Right Down to the Wire: Houston Press Music Award Nominations Close Tonight!

[UPDATE: Alright, I suck. I did my griping about the wide-open HPMA nominations setup, where anybody can nominate whatever band they feel like for any of the categories, and took potshots at local rapper {Noon} in the process, unfairly painting him as a bad guy for doing, well, pretty much what a lot of people in bands have been doing this year, which is promoting the hell out of themselves to their fans so people will nominate them for an award.

I won’t lie — I still feel a little uneasy about the whole deal, and I do think a lot of very deserving local heroes are going to get left out in the cold. But that doesn’t mean I should take it out on somebody who’s just trying to follow the rules and get nominated. I’d like to offer my sincere apology to Noon and his fans, and I’ve amended the post somewhat below.]

Yeah, yeah — I know I’ve been extremely remiss (again) in posting about this year’s nominations for the Houston Press Music Awards, to the point that, um, the deadline to submit your nominations is today, Wed., May 22nd, at 11:59PM. And to be honest, there’s somewhat of a reason behind it, this time around.

Of course, there’s always the whole not-enough-time-and-too-much-crap-to-do complaint, which is pretty much the reality of life as a whole, but what’s really kept me from blathering on about this before now is, well, the way last year’s nominations process worked. I hadn’t really paid a whole lot of attention to the “new” process, where anybody & everybody & their brother can nominate anybody they want, and after seeing the results, I was left a bit perturbed, to say the least.

Unfortunately, I still am. I get why the Press staff decided to make the change — they’d been attacked for years for being too “elitist” by only letting a select group of people nominate bands and musicians to be on the ballot. As somebody who was asked once or twice, however, I can tell you that the people polled were a wide-ranging, extremely knowledgeable group, and generally speaking, they — I’m not going to say “we,” because some of my own nominations tended to be the oddballs that didn’t make it — got right most of the time.

So the HP democratized the process, fully and completely. Anybody can nominate a band, and if that band gets enough nominations, regardless of whether or not they’re the darling of the local critics or a genuinely talented group or just a bunch of kids who heard a couple of Minor Threat songs and thought they were the Second Coming, said band will be on the ballot. poof! Like magic.

And hey, that’s great; like I said, I tend to nominate the oddballs anyway, so this kind of process can help in situations like that, where Lesser Known But Great Band B might get overshadowed by Universally Acknowledged Good Band A.

However, this also leaves the process wide open to be gamed, which is something I’m pretty sure we saw some of last year with just-about-unknown rapper {Noon} getting nominated in six different categories. I’ll admit that I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that what happened is that the guy has a small-ish crew of truly dedicated fans who blasted the hell out of the thing, while fans of other rappers/musicians/etc. couldn’t really be bothered.

I think bands this year are getting that message, too; I’ve seen a ton more Facebook prompts and emails from various people saying, “hey, make sure you nominate us!”, than I did last year around this time. If nothing else, maybe they’ll be able to counterbalance some of the aspiring Noons in the bunch for this year’s ballot.

Annnnnyway. Rant over (for now), so let’s get down to business, by which I mean, “let’s list some suggestions of folks to nominate for the various categories this year.” And as always, I apologize profusely in advance for leaving anybody out, because I’m damn sure I have — every time the HPMAs roll around, it’s like I suddenly dump out the contents of my brain and forget the past several months. sigh.

The categories have been tweaked somewhat this year, and while I’m a little WTF’ed on a few of the changes — combining “Folk” and “Americana” into one category, for instance, and what the hell is “Traditional Rock,” anyway? — there are some that make a lot of sense. It bums me out a little to see the old “Best Label,” “Best Venue,” “Best Radio Show,” etc., dropped, but they’re mostly covered in the HP‘s “Best of Houston” thing these days, anyway.

I’m probably stepping over the line on a few of these, as well, since I’m never really clear whether the HPMAs are meant to encompass everything since last year’s awards or just whatever’s been released in the first five months of 2013. So a few of the albums I’ve got below came out in 2012, but they came out after the HPMAs had already happened. Your mileage may vary; here we go:

4. LOCAL RECORDING
{American Fangs}, American Fangs
{The Wheel Workers}, Past to Present
{Jealous Creatures}, Bazooka
{Hoofprints}, Secretly Destroying Honesty
{Adam Bricks}, City Songs
{Second Lovers}, New Mexico
{Linus Pauling Quartet}, Assault on the Vault of the Ancient Bonglords
{New York City Queens}, Burn Out Like Roman Candles
{Adelaine}, Currents
{Square and Compass}, How to Escape
{Born Liars}, Show Some Couth
{Glass the Sky}, Glass the Sky
{Bang Bangz}, Red City
{Peloton}, Unnatural Affection for Hornets
Chase Hamblin & The Roustabouts, VAUdeVILLE

5. SONG
{The Wheel Workers}, “Chemicals”
{Ruiners}, “One”
{American Fangs}, “The River You Bought”
{Jealous Creatures}, “Hurry Up”
{Glass the Sky}, “Holiday”
{Hoofprints}, “Baby Blue”
{The Tontons}, “Bones 1″/”Bones 2” (either one)
{Waterparks}, “Silver”

6. LOCAL MUSIC VIDEO
{The Linus Pauling Quartet}, “Assault on the Vault of the Ancient Bonglords”
{New York City Queens}, “It’s True, I Do”
{Glass the Sky}, “Koi Pawned”
{LIMB}, “The Candidate”
{American Fangs}, “Pomona”
{The Wild Moccasins}, “Gag Reflections”
{Jealous Creatures}, “Just A Memory”
{The Tontons}, “Golden”
{The Manichean}, “Leopards”
{Perseph One}, “sNAKEwAR:sACREDsHAPE”

