My Journey To CMJ: Cough

"What the hell?" I thought to myself as I looked around the overpass in God-knows-where-the-fuck Brooklyn. No groups of people moving to any particular place, a few small and ordinary looking bars, no signs for CMJ, no people with CMJ passes in sight. Seriously? The CMJ website said the place was called Pianos. There was NO place on the street, Union Ave., that was called Pianos. I must admit I was getting a little bit frustrated. I decided to stop in a bar, to ask directions of course. I was surprised to see a man with nearly floor length blond dreads casually sipping on a beer in the middle of this normal looking bar filled with normal looking people. "One of these things is not like the other," I started humming to myself as I followed him to the back of the bar. I am shocked to see that he goes out the backdoor to an outdoor area, complete with grass and all those other green things you sometimes forget exist in Brooklyn. To my left was a trailer decked out in Christmas lights with a small sign that read "Taco Hut" (it served awesome vegan burritos for 3 bucks, highly recommend it if you ever see a show there). To my right was a small shack where I finally see a CMJ sign and people taking money. "This, this is where the show is?" I thought to myself. This was a psychedelic metal show, how could they possibly fit all the unnecessary percussive instruments, pedals, and synthesizers (the most ridiculous instrument of the night was a gong used by the opening band). I walk up to the shack and see that CMJ had screwed up the lineup completely. Rather than Cough playing at 8, they were playing at 10:30 after three other bands, Royal Thunder (hipster metal band), Battilus (weird synthesizer crust), and Inter Arma (sludge metal thrashers from Richmond). Unfortunately for the always spectacular and darkness-inducing Cough, Inter Arma stole this show. Their drummer was one of the technical highlights of the night, taking the freedom given to him by the genre of slow-paced stoner music and exploring just how much he could either cram in conversely or leave out, a contrasting range of minimalist to Max Roach-esque cacophony. Having spent the day walking around New York by myself, it was nice to hear someone say "We're from Richmond, Virginia" and to headbang with a bunch of drunk metalheads to some of the finest music altered-states of consciousness have ever produced. Be sure to check out Cough's new album "Ritual Abuse."