The success of a dogged pursuit can be sweet. In the case of our first 2012 CMJ lineup, its sweet several times over. As our longtime readers are aware, we’ve been fans of Hurray For The Riff Raff since 2008, but its been their recent album Look Out Mama that put it over the top. After the two outstanding concerts they played at Mercury Lounge this Summer, we pursued them heavily for CMJ. HFTRR is currently on tour in Europe, which will take them literally to the day before our show at Cake Shop on Thursday October 18. They fly from Europe over night, and land in NYC in the early afternoon of the 18th. We are sending a car service to take them directly from the airport to Cake Shop, where they’ll play the final set of our CMJ party. Quite an amazing set of circumstances, and one that we’ll not soon forget.
In another nice bit of coincidence, Hurray For The Riff Raff appeared on last night’s season premiere of Treme, HBO’s series about post-Katrina New Orleans. The band is playing outside of the coffee shop where the character Sofia works, and Sofia’s new boyfriend sings with the band. We hope HFTRR will be making regular appearances this season on Treme.
Another one of our dogged pursuits for CMJ was Mount Moriah. Last Fall, they played a set at Bowery Ballroom that was both impressive and moving. I’ve burned my recording of that performance to CD and play it in my vehicle more than literally any other CD that I own. The music is now burned into my brain. When we invited the band to play our CMJ show, it was admittedly a bit of a long shot. Mount Moriah is from North Carolina and have played multiple US tours. There was another fact in their development we did not know at the time — they’ve signed to Merge Records. But in another beautiful bit of synchronicty, Merge Records is hosting their first CMJ show since 2008 on Thursday night at Mercury Lounge, and Mount Moriah is on the bill. Shortly after the announcement of their Merge gig, the band agreed to play our show, and we could not be more excited.
NYCTaper CMJ 2012 Day Party
at Cake Shop
Thursday October 18, 2012
Doors 12 Noon
Music begins at 1:30pm
More musical guest to be announced this week. We’ll fill in the set times as we go along (see if you can guess!) …
6:00 – Hurray For The Riff Raff
5:15 – [awesome all female quartet]
4:30 – [Brooklyn-via-Tennessee ragtime piano genius]
3:45 – Jo Schornikow
3:00 – Mount Moriah
2:15 – Port St. Willow
1:30 – [irresistible Michigan-based pop trio]
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