Deli-rious readership,

We gave bands a week to apply for free to our Year End Best of LA 2010 Poll, but submissions aren’t closed – we are now still accepting them until 12.31 HERE, through SonicBids, with a $5 submission fee. It’s the first time we charge musicians for anything, but these polls take so much of our time that we needed to find a way to offset some of the personal effort we put in them, we hope you understand.

The Deli’s Polls’ mission is to highlight the best local bands that emerged in 2010 in the 10 scenes we cover – the full list of cities we cover can be found here.

Our polling system (based on the votes of a local jury of scene makers and partially on our readers vote) has rewarded in the past artists like Local Natives, Yeasayer, Girls, Chairlift, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Freelance Whales, Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian (among others) before they hit it big.

The summary of last year’s polls (each city’s top 3 + readers poll winner) can be found here. A full explanation of the polling system can be found here.

We hope you’ll submit your music, because the more bands submit, the more accurate our poll is – we will consider any band!

Good luck, and… we swear that we will listen to your music!

The Deli’s Staff

Deli-rious readership,

We gave bands a week to apply for free to our Year End Best of Chicago 2010 Poll, but submissions aren’t closed – we are now still accepting them until 12.31 HERE, through SonicBids, with a $5 submission fee. It’s the first time we charge musicians for anything, but these polls take so much of our time that we needed to find a way to offset some of the personal effort we put in them, we hope you understand.

The Deli’s Polls’ mission is to highlight the best local bands that emerged in 2010 in the 10 scenes we cover – the full list of cities we cover can be found here.

Our polling system (based on the votes of a local jury of scene makers and partially on our readers vote) has rewarded in the past artists like Local Natives, Yeasayer, Girls, Chairlift, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Freelance Whales, Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian (among others) before they hit it big.

The summary of last year’s polls (each city’s top 3 + readers poll winner) can be found here.
A full explanation of the polling system can be found here.

We hope you’ll submit your music, because the more bands submit, the more accurate our poll is – we will consider any band!

Good luck, and… we swear that we will listen to your music!

The Deli’s Staff

Deli-rious readership,

We gave bands a week to apply for free to our Year End Best of New England 2010 Poll, but submissions aren’t closed – we are now still accepting them until 12.31 HERE, through SonicBids, with a $5 submission fee. It’s the first time we charge musicians for anything, but these polls take so much of our time that we needed to find a way to offset some of the personal effort we put in them, we hope you understand.

The Deli’s Polls’ mission is to highlight the best local bands that emerged in 2010 in the 10 scenes we cover – the full list of cities we cover can be found here.

Our polling system (based on the votes of a local jury of scene makers and partially on our readers vote) has rewarded in the past artists like Local Natives, Yeasayer, Girls, Chairlift, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Freelance Whales, Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian (among others) before they hit it big.

The summary of last year’s polls (each city’s top 3 + readers poll winner) can be found here.
A full explanation of the polling system can be found here.

We hope you’ll submit your music, because the more bands submit, the more accurate our poll is – we will consider any band!

Good luck, and… we swear that we will listen to your music!

The Deli’s Staff

Deli-rious readership,

We gave bands a week to apply for free to our Year End Best of Austin 2010 Poll, but submissions aren’t closed – we are now still accepting them until 12.31 HERE, through SonicBids, with a $5 submission fee. It’s the first time we charge musicians for anything, but these polls take so much of our time that we needed to find a way to offset some of the personal effort we put in them, we hope you understand.

The Deli’s Polls’ mission is to highlight the best local bands that emerged in 2010 in the 10 scenes we cover – the full list of cities we cover can be found here.

Our polling system (based on the votes of a local jury of scene makers and partially on our readers vote) has rewarded in the past artists like Local Natives, Yeasayer, Girls, Chairlift, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Freelance Whales, Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian (among others) before they hit it big.

The summary of last year’s polls (each city’s top 3 + readers poll winner) can be found here.
A full explanation of the polling system can be found here.

We hope you’ll submit your music, because the more bands submit, the more accurate our poll is… good luck, and… we swear that we will listen to your music!

