Frontier Brothers Playing CMJ Festival

For Northeasterners, CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival is a pretty big deal. It’s like SXSW, but it takes place in New York rather than Austin, it doesn’t have any stupid panel discussions, its focus is 100 percent on legitimately indie bands –– and not “indie” bands who just happen to be on major fucking labels –– and instead of crowds of Midwesterners, Southerners, and Texans pretending to be Big Apple hipsters, the crowd is made up of actual, bona fide Big Apple hipsters! (Just kidding. New York hipsters are as lame as everybody else.) So local readers might not get the significance of a local band’s being chosen to play CMJ. However, you hardcore music fans know. So kudos to the Frontier Brothers, a band partially based in New York, partially based here, and partially based in Austin. They were chosen to play the festival, on Thu., Oct. 22, at the Alphabet Lounge, right in the heart of Alphabet City, one of the last bastions of underground cool in the always-gentrifying N.Y.C.

To celebrate the occasion, the band is throwing a party at The Moon (2911 W. Berry St., by TCU, 817-926-9600) on Fri., Oct. 16, with The Campaign. The Brothers greeted news of their acceptance as gleefully as they would have a glass of water after crossing the Sahara.

“We spent four months out of the last year on the road and played our 15th show in New York City this August,” writes Brother Brett Moses. “The shows were great, but from a vehicular standpoint, the last tour was disastrous to say the least. We left for N.Y.C. with an RV and a trailer. Four blown out tires, a burned out engine in the RV, and one hit and run by a drunk driver later (which totaled the trailer), we returned to Texas in two rental cars with equipment piled all around us. This was somewhat demoralizing, to put it lightly. Two weeks into our collective depression about the future of the band, we got an e-mail from CMJ, which cheered us considerably! Being accepted into CMJ is a small validation for all the months we spent away from home, pounding the asphalt back and forth to N.Y.C. We love this shit, but it IS hard, and getting a little validation is nice! Hope to see you guys out at the Moon on the 16th to help us celebrate!”

You’re invited, too.

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