Sadly, these days, busking in the subways (or outdoors in the warmer months) is one of the few reliable ways left for musicians to make some money through their music. While busking with a group of fellow musicians can be fun, doing it by alone isn’t easy, and requires a lot of self discipline and self confidence; but it can be an excellent training ground: busking is like being on stage for a whole day, with a constantly changing (and therefore unbiased) audience; it’s an opportunity for a prolonged trial and error session that, over time, can potentially reveal many important secrets related to entertaining a crowd: "how does the average person react to each of my songs?" "What is the mood, or lyric, or body language that triggers a response?" "What gets the travelers to drop their cash in the hat?"
Today we saw Gabriel Mayers busking at our local subway station, and – even just for a minute or so – we enjoyed his understated folk songs. It turns out the guy embraces the NYC subway experience entirely, by recording in it, and allowing train and announcement noises to randomly enter his tracks. Check out his latest single "Sixty Charisma Scented Blackbirds" – and the NYC subway noises that come with it.

Thanks to all the artists who submitted their music to be considered for The Deli’s Best of Austin Year End Poll for Emerging Artists.

After tallying our editors’ ratings for the Open Submissions stage, it’s time to release the results – which this year are interestingly heavy on the… folky ladies! Please note that to avoid conflicts no local editor was allowed to vote for bands in their own scene.

Total submissions from Austin: 32

Jurors: Jurors: QD Tran (The Deli Philly), Jordannah Elizabeth (The Deli SF), Paolo De Gregorio (The Deli NYC).

Acts advancing to our Readers/Fans Poll:

1. Grace London – 7.6 (out of 10)

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2. Taylor & the Wild Now – 7.16

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3. Leah Nobel – 7.16

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4. Molybden – 7

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5. Emily Wolfe – 7

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Honorable Mentions (scores above 6.5)

Holiday Mountain, Gossamer Frontier, Delaney Gibson, Wildcat Apollo, Jackie Venson, The Manifest Electric, Texas Microphone Massacre, KP and the Boom Boom, Dead Tree Duo, Calliope Musicals.

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WHAT’S NEXT: These results end the first phase of the poll. We have already unveiled full list of nominees that also includes the artists nominated by our local jurors (see left column here). It’s now time for our readers to influence this Year End Poll for Emerging Austin Artists with their vote – look out for th readers’ poll on the right column of this same page!

The Deli Austin

Heems (the stage name Himanshu Kumar Suri of Das Rascist) is about to expose himself in a whole different manner. Whereas Das Racist leaned heavily on the esoteric and a celebrated apathy in the face of a shady industry, Heems uses his solo effort as a party-infused soap box. The beats will sound familiar, but the content tackles everything from racism to substance-abuse to the ups and downs of modern living in a surprisingly coherent way. In “Sometimes,” Heems addresses police brutality flowing in his Slick Rick treacle, “brown boy, brown boy, wassup with that sound, boy? Why boom bye bye? They just gettin down, boy!” Recorded in both Brooklyn and Mumbai, "Eat, Pray, Thug" (out in March) portends to be a breakout album from one of New York’s weirdest voices. Check out the first single  "Sometimes" from the forthcoming LP.  

It seems like the vintage sounding, duo powered, garagey-blues-rock format made famous by the White Stripes still has a lot to give to rock’n’roll. Brand new Brooklyn band (via Virginia) Winstons has been generating some buzz in town with that simple formula, enhanced by a truly wild live performance. The two hairy dudes started the project in January 2014 and in just twelve months managed to land rather hot bills in medium size venues like Rough Trade and Baby’s All Right. They will return to the stage of the latter tomorrow (01.15) to celebrate their first release (in appropriately "garagey" cassette format), entitled "Turpentine." If you can relate to blues, loud sound, and are in need of letting go of some frustration through a cathartic mosh pit, this band might do you some good. On the bill also ex Brooklyners (now Nashvillians) Clear Plastic Masks.

