Lucky, lucky us! In the midst of an incredibly well-timed trip to the east coast, we found ourselves front and center for a slice of CMJ at the Ace Hotel in New York City last week. Our fine friends over at KEXP had lined up a great few days of performances, with in-studios from bands like Widowspeak (above), Givers, WATERS, Dum Dum Girls, We Are Augustines, Zola Jesus, and so many more. The daytime performances were undoubtedly the best of the fest, and we're so happy and grateful we got to help out and contribute some time, love, and photography skills to some of the best seventy-two hours Rocktober has ever seen:

John in the Morning and Zola Jesus, day one:

Long-standing faves We Are Augustines:

Widowspeak, one of our new favorite bands, starting off day two:

Givers, who knocked our socks off with their indie rock infused Vampire Weekend.lite sound:

Front-row center for a performance from Dum Dum Girls:

WATERS kicking off day three (keep an eye on their tour schedule — they're Seattle-bound soon!):

EMA:

And that's not even the half of it — there were performances from the Lonely Forest, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Portugal. The Man, and many others that you can check out by taking a stop at the KEXP blog! Just search for "CMJ 2011" and you'll see tons of entries, with video soon to follow.

Thanks for an excellent CMJ, everyone! We really do love New York.

{All photos by Victoria VanBruinisse for KEXP.}