For those who don’t know (and apparently many do not), the CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival is a week long event in which under-the-radar artists perform and indie filmmakers premiere their work at showcases across New York City.

This year’s CMJ Festival begins next week on Tuesday, October 19 and will run through Saturday, October 23. According to the official website, there will be “1200 live performances from over 30 countries in more than 75 of New York City’s greatest venues and theatres,” which is, like, a whole lot.

At the risk of attracting too many paparazzi my way (WHY CAN’T THEY JUST LET ME LIVE?!) and for my own memory’s sake, I wanted to outline the showcases I’ll be personally attending.

On Wednesday, I’ll be headed to the Bell House in Brooklyn, where MuuMuse’s Most Anticipated Artist Natalia Kills will be headlining along with some amazing up-and-comers like Fenech-Soler, Parallels, and Samuel. PopJustice will also be DJ’ing the event (oh hay!), which will undoubtedly result in many (semi-drunk) tweets from me requesting a Girls Aloud song to be played at some point in the night. Watch for that.

Also on Wednesday, I will at some point be dropping into fellow Strangers in Stereo member The Culture of Me’s CMJ celebration where acts like Oh Land, Hussle Club, and Reni Lane will be burning up the Backstage Bar. It promises to be a very sexy time.

Then on Thursday, October 21, I’ll be headed to Splash Bar (where I once found myself holding hands with Kylie, shaking and crying) for a late night affair where I will undoubtedly be touched inappropriately while enjoying Hard Candy’s first ever showcase starring Zowie.

And that’s that. That’s three events so far, and it’s already sort of exhausting to think about. Next step: Plan MuuMuse’s first ever showcase for 2011.

Hmm…does anyone have Rachel Stevens‘ cell phone number?

While passing through the PopJustice forums, I stumbled upon a post mentioning the Toronto-based band, Parallels. While I didn’t (and admittedly, still don’t) know much about the group at the time, I now know this: their debut is amazing.

Visionaries, the band’s debut album released on February 6, brings to mind a potpourri of influences: Sally Shapiro, Belinda Carlisle, The Knife, Cat5, New Order and Cut Copy, among others. Not a bad set of sounds to come to mind, is it?

For fans of italo-disco, crystal synthesizers, and chilly grooves inspired by the dance floor sounds of yesterday, I believe you’ll find in Visionaries a truly unexpected delight.

Click here to stream Parallels‘ debut album, Visionaries, in full.

Click here to visit Parallels’ MySpace, and here to check out their music on iTunes.