CMJ Music Marathon Recap Part One: Radio's Presence at CMJ

I had so much fun in New York City last week for the annual CMJ Music Marathon. It's hard to believe that CMJ has been hosting their annual conference/music festival for 29 years and there are no signs of it slowing down. Hundreds of bands played in New York last week, with shows taking place at venues throughout New York City and Brooklyn.

Daytime panels focused on various aspects of the music business, with many aimed at helping musicians get ahead. A number of events were radio-specific, including several panels, the day-long college-radio oriented "College Day," and a college radio mixer.

WNYU booth in Exhibitor's Loft at CMJ

This year a number of college radio stations had some sort of presence at CMJ. Host station WNYU (New York University) had a table in the CMJ "Exhibitor's Loft" and various DJs played music from their laptops representative of their radio shows.

Engineering of Live Performance for CHUO at WNYU's Studios

WNYU also hosted various live bands over the air during CMJ, including Batrider and Loren Connors. Additionally, they opened up the WNYU studios to visiting college radio stations so that they could host live daytime performances for their respective audiences.

Participating stations included RLC-WVPH FM (Rutgers University/Piscataway High School, New Jersey), 95bFM (University of Auckland, New Zealand), CHUO (University of Ottawa, Canada), KDHX (community radio in St. Louis) and KSLU (St. Louis University), and KUOM (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis). Some stations did live remote broadcasts, whereas others recorded artist performances at WNYU to air in the future. 95bFM even brought in films crews from MTV to document their live set featuring Bang Bang Eche.

Choir of Young Believers being Documented for KEXP/Radio New York
at the Cutting Room Studios

Seattle station KEXP (University of Washington) and their partner station Radio New York broadcast some of their regular shows from New York this week, including live daytime performances at the Cutting Room by bands like The Temper Trap, The xx, and the Choir of Young Believers.

WLIU-BK Broadcasting Live from CMJ Exhibitor's Loft

The Backbone network also facilitated live radio broadcasts from the CMJ "Exhibitor's Loft" by some of stations who are part of the IBS Student Radio Network. When I stopped by, the WLIU-BK radio station was broadcasting a live music performance over the Internet using microphones and laptops.

East Village Radio table at the CMJ Artist Lounge

East Village Radio was an "official Internet radio partner" at CMJ this year. They had a booth in the Artist Lounge (open only to musicians and press), broadcast various CMJ showcases live, and hosted musicians over their airwaves. Internet-only station Breakthru Radio also had a presence, hosting a music showcase as well as events during College Day. Some of their DJs also documented CMJ on their blogs.

Break Thru Radio T-shirt

The "official" commercial station at CMJ was WRXP. Several WRXP DJs and staff were on a panel, they had a table in the "Exhibitor's Loft" and I spotted the RXP van outside of NYU's Kimmel Center (where the conference was being held). I'll talk a lot more about WRXP in a separate post, as I had the opportunity to visit the station on Friday!

WRXP Van outside NYU's Kimmel Center

Even stations that didn't have anything in particular planned for CMJ did some renegade marketing. As I walked through the city one day, I spotted stickers for Los Angeles college radio station KXLU (Loyola Marymount University) plastered in a number of places, including on a Village Voice newspaper rack.

KXLU Getting Exposure in New York City

I'm really pleased that radio had such a broad presence at CMJ this year and hope that the festival brought more attention to the participating stations.