Talk about diversity: Wednesday's highlights included Swedish techno, theatrical glam rock, and Chris Brown.
The run-down:
9:09 a.m. Whose bright idea was it to hold a panel discussion at nine o'freaking clock in the morning? At the Barnes & Noble bookstore near Lincoln Center, the Recording Academy gathered a group of youngsters from around the country known as the What's The Download Interactive Advisory Board. They've been working on ways to help the music industry face its current challenges, and today they revealed their 69-page report.
Singer-dancer Chris Brown (“Run It”) showed up with a silver suitcase cuffed to his wrist and allowed a mock Secret Service agent to unlock it. Inside was the report -- what, no gold bullion? The panelists then read out several bullet points, which ranged from the obvious (“Educate to Eradicate Piracy”) to the hopeful (“Commit to Artist Development”). More surprising were the veiled references to the behemoth Wal-Mart sapping all the joy out of the record-buying experience.
As for Brown, he noted that he spent a lot of time chatting with fans on line. “I got a MySpace,” he said.
7:20 p.m. Every emo kid in the Tri-State Area seemed to be outside club Rebel trying to get into the Alternative Press magazine party. Fewer hoodies than you might think – is that fashion accessory no longer a must-have, or was it just the warm weather?
8:10 p.m. The Detroit band Love Arcade opened the party with a set of intriguingly rhythmic rock underscored by funky bass lines. The singer, who goes under the dubious moniker Snowhite, delivered his lyrics with cadences vaguely inflected by hip-hop, but the band also pulled off one or two straight-ahead rock tunes. It's always encouraging to hear emo that doesn't sound like emo.
9:00 p.m. At the Canal Room, Huntington's Vic Thrill and his guitarist, The Saturn Missile, treated a receptive crowd to a hybrid of Polynesian chants, springy rhythms and imaginative guitar tones (Saturn likes to make his strings sound like steel drums). Vic thrashed around and yelped like a sideshow barker, but he ended with the grand eulogy “There is Nothing Left to Defend.”
9:35 p.m. Next came The Gray Kid, a quadruple-threat who writes, produces, sings and raps. You might file him next to underground hip-hoppers like Atmosphere and El-P, but he's clearly in his own category. Some of his songs were dreamy pop crooned in an emotional falsetto, others just spare rhythms with absurd lyrics (“I eat with my hands / I drive with my knees”). The D.C.-to-New York transplant performed alone with pre-recorded tracks yet proved quite the showman, thrashing around and stripping down to a muscle-tee. (Actually he wore two, an odd layered look.) He also frequently pointed his rump at the audience, though whether this was an insult or a come-on was unclear.
10:35 p.m. Uptown at B.B. King Blues Club, Fall Out Boy met Mott The Hoople in the form of a band called We Are The Fury. The Ohio-based quintet played an exciting mix of modern-day emo and old-school glam, swiping guitar licks from the Stones and piano riffs from Bowie. Singer Jeremy Lubin even wore his hair in a shag and fluffed it up when it got flat. Could these guys be the new New York Dolls?
11:55 p.m. Swedish brother and sister Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson, better known as The Knife, brought their spooky, melodic dance music to Webster Hall, performing in black body-suits with cut-out face masks. They played behind a barely visible scrim on which mysterious patterns seemed to float in mid-air. What set The Knife apart from the usual techno acts was its uncanny melodies -- particularly "Silent Shout," the title track of thei album on Mute Records -- and Andersson's half-human, half-alien voice. The day-glo drumsticks were also fun to watch.
12:30 a.m. At the Mercury Lounge, Denmark's Figurines played fast, friendly indie-rock modeled on early '90s bands like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf. It was hard to be disappointed by the dated sound when it was delivered with such enthusiasm -- plus, Scandavian bands are often slightly behind the curve, so it probably sounded new to them. “Cheerss, everybody,” the singer said in an amiable accent.
1:28 a.m. Next, Pittsburgh DJ Gregg Gillis, known to fans as Girl Talk, showed up with a single laptop and used it to turn the tiny Mercury into a giant rave, sewing together snippets from what sounded like every popular song in memory. Beyonce's “Ring The Alarm” became Ace of Base's “All That She Wants,” which eventually gave way to Biggie Smalls, Elastica, Cream, Pilot (“Oh, oh, oh, it's magic / You know”), Nirvana, LL Cool J and -- was that Le Tigre? Within minutes, the stage was packed with gyrating dancers who nearly knocked Gillis from his keyboard.
Gillis has drawn attention for his album “Night Ripper,” which mixes 300 samples into one long, 40-minute mash-up. (He's now working with hipster bands like Teddybears and platinum-sellers Good Charlotte.) At the Mercury, Gillis didn't do anything startlingly new, but he took things, as they say, to the next level. His super-fast, super-computerized mix may usher in a new breed of super-DJ, leaving those old vinyl-spinners in the dust.