Thursday Afternoon on the Lower East Side: Adult Themes and La Sera at AAM CMJ Assembly Showcase at Arlene's Grocery

We had some precious free time this afternoon in our hectic work schedule and our campaign for Congress (we're on the ballot in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, where early voting began last week, and where we were today endorsed by the Arizona Is Too Damn Hot Party), and we were lucky enough to catch the bands Adult Themes and La Sera at the Advanced Alternative Media (AAM) CMJ Assembly

showcase at Arlene's Grocery, a really nice venue on Stanton Street on the Lower East Side.

The time was good for us and the price -- free -- was even better for someone like us, who normally doesn't get to CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival events. (As an attorney, we need to note that this was an unofficial one.)

Adult Themes, a Brooklyn-based band featuring Eleanor Logan, Thomas Martin and Jeff Ottenbacher,

came on soon after 2 p.m. to a small crowd downstairs, but it grew as they played wonderfully aggressive, quirky, dissonant songs like "High Above" and "1000 Eyes."

It was a nice set: noisy and busy but at times simply bouncy young pop music. We especially liked "Slow Decay."

La Sera, from L.A., performed an astonishing set which had the room, and us, pretty impressed. Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls/All Saints Day fame, has such a lush, vivid sound, and joined by Brady Hall and Jennifer Prince, approached the hypnotic on songs like "Never Come Around" and "Left This World."

It may just be senile dementia, but we thought of Dusty Springfield in a song like "Sleeptalking."

La Sera will be at Shea Stadium tonight, and we'd go back to see them again if not for work. Katy said that last they night they played on a yacht and got to see Kim Kardashian. If Kim got to see La Sera, she was luckier than usual.

We had to leave, so we didn't get to see the rest of the bands at AAM CMJ Assembly: True Womanhood, Kitten (who we've heard good stuff about), and Chapel Club. But we're grateful we were able to catch La Sera and Adult Themes at Arlene's Grocery along with the crowd of around thirty or forty younger, cooler, more knowledgeable and better dressed people.