Houston Press Music Awards: Voting Starts Today

Yep, as of yesterday evening, those tireless folks over at the {Houston Press} have officially tallied up all the nomination ballots (more than 9000 votes!) and released the official-schmofficial ballot for this year’s Houston Press Music Awards.

I’ve gotta say, it’s a pretty great-looking ballot this year. Punk heroes {Something Fierce} got some well-deserved nods, as did {the last place you look} (in five freaking categories, no less), {Sideshow Tramps}, {Robert Ellis} — who seriously deserves to win Local Musician of the Year, in my book, for managing to break out of the oft-ignored H-town scene and get some time in the national spotlight — {Finnegan}, Square and Compass, {Rivers}, {Bang Bangz}, {The Literary Greats}, {The Tontons}, {Omotai}, {Fat Tony}, and a big, big bunch of other folks. And holy shit is there a strong representation by H-town hip-hop this year, far more than I’ve seen in years past, with 4 of the 6 Local Musician of the Year nominees being rappers…

Glad to see a lot of our suggestions from last week made the cut, although I’m a little bemused by some of the picks; much as I love TLPYL, their song “Band to Save Me” was released back in 2009, not even within the last 12 months, and I could’ve sworn Finnegan had been around a couple of years. I was also a little bummed that neither Roky Moon & BOLT!, {Tyagaraja}, nor {The Mathletes} got nominated for much this time around, but eh to all of that. That’s how it goes, and I happily high-five the folks who made it on.

Anyway, head on over and cast your vote online through November 12th, 2011, the day of the actual Awards Showcase. Oh, and if you hit the Facebook event page for the showcase and click “I’m Attending,” you’re entered to win a two-night stay at South Shore Harbor, which I know of only through {Buxton}‘s awesome song “Feathers”, but which sounds like it could be cool either way…