because they thought they might be late to Deerhoof/Erase Errata. But then they weren't, so they went to eat Mexican. delish! Also, the Hiro Ballroom is really hip. While they were there, Becca realized she couldn't see because she forgot her classes. Then, they met up with their new best friend, Erik from California, who said that they needed to go pronto if they wanted to see the Blow, which they did. Thus they missed Deerhoof, but saw the Blow. The blow was amazing. Then they hightailed it to the Planetary Promotions afterparty and half-met Bob Mould. They also danced like fiends to MSTRKRFT. RADDDDDD!

Meanwhile, Brendan, Inbal, Tim, and Rachel were at The Decemberists! They were a little pissed because once they got up to their sweet balcony seats they weren't allowed to go back down to get merch! CRAP. Then Alaisdair Roberts (a swooning scotsman) played some lovely, but mellow tunes, which almost put the gang to sleep. They were totally good though. Between acts, Peter and the Wolf was playing as background music. Then The Decemberists came on!!!! YAYYYY!!!! Only... bad news... no one on the balcony was dancing! :( Brendan and Rachel were especially sad. They seat danced and then during "The Perfect Crime No. 2" good ol' Colin Meloy instructed the crowd to have a dance contest. He had the ground section make some hard-core-like pits where people could dance! Then he told the balcony to get in on it too! Overcome with joy, Brendan, Rachel, and Inbal along with a few other cool kids flew to the isles where they danced the shit out of the rest of the night. Colin Meloy really liked them and constantly referenced the sweet balcony dancers. Also, the crowd saw us too and people took random pictures of us. During "Sixteen Military Wives", Colin had the crowd battle House Right vs. House Left during the "La de da de de de da" part! It was way cool! Then, during an amazing 4 song encore (or condor) the three Decemberist's not playing on one of the songs appeared in the crowd where they - with audience participation - re-enacted the Charge of the Light Brigade!!! Our balcony seats provided quite the supreme view!

Anyway, after the show the gang bought some merch and one crowd member said to Brendan, "The Decemberists were good, but you guys really stole the show!" In conclusion, balcony dancing is siq nasty. After the show, the gang went to see Architecture in Helsinki. Rachel's gimpy foot sucked so she sat by the bathroom where a creepy security guy said she should move to NYC. Weird.

Saturday we went to Central Park! We wandered around and saw lots of small doggies (it was DOG CITY) and ducks.


ADORABLE

Brendan remembered that there was a big marble stone slide that he went to once when he was a kid. So we spent the rest of our time in the Park trying to find it. Becca screamed "BIG SLIDE" for nearly an hour while we found a castle and Alice In Wonderland and an Egyptian obelisk and ran through random paths. Finally we found the slide, which was swarming with small children! It was the happiest time in the world:


BIGSLIDEBIGSLIDEBIGSLIDEBIGSLIDE

Saturday night we left the city and stayed the night at Inbal's and ate really good Indian food and rented "I Heart Huckabees" but most of us fell asleep. Sunday morning we made the six-hour drive back to the G-spot and now we're here updating the blog. Now we all have to do homework because we missed a week of classes and are all tired.

For more pictures check out Becca's Facebook and ask Baby Tim Munier! He took an awesome vid of the Decemberists singalong.

WOO!