Denton's Pageantry Find Out What the Fuss is About at the CMJ Music Marathon

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Pageantry takes to the streets of Manhattan

The artist lounge was great. CMJ had rented out the top three floors of a swanky hotel in the East Village with walls of windows overlooking the city and modern black furniture placed around the large square rooms. There was tons of free stuff that most people (especially musicians) would actually want: Backpacks, hoodies, shirts, espresso drinks, coconut waters, hats. One day when I was going to the lounge I saw Danny Brown in the elevator on the way up. I told him I liked his tunes, to which he replied, "Cool, thanks man." (That's almost networking, right?)

We ended up with four official showcases spread throughout the week and our first was Wednesday night in the East Village. The showcase was presented by the Denver-based management/label group Holy Underground who run an awesome festival in Denver that we played earlier this year. The crowd was great and the room felt good to play in, plus we knew a couple of the bands playing that night and got to visit with them. Technically speaking we're an easy band to please; as long as there's a reverb button on the console and stage lights that can be dimmed we're in good shape.

The rest of the shows were cool. Some of the venues were completely over the fest before it had begun and the bouncers at all the venues were thoroughly unimpressed with our CMJ badges. The actual CMJ staff members were always incredibly helpful and prompt throughout the fest, as were most of the individual promoters. Combining the experiences we had on and off stage it was an incredible trip.

We've had bigger and better shows in Texas and on tour, but to do it in New York just feels different. I hate to feed the clichés of "The City," but there really is a tangible energy to the place. Riding the subways, walking down the streets Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen talk about in their songs, falling asleep to the sounds of sirens and the subtle, ever-present smell of garbage just gives this "New York City Feeling." I don't know how else to explain it and I'm probably not doing it justice.

We had a great time at CMJ. I don't know if I'd suggest it to every band, though not through any fault of the festival. It just depends on what you're trying to do with your band and how you and your bandmates want to make that happen. We're touring and working on a new album so getting in touch with record labels and managers is something that's important to us and CMJ really gave us the chance to meet folks we would have never met in Denton or in Texas for that matter.

We're growing up as a band in an era in which music festivals aren't set up to give up-and-coming artists a platform to showcase their music to the masses. The small bands that get discovered at CMJ or SXSW are probably big fish in small ponds and their big break might be something close to inevitable. It's not really something to complain about, though. The majority of these big fish have put in a lot of time playing and touring throughout the years. Out of the 1,400-plus bands performing the festival not even a small fraction of them will get signed because a label saw their showcase, but that's not really a big deal or something that needs to be changed. Achieving success playing your own music is fucking difficult and takes a lot of time and energy to make it sustainable.

We didn't go to New York to get signed or to have a manager take over and make our dreams come true. We went because it's just another step in this long, weird road trip leading to some evolving, incoherent goal of "success." I don't know what the success we're looking for is, but it's the journey, right? At the end of the day the joy of being in a band or making music in general comes from creating something out of nothing, arranging noise in evocative ways and having fun doing it. Hopefully we'll be playing CMJ again next year. If not, there's always that West Coast tour to think about.

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On the subway

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And now the tricky party: Getting back home to Denton