7. LOCAL MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR
I’m going to go with Jeoaf Johnson, frontman/guitarist for {Knights of the Fire Kingdom}; he’s a great dude with an awesome band, one that I think/hope will do incredible stuff this year…

8. NEW ACT
{Brand New Hearts}
{Ruiners}
{We Scare Coyotes}
{Valens}
{Midnight Norma Lane}
{Beach Bones}
{Neighbors}
{Waterparks}
{March to the Sea}
{Night Drive}

9. SONGWRITER
Matt Hammon/Cameron Dezen Hammon ({The Rebecca West})
Steven Higginbotham ({The Wheel Workers})
{Craig Kinsey}
John Stephens ({New York City Queens})
Sergio Trevino ({Buxton})

10. PRODUCER
Dan Workman. (Sorry, I know I nominate the guy every year, but I just don’t know any other producers off the top of my head…)

11. MALE VOCALS
Keeton Coffman (The 71’s)
Lucas Gorham ({Grandfather Child})
Cory Sinclair ({The Manichean})
Gabe Cavazos ({American Fangs})
{Tyagaraja}
Nava ({the last place you look})

12. FEMALE VOCALS
Cameron Dezen Hammon ({The Rebecca West})
Sarah Hirsch ({Jealous Creatures})
Asli Omar ({The Tontons})
Sara Van Buskirk ({Finnegan}/solo)
Kelsey Lee Bland ({Second Lovers})

13. GUITARIST
Tyler Saucier ({Sunrise and Ammunition})
Ben Murphy ({Brand New Hearts})
Aaron Echegaray ({Knights of the Fire Kingdom})
Ian Hlavacek ({Jealous Creatures})
Thom Truver ({Second Lovers})
Anthony Contreras/Sean Gary ({Oceans of Slumber})

14. BASSIST
Melissa Ryan ({Omotai}/{Peloton})
Jason Smith ({Alkari})
Jennifer Garcia ({A Sundae Drive})

15. DRUMMER
Marshall Black ({Cavernous})
Jeff Senske ({Brand New Hearts})
Anthony Vallejo ({Omotai})
Marcos Echegaray ({Knights of the Fire Kingdom})
Isaac Chavez-Garza ({New York City Queens})

16. KEYBOARDS
Allison Wilkins McPhail ({The Wheel Workers})

17. OTHER INSTRUMENT
Any member of {Two Star Symphony} (i.e., Jo Bird, Debra Brown, Margaret Lejeune, or Jerry Ochoa)

18. POP
{The Wheel Workers}
{New York City Queens}
{Glass the Sky}
{A Sundae Drive}
{Featherface}
{The Ghost of Cliff Burton}
{The Wild Moccasins}
Chase Hamblin & The Roustabouts

19. TRADITIONAL ROCK (which I’m going to take mean “Rock That’s Really Loud and Decidedly Non-Emo”)
{Knights of the Fire Kingdom}
{American Fangs}
{We Were Wolves}
Jody Seabody and The Whirls
{Alkari}
The 71’s

20. MODERN ROCK
{Jealous Creatures}
{Brand New Hearts}
{Waterparks}
{Adelaine}
{Holder}
{the last place you look}
{Hoofprints}

21. GARAGE/PUNK/HARDCORE
{Blackmarket Syndicate}
{Born Liars}
Mikey & The Drags
{Weird Party}
{Peloton}
{Something Fierce}
{Latch Key Kids}

22. METAL
{The Linus Pauling Quartet}
{Omotai}
{Venomous Maximus}
{Scale The Summit}
{Cavernous}
{From Beyond}
{Oceans of Slumber}

23. EXPERIMENTAL/NOISE
{Two Star Symphony}
{P.L.X.T.X}
{The Illegal Wiretaps}
{The Wiggins}
{Fiskadoro}

24. ELECTRONIC
{FLCON FCKER}
{Bang Bangz}
{LIMB}

25. SOLO RAPPER
{Kyle Hubbard}
{Fat Tony}
{Jon Black}
{Perseph One}
HasHBrown
{Nosaprise}

26. RAP GROUP
{The Niceguys}
{H.I.S.D.}

27. RAP DJ
Jett I. Masstyr

28. CLUB DJ/DJ NIGHT
{DJ Sun}
{Ceeplus Bad Knives}

29. LATIN
{Tax the Wolf}
{La Sien}

30. JAZZ
{excuseMesir} (R.I.P.)
{Free Radicals}
{Kristine Mills}

31. BLUES
{Grandfather Child}
{Little Joe Washington}

32. SOUL/FUNK/R&B
{The Tontons}
GoREALah Soul
{Electric Attitude}

33. REGGAE/SKA/DUB
{The Suspects} (for life!)
{The Suffers}

34. ZYDECO
Um. I have no freaking idea, sorry…

35. COUNTRY
Miss Leslie
{The Small Sounds}

36. FOLK/AMERICANA
{The Rebecca West}
{Buxton}
{Second Lovers}
{Folk Family Revival}
B.E. Godfrey
{Southern Backtones}
{Murder the Stout}
{Clory Martin}

37. COVER/TRIBUTE ACT
The Rads

 
Alright, that’s all I’ve got. Get over to the HP site and get to nominating, eh?