I just looked at the first entry and are Craig and Jediah still around?

Please feel free to write me in for singer/songwriter or folk act.
Thanks in advance !
Rich "Amazing Dick" Leufstedt
"I just wan't to win something sometimes ."

Sakura Tokyo???

Yeah, I could have went nuts here asking a bunch of questions and making a load of accusations but I have told the moderator that I will be a good boy from now on.

wow...same people...different year...(snoring)

What I meant to say in this post was . . . nice work everyone!

yes we are. we just dont set ourselves on fire anymore when we play a gig.

were sort of like a tree that falls in the forest... except a really fucking awesome one

I am still waiting for some general 'criteria' here...

What are the dates the award is for?
What are the minimum 'playing out' requirements?

and of course the biggie...

Does any one actually go out and check out these bands before they are nominated?

The only thing I am saying in any of this is if the same bands and people are going to get nominated every year, whether its out of a lack of effort by the paper, or because this music scene just kind of keeps recycling itself...it would be nice if the process were a little more transparent.

I am saying this of course with a person who didn't HAVE a band that could be nominated last year.

1. Awards are for the past year or so. (EDIT: I say "so" because we moved the awards later this year, and didn't want to disregard the few months that would have been left out if we were strict on "one year")
2. There are no exact minimum number of dates, though it is targeted at bands that are a)from Worcester/Central Mass. and/or b)have played around here significantly. Someone with just one or two dates and zero CDs isn't going to be accepted as a nominee, for example.
3. Every band has been seen live by a member of the staff or a nominating judge. If the band has had a new release in the past year, we've listened to the CD. In addition, a small panel of us sit around a table for hours visiting every available website/Myspace of each band nominated (including many that didn't make the final list) to check out their tracks, just so everyone internally is on the same page.

I think any case of similar acts is due to the fact that the really good groups don't change dramatically year to year. The past ballots had nothing to do with the band categories this year---we started 100% from scratch and worked our way up.

That said, there are some categories that have changed dramatically from last year; we also reduced the sheer number of nominations in many categories this year.

Scott

Yet here it is. Year after year.

All true!

wow...my point completely... If I had to give a vote==New Pilot. They are the freshest, hardest working band I've seen in a while.

Does the Curtain Society have anymore room for an award left on their mantel? :)

Yeah, what the hell, just ignore me. No matter who gets nominated, lots of people are going to feel left out. It's not a real thread until someone complains, so I was just helping keep it real . . .

And certainly all the bands nominated deserve the recognition, no question about that.

Hey, where'd you get that picture of my daughter?! She was having a bad day . . .

Wasn't there some talk about having an anti-award thing for the biggest losers in Worcester? I think that conversation should start again.

I'll ask, Punky. Who do you love?

thanks for the nomination.

we are mimicking phillip michael thomas' (miami vice) EGOT career strategy, in which he aimed to win:

Emmy
Grammy
Oscar
Turtle Boy

Wow, thanks a lot for the kind words Zippy. We're just excited be mentioned with all the bands in our category. Ironically, most of my favorite bands in the area are all in the same category as us and they're all amazing. C4RT, The Luxury, The Wandas, Castine, Walter the Orange Ocean!!! Siiiiiiiick.

Regardless of who wins and who was nominated though, the awards event they do in the Canal District is absolutely amazing and I'm really looking forward to that again. You get a chance to see a dozen of your favorite acts all for free and within walking distance of each other at some of the best clubs in Worcester.

Can't Wait.

Fear Nuttin Band and D.P.R. put on a great show the other night, the whole club was dancing and really in to it.

I was just curious and in all truthfulness - Are any members of the nomination panel in any of these nominated bands?

Al (Sellserhot) really oughta be on that singer-songwriter list. Just sayin. Although I don't know how many Worcester gigs he's done in the last year. Either way, dude's a fucking great songwriter. Wish I had thought to write him in, before I voted...

Novel ahead----Sorry!

Year after year the Worcester Music Award conversations arise and year after year I tell myself “Stay the fuck out of it”. I don’t think my voice is any greater or less than anyone else and quite frankly I didn’t have any answers or even suggestions on how to make things better.

This year I’ve decided to give my own two cents. Why? The 2009 WBCN Rumble. The Rumble was a smashing success this year. Great bands from every genre of music, awesome line ups, fantastic judging and a camaraderie like I’ve never seen before in Boston between the bands, the fans and the club. For the most part the “Noise Board” posters (Boston based message board notorious for being confrontational and at times mean spirited toward the Rumble, its contestants and the Boston scene in general) actually became a unified voice. People talked about the shows, debated winners and losers and at the end of the day ended up becoming fans of bands they normally wouldn’t have bothered to check out. It certainly opened me up to a bunch of new bands, one of which I ended up joining based on their Rumble performance (plug alert-“The Fatal Flaw”).

It also gave me a great feeling of validation to see bands like Destruct-a-thon and The Luxury truly get the props they deserve in a professional setting with (and again) for the most part, no strings attached-Voting done in a tasteful manner with solid and unbiased judges.

Worcester has an insanely incestuous music scene. It always has. This is no offense to the people who nominated all the bands mentioned. Hell, I agree with a lot of the nominations. On the other side of the coin I’m hard pressed to find ANY sense of validity (whether the bands deserve it or not) in a voting process where independent Panel members know and openly work with other panel members in bands. It’s flat out bullshit.

I’m not saying the band members were like “VOTE FOR ME”, but there’s just an air of skepticism held deep in breath whenever you take these two entities and combine them into one single form in a voting process. I for one will not ever buy into any type of voting scheme albeit Worcester or what have you where musicians work with writers/critics/whoever and decide who’s the best of anything in such a small community where everyone is connected by 2 degrees. It makes me lose respect for the process because you all know each other. I’m sorry but “so and so couldn’t vote for themselves” smells like rhetoric. Maybe they couldn't vote for themselves but they got enough pull(whether they like it or not and whether they agree or not) to make sure people do.

I’m interested in the percentage rate. How many band members on your panel ended up nominated in the voting? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say 100%. From what I hear, one member of your panel ended up getting nominated TWICE, in two different bands and in the same category none the less. Am I wrong? If I am correct me? Truth will eventually be told. Give me some numbers as to who voted and if their bands got nominated.

I applaud your efforts to make Worcester music a tangible and relevant commodity. You’re doing more for this scene than a lot of us. My belief however remains in the foundation of change. Your process however is doing more damage than good.

Worcester-------Follow the Rumbles lead-

I think Pez is actually sellershot

Pez and I are one in the same- Opening for Coldplay was the shit.

Yeah TFF lost a ton of scene points between adding me and losing Dave haha.

Gabe- you make a good point...best "Pop" act? Is that really necessary- and you don't have to nominate every band that played pretty much plugged in a guitar this year.

I'm not taking anything away from The Curtain Society or Huck but what have they done this year to deserve to be nominated other than be Huck and The Curtain Society. I think they are both great and I'ts not a putdown, and I'm out of the loop so perhaps they put out a disc or played some marathon shows or something...I'm not sure.

Why not just nominate 3 bands that busted their ass, built up a little buzz, etc. That's how new bands evolve and generate buzz, perhaps becoming the new Hucks and TCS of the city.

By nominating the same bands every year makes this completely irrelevant..why bother voting.