By   E. Mike Pace

NEW YORK CITY – For one week every October, hundreds of shitty new bands come to New York to play the College Music Journal’s Music Marathon. This year is no different, with tons of the dumbest bands you could imagine descending on the city to play their lame ass songs to half-listening music industry wonks and fans.

Venomous Spit, a “garage-core” four-piece from Austin, Texas, are on their first trek to CMJ. “We drove for 27 hours. We were supposed to play a show in Memphis on the way up, but the venue forgot we were on the bill. So we kept on driving.” says bassist Matt McCoy, 23. “Our first show here was at noon in the Campbell’s Chunky Tent in the basement of a club in Chinatown. I think there was a guy from Matador Records there. We were okay.”

Unlike the massive South By Southwest Music Festival in the band’s hometown of Austin, CMJ is a smaller, more business-minded affair. “At SXSW, it’s more of a party. Last year we played nine shows in one morning. Then we went swimming,” McCoy remembers. “CMJ is, like, in the city, so you have to deal with traffic and tall buildings and stuff.”

The band, who have four shows lined up between Thursday and Saturday, would like to capitalize on the “blog success” of their debut EP,  Mexican Knife Fight  . “The MusicBarf blog gave us a good write-up, although he spelled my name wrong,” claims singer/guitarist Bobby Dussell, 24. “These fucking journos man, gotta fact check that shit!”

Jessica Stanley, an A&R rep from Merge Records, did catch a few of Spit’s songs when they played the 15 band Citibank Roxx Day Party on Saturday in the lobby of the Jacob Javits Center. “Oh they sucked, for sure. You’re talking about Pepe and the Diptones, right?”