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CMJ: Casual Sex, Dune Rats @ Glasslands Paws / Diiv @ Bk Night Bazaar / Mainland @ Pianos

CMJ Marathon: Casual Sex, Dune Rats @ Glasslands Paws, Diiv @Bk Night Bazaar Mainland @Piano’s

Oh Lawd, CMJ Marathon, has begun! I picked up my press badges from NYU’s campus (formerly known as Greenwich Village), which is a sort of surreal experience. I mean, that school is huge! Anyway, it was time for me to load up my camera bag and take the long voyage from the Lower East Side to Williamsburg, to catch my first of what will be many shows at this years Marathon. So after deciding I was way too lazy to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge, I hopped on the subway and made my way to Glasslands Gallery over on Kent st.

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Up first was Casual Sex, a dope, post-punk, sleaze band out of Glasgow. Since they were the first band to play, the room still wasn’t full, but frontman Sam Smith made the best of it. After seeing a girl in the crowd putting lipstick on, he took a break to ask to borrow some, and proceeded to play the rest of the show wearing a shade of red that definitely worked on him. After that is was kinda like watching David Johansen do his thing.

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Up next was the band I came to see — Dune Rats, a pop punk band out of Australia. It was my first time hearing or seeing them play, and the entire reason I wanted to check them out was because of their name — I figured they had to be pretty killer to be called that, but maybe I’m just a cheap date. Regardless, everyone in the band absolutely killed it!  Drummer BC Michaels wailed on the drums with a huge, infectious smile on his face the entire time. Frontmen Danny Beusa and Brett Jansch lit the room up with their wild performances and stage presence. But the highlight of the show had to be when Dune Rats argued the price of an ounce of weed with the crowd. Everyone came to the consensus that in a perfect world it was $240 but realistically it’s $340. Debates aside, these guys are rad, so see them if you can. If not, definitely check their music out online.

At this point, I wanted to catch PAWS at Brooklyn Night Bazaar, but I was running out of time. So I checked out of Glasslands and headed up Kent the fifteen or so blocks to the venue. I got there just in time to catch their last two songs, which is better than nothing — seeing as they killed it. The crowd was also pretty huge, which always makes for a show cool. After they finished, I decided to run back down towards Glasslands to meet a few people at the Levvy, which is a bar you’ll become familiar with if you ever move to BK or visit. I mean, they give free cheese balls. Anyway, after a little prodding I convinced my friends to head back to Bazaar to see Diiv play.

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I know you know who Diiv is but I’ll say it anyway, they’re dope. You can’t beat their brand of heroin dream pop. The crowd was massive by the time they took the stage; I even saw an old dude with a cane wearing a Diiv t-shirt, which was pretty cool. The mosh pits started the second they started playing, and they put on a hypnotizing show. Mixing their set with familiar songs and new ones, they had everyone in the crowd jumping around. It was a great end to the first night of CMJ Marathon. That is until I remembered that the Prettiots were playing Piano’s at 1:45. It was around midnight and my camera was full, but I figured if I hauled ass I could get back to my place (which is near Piano’s), empty my photos, run my ass back out, and make it just in time to catch them when they went on.

It worked.

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I somehow timed it perfectly, despite being a little drunk and totally beat, stumbling into Piano’s at around 1:40. I entered the back room and saw what was definitely not the Prettiots setting up — it was Mainland! I checked the CMJ schedule and saw they were supposed to have gone on like an hour before, and then I heard a girl say the Prettiots weren’t playing. Well fuck me. But it was cool, I wanted to catch Mainland anyway. They went on and acknowledged the crowd for still being out at 2 am, which immediately won everyone over. Their tunes were poppy bliss for everyone who had been running from show to show all night. As usual, they were all charming and funny. A guy it the crowd yelled “Mozel Tov” during a lull and frontman Jordan Topf yelled back something else in yiddish, which I was way too gone to remember. The show was worth the trip and they definitely gained a lot of new fans. After that, I packed it in, knowing I needed to write this and do it all again the next day.

Photos and review by Timothy White. Find him online @TiptotheHip 


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