LATEST NEWS: NYC FINAL RESULTS! Porches – KANSAS CITY FINAL RESULTS! Bummer – PHILLY FINAL RESULTS! Sheer Mag – LA FINAL RESULTS! Dorothy – CHICAGO FINAL RESULTS! Zaramela – PORTLAND FINAL RESULTS! The Domestics – DC AREA FINAL RESULTS! Typefightrer – SF BAY AREA FINAL RESULTS! Down and Outlaws – AUSTIN FINAL RESULTS! – Löwin – NEW ENGLAND FINAL RESULTS! – Dark Rodeo – TORONTO FINAL RESULTS! – Teenage Kicks

For the full summary click…

When you go to see a band live for the first time, it is normal to expect them to sound like a better or (often) worse version of their "digital streaming" selves: in the case of Long Island’s BRAEVES (who coincidentially just qualified for out Best of NYC Year End Poll), this identity can be described as your "regular" melodic indie pop band. But a live show can quickly affect your preconceptions. Opening song ‘Guest of the Gun’ instantly hit us with a noteworthy emotional impact: the young band kept hanging on to that quality throughout the show; their stage presence and competent performance gave their songs an added strength, and the crowd of a sold out Pianos certainly helped create the perfect atmosphere. As they played “Talk like Strangers” (streaming), I was thinking about the tough week France had, especially my dear Paris (yes, that’s where I hail from), and then everything flew away for a while – which is exactly what I needed. The band’s melodies, full of emotions, are supported by Ryan Colt Levy’s clean, perfectly "pop" vocals. The crowd’s applause signaling the end of the show brought me back to earth, which suddenly felt like a better place. Isn’t that what pop music is for? – Maylis Personnaz

Thanks to all the artists who submitted their music to be considered for The Deli’s Best of Toronto Year End Poll for Emerging Artists.

After tallying our editors’ ratings for the Open Submissions stage, it’s time to release the results. Please note that to avoid conflicts no local editor was allowed to vote for bands in their own scene

Total submissions from Toronto: 15

Jurors: Natan Press (The Deli DC), Jordannah Elizabeth (The Deli SF), Paolo De Gregorio (The Deli NYC).

Acts advancing to our Readers/Fans Poll:

1. Kira May – 7.33

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2. Laura Cole – 7.16

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2. The Pick Brothers Band – 7.16

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4. Sun K – 7 

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4. Jessica Bundy – 7

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Honorable Mentions (scores above 6.5)

 

Clara Engel, The Gnarly Ones, Dear Blackwolf, Triangle & Seed, The Young Novelists.

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WHAT’S NEXT: These results end the first phase of the poll. We have already unveiled full list of nominees that also includes the artists nominated by our local jurors (see left column here). It’s now time for our readers to influence this Year End Poll for Emerging Toronto Artists with their vote!

—The Deli Toronto

Last week we started publishing the results of our picks from our Best of NYC Year End Poll’s Open Submissions for the genres Alt Rock/Power Pop, Songwriters/Rootsy Pop and Electronic. A bunch of categories are left, but it’s now time to go Indie-Poppy! Pop has been invading the NYC scene in the last decade with bands that retain NYC’s signature edgy sound, but blend it with more melodic and uptempo elements. Competition was fierce in this category, with an incredible amount of really good bands – darn, WHY can’t we let them all through? Who created this poll’s rules anyway? Anyway, this is what our jurors went for:

Total submissions in this category: 42

Artists qualified to the next stage (i.e. the Readers’ Poll, starting around 01.20):

1. The Landing – 8 (out of 10)

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2. HEY ANNA – 7.83

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3. The Cabana Kids – 7.5

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3. BRAEVES – 7.5

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Honorable Mentions (scores above 7):

Éyal hai, Pink Murder, The Letter Yellow, Born Cages, Jonah Delso, Canon Logic, Rathborne.

Jurors: Jason Behrends (The Deli Chicago), Terra J. Jura (The Deli Nashville), PDG (The Deli NYC)

Stay tuned for more results from the open submissions, and then for the readers’ poll, and then the final chart!

The Deli’s Staff

Thanks to all the artists who submitted their music to be considered for The Deli’s Best of DC Area Year End Poll for Emerging Artists. After tallying the votes for the Open Submissions stage, it’s time to release the results. Please note that to avoid conflicts no local editor was allowed to vote for bands in their own scene.

