![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hey-Mar1.jpg\" "\\"Hey-Mar\\"")
<\/a>CMJ has come and gone but the week proved to be a memorable one filled with discovering new artists and rediscovering old favorites.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re like me and are just under the 21+ age limit of many of that week\u2019s shows, finding something, anything, to attend proved to be a truly ridiculous adventure. Fortunately, some fantastic acts took pity upon the children, including Sea Wolf, a band that falls into the \u201cold favorites\u201d category and have been on the back-burner of my iPod playlists.<\/p>\n
On the chilly Friday evening at the tail end of the music marathon, Sea Wolf<\/a><\/strong>, joined by Hey Marseilles<\/strong><\/a> and Southern folkie Jim White<\/a><\/strong>, graced the intimate stage at (le) poisson rouge. The red-tinged, smoky atmosphere of the venue had been filled to the brim with too-cool patrons who held their half-empty glasses and fashionably dressed bodies like they were at an art show, mulling over the artist\u2019s intentions and so on.<\/p>\n Hey Marseilles, a seven-piece Seattle outfit, entered a stage filled with a mess of string instruments that were put well to use during their frantic yet earnest set. Their energy and heavy focus on a strong string section gave them the vibe of a softcore Mumford and Sons that hasn\u2019t been enraged by the roughness of life while the musicality and lyrical content felt reminiscent of The Decemberists (this is a comparison that is driven home by the insanely similar vocal tone Hey Marseilles\u2019 lead singer has to Colin Meloy).\u00a0 Towards the end of their setlist that included mostly new songs from a forthcoming album release, it was difficult not to smile during \u201cRio,\u201d an old song of theirs that comes complete with a festive audience clap-along.<\/p>\n The positive energy of Hey Marseilles made way for Jim Whites typical Southern folk take on Jesus and highways and tumbleweeds over crunchy guitar riffs. With his twangy accent and quippy asides in-between songs (\u201cImagine if your dad was up here smiling stoned. That\u2019s kind of what you got with me\u201d) made him a fun and personable presence on stage. A highlight, in between all that talk of Jesus and tumbleweeds, came in the form of a song written for Kimya Dawson titled \u201cKeep It Meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]<\/p>\n While the audience lagged a bit for the first half of White\u2019s set, the energy spiked during his \u2018rock the vote\u2019 speech that included his sage advice for everyone to \u2018find a drunk and get him sober enough to vote.\u2019 It was a perfect lead into the long, related tale he tells in his song \u201cNewspaper,\u201d which ended a set that felt like it had just begun.<\/p>\n Finally, Sea Wolf came on after a break that dragged on in between sets. Enthusiasm lifted once again as they jumped right into a rousing set filled with edge, bite, and all the folky goodness that had been presented throughout the night. While they may have not had the same joy or fervor as openers Hey Marseilles, who really stole the show with their genuine excitement to be up there, Sea Wolf felt exhilarating and charming and earnest, as they\u2019ve elicited in the past. With a mix of old and new songs, the band continuously delivered flawless musicality until lead singer Alex Brown Church forgot the lyrics of a few older tunes, including \u201cI Made a Resolution.\u201d The band and the audience laughed along with Church and the show continued with its regularly scheduled indie joy.<\/p>\n After their final song, a thrilling version of \u201cYou\u2019re a Wolf,\u201d Sea Wolf returned for a warm encore with the song \u201cSaint Catherine St.\u201d It felt like a good-bye but not to the band — it was a good-bye to the weird week that was CMJ Music Marathon right before Saturday\u2019s own warm encore and final hurrah.<\/p>\n [\/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]<\/p>\n [\/fusion_builder_column][\/fusion_builder_row][\/fusion_builder_container]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] CMJ has come and gone but the week proved to be a memorable one filled with discovering new artists and rediscovering old favorites. If you\u2019re like me and are just under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,204],"tags":[284,318,293,321,320,322,319,317],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hey-Mar.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48604,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions\/48604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>