Radio1190 - Best Non-commercial Radio Station

Looks like some of the Westword Best of Denver awards were
announced today online and Radio1190 is pleased to be recognized once again! The full list of awards will be published tomorrow.


Best Radio Station — Non-commercial
Radio 1190
By its very nature, Radio 1190, the University of Colorado at Boulder's station, has a very fluid staff, with DJs coming and going at various times of the year. But despite these frequent changes, 1190 has some important constants. The vast majority of hosts are more interested in exploring the variety of independent sounds being created today, as opposed to focusing on the most predictable or heavily hyped stuff — and instead of phonying up their presentations, their straightforward talks comes from the heart. That's giving it the old college try.

Read on for some of our other favorite award winners!

Best Band Overhaul
Achille Lauro
Once upon a time, an Achille Lauro show was a rare and remarkable event. With multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Brian Joseph on the road working sound for hotshots like the Fray and Bon Iver, the group just couldn't pull together very often. A few months ago, however, Achille Lauro and Joseph decided it made sense to head in different directions. This decision has made for more frequent public appearances and has also completely transformed the band's sound. More electronics have been added, giving the outfit a Steely Dan-meets-Radiohead vibe, and dueling frontmen Luke Mossman and Matt Close make an even stronger impression with their voices and musicianship. Even the songwriting seems to have taken a turn that is simultaneously more experimental and poppier. A recent gig at the hi-dive proved that Achille Lauro is a Denver act to watch — now more than ever.

Best Label
Bocumast
Some labels have a sound, others have a mission. Bocumast falls into the latter category, and what a mission it is! The defining characteristics of Bocumast's diverse roster, which ranges from the oddball post-punk guitar funk of Natural Selection to the oceanic electronic bliss pop of Iuengliss, are simple: They're all excellent, and none of them are afraid to take chances. The results are always surprising and consistently strong. At a time when record labels seem to be heading for obsolescence, Bocumast is ensuring its continued relevance by showing us the best stuff we might have otherwise overlooked.

Best Local Concert
The Fluid
Bluebird Theater, June 20, 2008
Band reunions that take place more than a decade down the line are generally sad affairs that tend to accentuate the passage of time rather than causing it to stand still. But even though the original members of the Fluid — John Robinson, Garrett Shavlik, James Clower, Rick Kulwicki and Matt Bischoff — hadn't played together since the early '90s, they marked Sub Pop Records' twentieth anniversary by making a racket every bit as thrilling as the stuff they churned out in their heyday, to the delight of a crowd populated by many of Denver's biggest music lovers. What a wonderful exception to the rule.

Best Punk-Rock Reunion
The Frantix
Wax Trax Records, September 20, 2008
A Fluid reunion show seemed unlikely fifteen years after the band broke up, but fortunately for us, it happened. Even more unlikely was the reunion of one of the true punk-rock legends of the Colorado scene: the Frantix. Before Matt Bischoff and Ricky Kulwicki helped to form the Fluid, both were in the Frantix, an act whose infamous song "My Dad's a Fuckin' Alcoholic" earned lasting notoriety, even though the outfit broke up in 1983. In the fall of 2008, the band got back together for one show at Wax Trax to remind us that real, raw, ferocious punk rock happened in our town long before most of us ever got to hear it.

Best New Recording
Everything Absent or Distorted (A Love Story) The Great Collapse
Needle Point
Readers' Choice: The Flobots
Everything Absent or Distorted's strong debut, The Soft Civil War, should have been difficult to improve upon — a sophomore slump would have been acceptable, even expected, from Denver's resident bombastic pop big band. But somehow the group pulled out all the stops and delivered a second album that not only fulfilled the promise of its stellar debut, but flat-out obliterated it. Sanding off some of the first album's charming rough edges and streamlining the eclectic songwriting and sound, The Great Collapse is an accomplished, symphonic masterpiece that delivers its heartbreaking barbs and beams of hope in the form of a dozen perfect pop songs destined to become classics.

Best local-music reissue Bum Kon
Bum Kon Drunken Sex Sucks
Smooch
Many of today's most extreme Denver bands were influenced by Bum Kon without even knowing it — and thanks to Drunken Sex Sucks, they can now fill in the gaps of their musical education. Only five of the 25 cuts here received a proper release, with the remainder appearing on an album for the first time. Tracks like "Giving In" capture the spirit of '80s thrash that Bum Kon exemplified even as "Slow Death" and others point toward a future that other groups would eventually experience.

Best Companion DVD for local re-release
The VSS Nervous Circuits
Hydra Head Records
The re-release of the VSS's final album, Nervous Circuits, hardly needs recommendation. But Hydra Head, the label that put out the reissue, included a bonus DVD of live footage of the band from periods seemingly across its career, including shows at actual venues in Chicago, D.C., Brooklyn, Berkeley and Boulder, as well as at a church in Philadelphia. None of the footage is really professional-quality, but what makes it most interesting and significant is that it captures the essence of what it must have been like to experience those performances, flaws in sound and all. The footage also shows what a vital, powerful and important band the VSS really was.

Best New Band
Young Coyotes
Young Coyotes has been around for less than a year. In that short time, however, the act has released two EPs, embarked on several cross-country tours, recorded a Daytrotter session, been hailed on numerous blogs and attracted a high-powered manager in Blee Music's Brian Swartz (Rose Hill Drive). Seemingly milliseconds after forming, the band went from playing Saturday matinee sets at places like Lifespot last summer to garnering choice gigs at Monolith's VIP party and Hot IQs' annual holiday party — which led to discriminating music fans across the city howling for Young Coyotes. Why all the fuss? That's easy: The music, which is sparse but fiery and melodic, like Akron/Family channeling the best moments of the Shins with the vitality and conviction of Arcade Fire.

