CMJ Highlight: Surfer Blood

Author: Faith-Ann Young
Posted on: Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Filed under: exclusive, music, surfer blood

The band Surfer Blood performing at CMJ

Every year, amongst the 1,300 bands that perform at CMJ Music Marathon, there is one band that is the rugged crown prince of festival. It is the band that performs a dozen shows, breaks a dozen guitar strings, burns a zillion brain cells and packs each room with hipsters, bloggers, and industry elite. As a result, their name proliferates on the blog-world in the prior weeks, and if they play their cards (read: guitars) right, they rise to become commerically viable. (Need we mention MGMT?)

Last year, the buzz band was Passion Pit. This year, it appears to be Surfer Blood, a band from Florida that farcically doesn't surf. Unlike most of the musicheads at CMJ, we hadn't heard of them before the festival - but they were ubiquitous throughout CMJ. Their sound: punchy, Afro-inspired garage rock, with probing cowbells, fuzzy guitar loops, and jumpy percussion via maracas n shake. As though the younger brothers of Vampire Weekend has been locked in a over-heated basement with a bad case of ADD, Friendly Fires' zeal, and a couple old Weezer CDs.

We know what you are thinking: Like most bands this year, Surfer Blood looks a bit too baby-faced and young to be rockers - or the princes as we indicated above. (Evidently, gone are the days of too-good-lookin-for-their-own-good rock hunks like Interpol and The Strokes. Sorry girls.) But noone seems to care. With the industry and marketing budgets diminished, there is less money thrust into image, hair gel and leather jackets, and high-end marketing campaigns. It is all about DIY exposure AND quality of sound. Surfer Blood has both. They played CMJ to the ground. Hell, even music critic Jon Pareles of The NY Times gave them a good paragraph and title picture.

Who knows? If the music gods are watching, you may even hear them on the radio in a year...