Starting With A Heartland Menu
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Looking at the official band line-up of this year’s CMJ Music Marathon is like perusing the menu at a restaurant that offers 50 kinds of wings: Is it worth your while to choose the classic Buffalo style, or should you go for the jalapeño-mustard wings because you know that no other restaurant in the country makes that kind of sauce? It’s an impossible, important decision. You’ll leave the restaurant feeling sated, queasy, and unfulfilled that the Buffalo sauce went untasted (because you were cool enough to eat something different for once).
Though it’s hard to avoid this feeling after dinner, it’s easy to devise a satisfying plan of attack for the marathon, which begins tonight and runs through Saturday. Indie rock fans must realize that during the next five days, as hundreds of bands — and thousands of hipsters — invade the city’s musical venues, keeping a very short list of priorities is key to parsing the show schedules.
This year I’ve discovered a solid, personal method to discovering new bands, and it all stems from my preference for groups hailing from Chicago. Chicago is a wonderful place for young, developing bands; rent is cheap, venues abound, and there are plenty of students to populate shows and become loyal fans. Bands that develop in places like Brooklyn not only suffer from a lack of affordable studio space, but they face pressure from a picky, often snooty listenership. The rock atmosphere is more welcoming in Chicago, and great bands are constantly being born from the heartland. In order to make my life easy, I’m going to take my Midwestern preferences to the streets and support my brothers and sisters from Chi-town, with my two favorite bands at the top of my priority list this year.
The group Office performed its debut show in New York this past summer, slotted in the middle of a four-band lineup at the Mercury Lounge, and it was the only band that managed to fill the venue. Lead singer Scott Masson writes crisp, bouncy pop songs punctuated with staccato guitar lines. He has a high range vocal style not unlike that of mid-1980s new wave singers, but Mr. Masson doesn’t indulge in overly emotional or dramatic vocal acrobatics. Songs like “The Big Bang Jump!” and “Wound Up” begin with pulsating guitars, wind through bridges that change tempo and mood, and arrive at catchy choruses. The songs don’t linger: There isn’t a tune off of the band’s self-titled LP that lasts more than five minutes. Office probably also has the most intense stage show of any indie rock band — both Mr. Masson and guitarist Tom Smith are usually decked out in full suits, while fellow Officers Erica Corniel, Alissa Noonan, and Jessica Gonyea are adorned in proper secretarial gear.
The Changes have made a bigger splash on the Internet blog scene than Office this past year. In contrast to Office’s snappy sound as well as the monotone rock of other all-male bands, the indie rock of the Changes is sincere. “Her, You, and I” is one track that made the blog rounds earlier this year: Like quite a few Office songs, it also goes through many manifestations from verses to bridges to choruses, but the Changes keep the song simple through some heavy guitar work. The mournful lyrics, recounting the pressure of attracting a girl while playing a third wheel with her friends, are the real focus of the song.
Of course, there are many other bands not from Chicago that I’d like to try to see this week — but for my health and sanity, I’m playing it cool and keeping my show schedule very different, and very Midwest.