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CMJ week in NYC and the collective reaction I've heard from the local music writer rabble is a deafening, "Ho Hum." Most mystifying this year is who are all these acts no one's ever heard of? One theory is that these are all bands from the Midwest who don’t know that CMJ turned ripe and fell off the tree many years ago. The only act I’ve seen on this year's schedule that was worth schlepping downtown fir was UK angry young (now old) man Billy Bragg, who everyone who cares about music has already seen five times. Part of the problem is that New York is entirely too spread out to host a music conference. In Austin, SXSW works because everything, seminars, hotels, music, are all in a compact area. In Manhattan, there's too much going in just in the normal course of events for this festival to be able to foster any sense of community which is exactly what makes events like this go.