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This blog post was submitted by Max Willens, ZIO's Music Channel Assistant.

There is a suspicious gap in the official CMJ schedule.

If you choose to base your plans for the most thrilling/debilitating music week of the year on that page alone, you'll be fooled into thinking that the daylight hours are dominated by film screenings, forums, and panel discussions.

But thanks to the gaggle of record labels, publicity firms, corporate sponsors, local media outlets and independently wealthy music aficionados that contribute to the week's mania, the music actually never stops.

So if you're one of those people who doesn't need things like sleep or food (or if you can just drink horrible [but complimentary!] cocktails day and night instead), you can go out til 4AM on Tuesday night in Brooklyn, dance across the Brooklyn Bridge on your head a few times, and then make your way over to the Lower East Side for any number of free, unofficial showcases, like the Force Field PR showcase at Pianos, or the Levi's Fader Fort, which, based on the swag alone, is definitely worth losing a day's pay.

But in terms of consistency, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than the Terrorbird Media showcase at the Cake Shop. Now in its third year, the Oakland-based PR firm always delivers a strong dose of nervy, compelling indie rock, and this year was no exception.

And as was the case last year, some of the most interesting acts were nestled right in the middle of the bill. The Los Angeles trio known as Warpaint play a haunted, involved kind of guitar rock that is faintly reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A song like "Stars", for example, will begin with nothing more than a desolate guitar figure and then take off, moving through several rhythms and harmonies before slowly winding down. On record, their music is hushed and mysterious, but in the Cake Shop's scuzzy basement, their touring drummer pushed them. The songs shook and spazzed and occasionally came loose from their rhythmic moorings. They were one of the least tight bands on the bill, but the music's exciting twists and turns made up for it.

The band's music is topped with the beguiling, breathy vocals of guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman. One slightly soused audience member likened them to "Tegan and Sara on heroin," but every time their harmonies swung from serene to strained, every time Wayman began to sway on stage, it was hard to hear anything but Warpaint, one of CMJ's most promising acts.