Total submissions from the DC Area: 42

Jurors: Terra J Jura (The Deli Nashville), Michelle Bacon (The Deli KC), Paolo De Gregorio (The Deli NYC)

Acts advancing to our Readers/Fans Poll:

1. Avers (Psych Rock) – 8.16

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2. People’s Blues of Richmond (Blues/Psych Rock) – 7.83

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3. Andrew Aylward (indie Rock) – 7.33

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3. The Northerners (Folk Rock) – 7.33

Honorable Mentions (ranked above 6.5):

Caustic Casanova, Paperhaus, Exit Vehicles, Clones of Clones, Flo Anito, Classified Frequency, Jacob Ungerleider, Bencoolen, Red States, Harness Flux.

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WHAT’S NEXT: These results end the first phase of the poll. We will soon unveil the artists nominated by our local jurors, and we’ll let our readers and our writers influence the poll with their vote.

Keep creating, keep supporting, and stay tuned for your chance to vote!

— The Deli DC Area Staff

Milk Dick are not the first rock band to refer to sperm in their name (Pearl Jam and Thin White Rope come to mind, which had slightly more subtle monikers). But subtlety of course is not what Milk Dick is about. Compared to their 2012, five minute/four song long debut EP, The Brooklyn trio’s debut full length "It grows on you" (released in September 2014) refines their lo-fi comedy-rock in a more mellow psychedelic and at times even folky direction, without diluting the fun. Taking cues from Ween’s hilarious early years, Butthole Surfers mad first records, and – of course – Pavement’s "Slanted and Enchanted," Milk Dick incorporates a fair amount of swearing, moaning, laughing and even burping in their lyrics, which unexpectedly tackle all sorts of dark content, ranging from the paradox of religion (‘Rhythm Rock‘) to the fear of growing up (‘Cry When You Are Young‘) to the self-inflicted pains of body image problems ("Makeup Makeup"). If you like provocation as much as we do, you should check these guys out. Look out for a video and a new album in 2015.

NYC’s Millsted – a band we discovered in our Year End Best of NYC Poll open submissions – are something else, dabbling in the NYHC scene but really embracing shoegaze and noise rock through and through. Their latest record, ‘Harlem,’ is a self-proclaimed "attempt to aggressively break the ice of censored social commentary." Listen to the record’s highlight track ‘Coyote’ below, which seems to take a lesson or two from Mars Volta, Fugazi and Rage Against the Machine, with an even more aggressive vocal approach. The vocals and percussion throughout the album pack an in-your-face punch that not even last week’s freezing 9 degree NYC weather could match. Things will get heated at The Gutter in Williamsburg on February 21.  – Michael Haskoor (@Tweetskoor)

Thanks to all the artists who submitted their music to be considered for The Deli’s Best of New England Year End Poll for Emerging Artists.

After tallying our editors’ ratings for the Open Submissions stage, it’s time to release the results. Please note that to avoid conflicts no local editor was allowed to vote for bands in their own scene.

Total submissions from New England: 43

Jurors: Jurors: Juan (The Deli LA), Maylis (The Deli NYC), Paolo De Gregorio (The Deli NYC).

Acts advancing to our Readers/Fans Poll:

1. As the Sparrow (Rootsy Pop) – 8 (out of 10)

1. Jake McKelvie & the Countertops (Indie Pop) – 8

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3. Andre Obin (Electro) – 7.83

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4. Miss Geo (Electro-Pop) – 7.66

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5. Marina Evans (Songwriter) – 7.5

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5. Doug Tuttle (Psych Rock) – 7.5

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7. No Evil Star (Avant-Indie) – 7.33

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8. Radclyffe Hall (Electro-Pop) – 7.16

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9. Jet Black Sunrise (Alt Rock) – 7

9. Sarah Blacker (Folk Pop) – 7

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Honorable Mentions (ranked above 6.5):

Streight Angular, Little Ugly, Ed balloon, The Symptoms, Ponybird.

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WHAT’S NEXT: These results end the first phase of the poll. We will soon unveil the artists nominated by our local jurors, and then let our readers and our writers influence the poll with their vote.

Keep creating, keep supporting, and stay tuned for your chance to vote!  

—The Deli New England Staff