The annual CMJ Music Marathon began in 1983 to assemble artists, media

and industry types in an effort to promote new music. As founder Robert H.

Haber puts it, the original goal was "to put a face to the music we were writing

about in CMJ [College Music Journal, a weekly trade publication for college

radio stations]." The faces weren't always well-known. The Music Marathon

helped fuel the careers of such big-names acts as NIN, R.E.M., Tool, The

Fugees, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day and Rage Against the Machine by

allowing them to play in front of large numbers of people long before they had

become household names. Last week, over 900 bands and 8,000 registrants

converged upon the streets of New York for four nights of non-stop music,

panels, schmoozing and a possible peek at the next big thing. Addicted To

Noise correspondent Sam Cannon was there. Here is his third report:

NEW YORK -- An all-acoustic bill one night followed by a DJ-crazed

concert the next: The perfect antidotes after a couple of long, loud guitar-rockin'

nights in the Big Apple.

That is, unless the chattering and echoes of the capacity crowd at the acoustic

show Friday overpower the music while wall-to-wall budget art for sale by Steve

Keane further distracts from the stage; and the disc spinning the following night

comes off as more pomp than performance.

With these factors present Friday at Threadwaxing Space, a long, open gallery

furnished with a makeshift stage facing widthwise, the once promising third

night of CMJ started to look bleak.

The performers shared the frustration and confusion of the attentive, seated

section of the audience. Young socialites milled about to either side of the

stage, plucking Keane's $2 vibrant, neo-impressionist paintings off the wall

and drowning out the "unplugged" sets with their excited banter. Each artist

took a different approach in addressing the matter.

San Francisco's Mark Eitzel rushed through his still passionate set, hoping

maybe to play again later, once the restless ones had moved on. (He instead

hopped over to Westbeth theater to catch Elliott Smith and company's brilliant

performance). Portland's Rebecca Gates calmly asked if everything was OK and

cracked some jokes to ease the palpable tension but to no avail. Australian Ben

Lee, drawing on his youthful idealism, confronted the perpetrators verbally and

face-to-face and closed by performing from atop a chair in the middle of the

more attentive and appreciative fans.

All three musicians unveiled new material. Eitzel, who could have drawn

from either of his solo albums or even his American Music Club work, instead

tested songs such as "If I Had A Gun," dedicated to Princess Diana, who was

killed more than a week ago in a car crash in Paris while being chased by

paparazzi. Even the lyrics to his familiar narratives were rewritten, as if they

were still in progress when recorded. Eitzel finished his set by performing the

chilling love ode "Heroine" with Congo Norvell, whose latest album houses the

duet.

Rebecca Gates, who broke with longtime Spinanes partner Scott Plouf last

year, seemed a bit alone here. Although her songwriting remains as binding as

ever before, her tentative strumming and tepid vocals betrayed her discomfort

with the boisterous setting.

Ben Lee, although once the child protege of Beastie Boy/Grand Royal prez Mike

D., recalls a young Billy Bragg more with each day. Lee's energy, accent and

honesty make him compelling even when his lyrics fall a bit flat. Now a

high school graduate, Lee publicly addressed his fears and hopes with

crowd pleasers such as "Household Name" (about the fate of teenage stars),

"Eight Years Old" (in which Lee wonders if he'll ever be as in love as he was

with his first crush) and "Shirtless" (about the risks of exposing himself literally

and figuratively), all from his recent release, Something To Remember Me

By". While Lee's stark earnestness gets harder to swallow the older he

gets (a hurdle Bragg faced with more dexterity), there's more indication now

than ever that he'll be around long enough to prove himself.

Three generations of songwriting talent performed, but only half the room

listened. At least those who missed out got some cool paintings to take home.

The scene started off on a better foot on the closing night of CMJ Saturday, as

Montreal, Quebec-based record labels rolled out some of the world's finest

turntablists in a city where DJing has become a time-honored tradition.

Among them were several artists with Ninja Tune, a label renowned in club

circles for its astute beat mongering. Home to abstract bricoleur Amon

Tobin and The Herbaliser, a jazz-inflected hip-hop ensemble, the label

organized the Stealth Tour to spread the Ninja "vibe" earlier this year.

This all-important stop invited "friends of Ninja" such as Ubiquity Records' Wally,

Swingsett and Andrew Jervis, OM Records' Chris Kelly and local hero,

Sugarcut, to warm up the still growing crowd at the Wetlands. Yet while their

eclectic and fluid sets were welcomed not with a deaf ear, the capacity crowd

remained skeptical, in anticipation of the marquee players to come.

DJ Food, a dynamic duo armed with four decks, two mixers and a sampler,

stumbled through glimpses of hip-hop, African folk, ragamuffin, jazz breaks.

The lazy set disappointed the then packed room with its apparent laziness.

Smirks back and forth between the two disc spinners suggested that maybe

they realized this wasn't their best set. They came on later in the night to

redeem themselves, bolstered by the flow set established by their labelmates.

Then came Kid Koala to save the day.

The 23-year-old manchild was discovered when he opened for the

Stealth Tour stop in his home city of Vancouver, B.C. earlier this year. Asked to

join and travel with the posse on the merits of his DJ set alone, the Kid stacked

a dozen discs within arms' reach and blasted off on a dizzying flurry of fingers,

stunning and inciting the crowd with cuts and scratches, as well as popular hip-

hop snippets and kitschy vocal samples.

The Wetlands' cramped quarters bustled, whistled and cheered as Kid poured

out his boyish charm and love for hip-hop, lip-synching lines from the songs,

smiling and pointing to equally exuberant fans in attendance. Acts such as Kid

Koala, as well as San Francisco's Invisbl Skratch Piklz offer promise that

the DJ-as-performer will never die and the party won't stop.

Elder statesmen of wicked beats and audio collage, Coldcut haven't performed

live in America in over three years. Their audio/visual barrage attempted to

move the crowd emotionally and physically, complete with twin projection

screens running synchronized and politically suggestive clips.

Still, their hour-and-a-half performance proved more cathartic than hedonistic,

introducing head music for headz or, as the flashing slogan behind them read,

"Fuck dance, let's art."