Best Supergroup
Moonspeed
Being dubbed a "supergroup" can be a bit of a curse, but when your band includes members of local luminaries such as Bright Channel, Space Team Electra, Moccasin and Monofog, that term seems somewhat justified. But it would be meaningless if the resulting music was one iota less powerful, uplifting or sonically inventive than the music of Moonspeed. With eleven members, this band could easily have been an unholy mess ready to go off the rails. Instead, the group is a well-orchestrated affair, with all members contributing significantly to the beautifully textured, soothingly hypnotic yet exhilarating tapestries this outfit weaves at every performance.

Best Musical Collective
Hot Congress
Other Denver musical collectives have smartly put together bills and showcases of like-minded acts at various venues. And while Hot Congress has a similar agenda, its roster is impressively diverse, including bands as decidedly different as Action Friend, Widowers and the Jim Jims. This more inclusive approach seems likely to succeed where past efforts have not, especially since the collective intends to release a series of compilations featuring its artists. By supporting bands both obscure and well known, Hot Congress appears poised to make Denver known for more than a small handful of musicians.

Best Guitar Hero
Cole Rudy
The games Guitar Hero and Rock Band have made far too many people of all ages think that playing guitar well is easy. Good thing someone as diversely talented at the instrument as Cole Rudy lives in Denver to show us how to do it right. Educated in jazz guitar, Cole is probably best known for his stints as the guitar wizard of Wetlands and Mike Marchant's solo material, but he's also contributed to the indie pop of Chuck Potashner and performs regularly with a jazz ensemble at hotels. The guy can play any style of guitar better than most people can play, period, and our scene is richer for it.

Best Confrontational Band
Spellcaster's Rock and Roll Time Travel Committee
It's hard to say if this is really a band or a performance-art group or both — or if it even matters to make such distinctions. It seems laughable to say that the act has developed since its debut early last year, but it has, adding various members along the way. "Spellcaster" is the group's vocalist, and throughout live performances, he seems to verbally abuse the "band" as well as the audience, which is also treated to out-and-out sonic chaos from the musicians, one of whom sometimes plays guitar while wearing boxing gloves. You never quite know what's in store at a Spellcaster show, but it's all imbued with a much-needed sense of danger.

Best Hip-Hop Album
3 the Hardway, Set in Stone
Colorado rapper A.V.I.U.S., producer Es-Nine and DJ Cysko Rokwel each had their own thing going on before they came together as 3 the Hardway: Cysko Rokwel was taking out DJs nationwide in the DMC Championships; Es-Nine was producing for local and national artists; and A.V.I.U.S. had just dropped his solid debut album, Patience. But with all three talents combined in one package, you couldn't ask for a more thorough project, from Es-Nine's hard-hitting beats and A.V.I.U.S.'s heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics to Cysko making the DJ essential in hip-hop albums again. If you cop one Colorado hip-hop disc all year, this is the one to get.

Best Rapper West of Colorado Boulevard
Whygee
The curious case of Whygee: He's an unaffiliated Colorado hip-hop nomad who wanders all around the city but is mostly found near the center. His unique gruff voice is instantly recognizable and, with his thought-provoking and brash lyrical prowess, he's one of the best MCs in Colorado. He's proven this not only during his live show, but also on the excellent Suicide Watch EP, a collaboration with rapper Sunken State and producer Kid Hum. He's currently working with Naeem Oba as N.O. Why, on a project titled You're Not One of Us, which is due out in April, followed by a new mixtape with DJ Sounds Supreme featuring DJ Low Key that will drop sometime this summer. After that, there's a hip-hop/soul collaboration on tap with singer charleyBRAND slated for sometime next year. And he promises it will all be free. Word, gee!

Best DIY DJ Night
Bring Your Own Records Party!
Carioca Cafe2060 Champa St.303-296-1250
Everyone who has been around the scene within the last decade either knows Sarah Slater or has seen her at some of the most interesting shows, local and otherwise. For the past couple of years, she's organized and hosted her Bring Your Own Records night at various places, now mostly Carioca Cafe (aka Bar Bar). Basically, you bring a handful of vinyl instead of CDs or — perish the thought — iPods, and do your thing. What Sarah's doing may seem incredibly retro, but really, it's just a great way to bring people together to share music.

Best Blog
Donnybrook Writing Academy
http://godonnybrook.com/
The Donnybrook Writing Academy combines insightful, amusing writing and an ironic embrace of elitism for an unfailingly snarky look at the Denver music and arts scene. Music is the core concern of the Donnybrook crew, but the topics don't stop there. You can find everything from the invaluable sex advice of Ivyy Goldberg and opinions on Denver's most fuckable rock stars to the Snobcast podcast. This is also one of the most beautifully designed blogs not only in Denver, but in all of the worldwide blogosphere. In fact, it's your one-stop shop for proof that elitism in the defense of elitism is no vice. This blog should be required reading for hipsters everywhere.

Best DIY Live Recordings
The Flat Response
www.theflatresponse.com
You may not know Lance Stack by name, but if you've been going to certain shows, you've probably seen his impressively portable, live recording setup. For over two years, Stack has been making high-quality recordings of live shows and posting them online. After getting a band's permission, he posts the tracks at his website, the Flat Response. A casual perusal of that site reveals a breathtaking treasure trove of live audio, including the kind of technical information any audio geek would want to know. By any standard, Stack's website is an important document of what's been going on in Denver music.