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Austin Music Award Winners

Written by Dante Dominick

The best of Austin music, as voted by Austin.

The Black and White Years, Austin best new band

The Black & White Years

The 2008-2009 Austin Music Awards were received with some pretty stellar concerts at Austin Music Hall last night (3/28/09). For a recap of that action, read this review. The awards and hall of fame inductees were trotted out between sets, announced by KGSR’s Andy Langer, who could very well turn out to be Austin’s Billy Crystal. There were a lot of awards and the beer lines were steady, so even if you were there you probably didn’t see them all. So you can say you’re on top of things after all, here is the complete list of winners:

OK, the complete list in list fashion is below (or just click here for the list). But we can’t pass up the opportunity on a little commentary:

First off, the biggest winner of the night was The Black & White Years, who nabbed five awards: Austin Song of the Year, Best New Band, Best Rock Band, Best Bassist (John Aldridge), and the real puzzler, Best Producer (Jerry Harrison). The electro-pop-dance frenzy The Black & White Years create deserves to have caught fire like it has. The award to Jerry Harrison is odd for a number of reasons. One, shouldn’t the Austin Music Award for Best Producer go to an Austin producer? Jerry Harrison flew the band out to L.A. (where he lives and works) to record the album. There are a ton of great records being produced here in Austin, by Austin producers. Second, while Harrison’s name and fame (he’s a Talking Head you know) surely helped catapult B&WY from the underground, the production wasn’t exactly smooth. Harrison (who fell in love with B&WY after a SXSW ’07 set) went about altering the band’s sound so completely—calling in heavyweight session musicians—that B&WY were so mortified by the results they didn’t even want to release the album. Thankfully, they stuck to their artistic guns and managed to convince the powers that be that a re-working was necessary, so they flew back to L.A. to redo what they believed was a terrible representation of them. Anyway…if that award were Best Austin Band to Hold Their Own Against a Hollywood Heavyweight, it would be more appropriate.

Photo: Todd V. Wolfson

Probably the two biggest awards went to a deserving Alejandro Escovedo, for Austin Musician of the Year and Austin Album of the Year. In an already storied career, Escovedo’s Real Animal could very well be the best of that said career. Escovedo also took home Best Songwriter, as well as an induction into the Austin Music Hall of Fame as a member of the True Believers. Escovedo came on stage with Jon Dee Graham to accept the True Believers induction. We’re gonna assume Graham was imbibing a good bit of backstage champagne to help explain his inability to exit the stage despite several people trying to help him.

Carolyn Wonderland

We want to extend a congratulations for Carolyn Wonderland’s two wins as Best Female Vocalist and Best Blues Band. The congrats is aimed as much at Austin as it is to Wonderland. We could be wrong, but pretty sure these are her first awards after moving to Austin nearly ten years ago, apparently tired of sweeping the Houston awards year after year (which she continued to win after moving to Austin). Granted, competition in Austin is tougher, but lord—it doesn’t take but one Carolyn Wonderland show to hear she shouldn’t have had to wait this long for everyone to catch on.

Finally, we know these things are sometimes as much a popularity contest as much as anything else. But Austinites are supposed to take their music seriously. Redd Volkaert and Erik Hokknanen have—to the best of our knowledge—never even found their way in the top five for best guitarist. That’s downright silly. And are we really that confused when it comes to rap that MC Overlord can be pre-announced as the winner for the next ten years as well? May we suggest Phranchyze, Bavu Blakes, Zeale, Mike & Ike just to scratch the surface. No disrespect to Overlord, just saying he’s far from alone out there. Some other questions the spawned by the awards: Is harmonica really that odd that it’s a miscellaneous instrument? Is Reckless Kelly really a country band?

AUSTIN BAND OF THE YEAR
Bob Schneider and Lonelyland

AUSTIN MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR
Alejandro Escovedo

AUSTIN SONG OF THE YEAR
“Power to Change” The Black and White Years

AUSTIN ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Real Animal, Alejandro Escovedo

BEST NEW BAND
The Black and White Years

BEST ROCK BAND
The Black and White Years

BEST PUNK BAND
One-Eyed Doll

BEST METAL BAND
The Sword

BEST INDUSTRIALGOTH BAND
Subnatural

BEST DJ
Toddy B

BEST INDIE BAND
Suzanna Choffel

BEST JAZZ BAND
Sarah Sharp

BEST BLUES BAND
Carolyn Wonderland

BEST HIPHOP ACT
Overlord

INSTRUMENTAL BAND
3 Balls of Fire

BEST EXPERIMENTAL BAND
Death Is Not a Joyride.

BEST COUNTRY BAND
Reckless Kelly

BEST BLUEGRASS BAND
Texas Bluegrass Massacre

BEST ROOTS-ROCK BAND
porterdavis

BEST FOLK BAND
The Hudsons

BEST LATIN TRADITIONAL
Los Texas Wranglers

BEST LATIN CONTEMPORARY
Grupo Fantasma

BEST WORLD MUSIC BAND
Atash

BEST COVER BAND
The Eggmen

BEST TEEN BAND
The Fireants

BEST NONE OF THE ABOVE BAND
More Cowbell

BEST FEMALE VOCALIST
Carolyn Wonderland

BEST MALE VOCALIST
Bob Schneider

BEST ELECTRIC GUITARIST
Van Wilks

BEST ACOUSTIC GUITARIST
Van Wilks

BEST BASSIST
John Aldridge

BEST DRUMMER
Mike Meadows

BEST KEYBOARDS
Laura Scarborough

BEST MISC. INSTRUMENT PLAYER
Simon Wallace, harmonica

BEST SONGWRITER
Alejandro Escovedo

BEST PRODUCER
Jerry Harrison, The Black and White Years

BEST NEW CLUB
Shangri La

BEST LIVE MUSIC VENUE
Antone’s

BEST ACOUSTIC VENUE
Cactus Café

BEST ALL AGES VENUE
Emo’s

BEST RECORD STORE
Waterloo Records

BEST RADIO STATION
107.1 KGSR

BEST RADIO MUSIC PROGRAM
Morning X, Jason and Deb, 101X

BEST RADIO PERSONALITY
Deb O’Keefe, 101X

BEST LOCAL LABEL
Fat Caddy

HALL OF FAME
Kelly Willis

HALL OF FAME
Dale Watson

HALL OF FAME
Danny Roy Young

HALL OF FAME
The Dicks

HALL OF FAME
True Believers

HALL OF FAME
Pariah

HALL OF FAME
Hosea Hargrove

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