Good news everybody: Gutter, the bowling alley/music venue in Brooklyn, has been cleared by health officials as safe to host music once again following the attendance of Dr. Craig Spencer at a show during the CMJ Music Marathon on Wednesday. The safety of anyone attending shows as part of the concert series was never really in doubt but the CDC wants to formally let you know that if you head down to lower Manhattan or Brooklyn tonight, you will most assuredly not get Ebola.
Still, there are a few conditions you can/could catch during CMJ...bands that is. Music Times has rounded up a few acts with titles that bring medical conditions to mind. Check them out here or around New York this weekend.
Catch Fever
It seems easy to shout "too soon" at Catch Fever but we're fairly sure the Houston band established its title before Ebola first grabbed headlines. The band's music is as simple as the seven genes that make up a certain virus. Admittedly, "Catch Fever" might have been a better name for a pop or electronic act, or some other genre built mainly on hooks, but this alternative/indie outfit insists on making us listen to the entire track. Single "Naysayer" has a strong message of overcoming, which we feel the world could use right now.
Cancers
Not content to just choose one particular brand of everyone's least favorite disease, Cancers opted to go big with its title. The group is catchy in a punk/Veruca Salt kind-of-way, with distorted guitars and melodic vocals from Ella Kaspar. Claiming Athens, GA almost requires you to be a catchy, alt band in the style of R.E.M. and The B-52s. The group also clear has a morbid fascination with bodily injury and treatment, based on song title "Hole In My Head" and album title Fatten The Leeches.
Check Out Cancers at the Lit Lounge in Brooklyn on October 25 at 8:30.
Vomitface
We don't want to assume how this Jersey City punk act got vomit all over its face but in the current context, we suggest you not get it on yourself. Based on the sound of the group's self-described "black surf" rock and our experience with similar groups at basement shows in college, we assume the mess is more likely alcohol than Ebola. The Vom is heavy and the guitar solos in tracks like "Bill Me Later" are just as messy as the band's title implies. We mean that in a good way, although this might be the worst band name since Diarrhea Planet.
Dirty Lungs
Dirty Lungs are probably the best warning for the most likely ailment to strike you while attending CMJ showcases: Stay inside in between sets or your primary tool for breathing will be engulfed by a cloud of cancer outside the doors to the bar. Birmingham's Dirty Lungs sound like they might be into smoking something other than tobacco (not any better for your lungs, for what its worth), traveling from shredded solos to psychedelic pop (and then back again) from one song to the next on its 2014 self-titled full-length.
Schizophonia
Technically, Schizophrenia is not a disease. Like diabetes, it's a disorder. But double technically, schizophonia is not related to the multiple-personality disorder at all but actually refers to "splitting an original sound and its electro-acoustic reproduction." That means the band Schizophonia doesn't technically fit on this list but what the heck? The Brooklyn group features a group of Jewish musicians re-imagining Jewish cantorial songs into post-rock numbers. Imagine Sigur Ros playing in the other part of Williamsburg.
