theMusic At CMJ!

We have enlisted our New York based scribe Tom Hawking and up-and-coming Melbourne band Lowlakes to hit the streets of the Big Apple this week and report on all the goings on that they find as the CMJ Music Marathon takes over the city's live music venues and industry figures from around the world seek out the hottest new bands and hope to make them all superstars.

Lowlakes stumbled at the first checkpoint, with their airline losing their luggage (i.e. the instruments they need to play shows), but everything seems to have been recovered now. We weren't exactly expecting that their first show of the tour would be a karaoke session in a packed bar that saw guitarist Brent Monaghan adopt the name "The Wombat" as he sang a Sam Sparro tune.

Read their first and second blogs from the road.

Tom Hawking has somehow managed to remember every detail of his first night on the piss reporting for us, enjoying Chrome Canyon ("they sound like Com Truise scoring some sort of gloriously retro '80s BBC sci-fi show") though not really digging on Six60 ("I am not ready for this shit and most likely never will be").

Read his incredibly entertaining rundown of night one.

Check back for more from both parties later in the week!