CMJ: Yo La Tengo and Dinowalrus

What’s good peoples? After dropping serious free drink knowledge on y’all below we come back with our Day 1, CMJ coverage. As the folks here at BAL hold down normal jobs and do this on the side, we were only able to embrace the CMJ madness in the evening; thereby missing the daytime various chit-chat events, "valuable" panels, and other scheduled means of playing journalist. No matter – we still got the freshness.

We began our night as any festival attendee should – by hitting up the free booze. We headed over to the east side, to a refreshingly straightforward VIP lounge/bar that basically allows you to mingle and drink. No bullshit. Totally appreciated! After taking down a rather paltry amount (for us BAL cats) of complimentary bevs we slid downtown to Cake Shop to peep Dinowalrus. 

Dinowalrus - Electric Car, Gas Guitar

A 3 piece synth-punk band out of NYC - these dudes got down on some madchester 90s type shit. Fronted by former Titus Andronicus guitarist Pete Feigenbaum, and backed by synth and bass man Liam Andrew, and Depreciation Guild drummer Anton Hochheim, the band put forth a pretty loose set of UK mongering rock. 

Slipping out of Cake Shop with some pep in our gangster step, we trekked it out to Willy, home of the unemployed cleavage and jobless, exposed bra strap! The usual sites abounded and as you know we kinda F with Willy in all its glory. We booked it over to Brooklyn Bowl and caught our evening's highlight - Yo La Tengo. Much like one of our other favorite bands, Sonic Youth, YLT have been playing together for a hot minute...and it shows. Calm and friendly stage presence, confident playing and a very welcoming aura of satisfaction emanated from their performance. 

Yo La Tengo - I Heard You Looking

We managed to capture a classic jam, "I Heard You Looking" off Painful. Watch Ira freak out in this awesome 15 minute clip.