Hi again. Since I’m visiting New York this week and used the Metroblogging connection to score a CMJ badge, I really should make a post or two about the festival, right?

The first thing that you should know is that when you see the indie kids or indie kid wannabes parading around town with the pretty sparkly silver passes around their necks is to not feel too bad about being left out of the latest, but thankfully time-limited, fashion trend. The reason to feel not so awful about not having a badge is that as cool as they are to have, they aren’t nearly as useful as this naive visitor might have imagined. For instance, having press credentials does not get one into shows minutes before showtime. For this privilege, you either need to be on the list or to be waiting outside well in advance of your favorite performer’s set.

This lesson was learned the hard and disappointing way when this correspondent showed up for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ten minutes before midnight. Despite the best attempts by my hosts to cash in their connections and my optimism that the line would be magically admitted to the very small Mercury Lounge, more practical heads prevailed and we managed to gain entrance to hear Crooked Fingers, who played to an adoring wall-to-wall crowd at Rothko for the kexp showcase.

At the end of the set, many fans spilled out of the club, leaving a pleasantly filled room of people awaiting the Rosebuds. They’re described as a husband and wife duo, but there was a third member playing the drums. How he fits into the central married life metaphor for the band remains unclear. But they played a very energetic set. Because of the intricacies of the getting into clubs with CMJ badges situation, I suspect that many who made it to the end of the evening had been holed up inside for much of the evening; so it was very much like entering a den of drunken North Carolinian inspired sailors, as they appreciatively received the poppy songwriting wisdom from the stage. Despite a minor keyboard snafu at the end (which inspired a sing/clap along), the show went well. Hopefully they’ll pick up a bit of CMJ-related buzz for their CD, which was released earlier this week.