Lia Ices‘ "Grown Unknown" reminds us that you don’t really need weird samples or odd time signatures or a knack for bizarre song structure to make great, unique music. What you really need is stellar songwriting, confidence, character, a great voice, and a scary amount of talent. The uniqueness of the sound will come naturally.
With the help of a piano and a few other traditional instruments, Lia Ices manages to create music that stops time, pierces the veil of Maya of our daily all-absorbing routine, and gets us to listen, and I would go as far as saying to enjoy, and reconnect to, the sad hemisphere of our emotions. In a world that seems to function in synch with up-tempo pop hits, this music could represent the only true rebellion we have left.
Don’t miss Lia Ices’ show at Mercury Lounge on 12.14. The album will be released in January on Jagjaguar. The video below is from a song featured in Lia’s 2008 debut album "Necima"

Husband and wife Nathan and Becky Bliss – aka Barnaby Bright – sure had an exciting end of 2010 – the duo won the NYC’s own SongCirlce 5th Annual Songwriting Contest, and therefore took home $10k in cash plus recording, publishing and full label services agreement with SongCircle Music/EMI, and various other prizes. We’ll have a chance to witness their moody, melancholic folk live at The Living Room on 01.20.

Lavalier is the brainchild of Dave Horowitz and Steve Milton, former members of NYC indie pop band The Cloud Room – a group The Deli covered extensively a few years ago, and which seems to have been rather dormant as of late. Besides a melodic approach to songwriting, Lavalier’s melancholic, dreamy atmospheres and mid tempo, sparse tunes don’t share much with the members’ previous band’s uptempo pop. The arrangements and instrumentation of choice (left to a remarkably high revolving cast of musicians, including a choir) create a surreal, circusy atmosphere that can be placed somewhere between the Beatles’ "A Day in The Life" and Tom Waits’ darker and slower ballads, forging a sound that stands out from current NYC indie trends – which is something we always appreciate here at The Deli. Director Kendra Eliot did a good job in giving a visual representation of Lavalier’s Lynchian sonic imagery in the video below. Check out these guys live at Pianos on Friday 12.10.

What’s the deal with these small emerging NYC bands playing 3 shows within a week in the same neighborhood?? I mean not even The Yeah Yeah Yeahs do that… Web Dating is a noise pop band from Brooklyn. The band’s lead singer Tucker Rountree also plays in Total Slacker and formed Wed Dating as an impromptu filler when Total Slacker couldn’t make a scheduled appearance at Death By Audio in Brooklyn. Web Dating produces pop songs whose lyrics straddle the nebulous divider between painfully sincere and tongue-in-cheek. Despite the saccharine words, Web Dating packs a power chord filled high volume sound. The group plans to release a four song EP in January, check them out at Death By Audio on 12.08, Glasslands on 12.10 and/or Shea Stadium on 12.16. – Nick Haycock

2010 was a great year for Screaming Females, and it’s not over just yet. The New Brunswick, NJ based band has just released a new free song ("Wild", embedded here) and a brand new video of the track "I don’t mind it" (you can find it here). They also announced 3 shows in early 2011, including one in NYC on 02.12 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Lost Boy ? – that question mark is part of the name – might be a bunch of lost souls but as long as they don’t lose those Pixies references they are a found asset to the NYC scene. Those Bostonian bad asses were so unique that to this day no band really managed to reference them without falling into plagiarism. Lost Boy ? manages to avoid this thanks to the added character brought by their lo-fi approach and some psych influences Kim Deal and co. didn’t venture into. These guys have some really good songs, and should be fun live: check them out on 12.09 at Death By Audio and/or the day after at Spike Hill.

Partisan Records announced the spring 2011 release of Middle Brother‘s debut album – a new supergroup comprised of the lead singers of NYC’s own Deer Tick, and LA based Dawes and Delta Spirit. Middle Brother came together in mid-2009 when the three songsmiths realized, after several on-stage collaborations, that they shared a unique vision and wanted to take it one step further, into the studio. They first played their anthemic, soulful, passionate and confessional at 2010’s SXSW – a tiny, late-night, unannounced event under the moniker “MG&V”. Since then they have been busy in the studio preparing next year’s debut release. The band will be playing a one-off show December 20 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Here’s a preview of one of the songs featured in the upcoming record, performed live.

Don’t ask us why, but we feel like no month could be more appropriate than a freezing December for Brooklyn-via-Japan all female quartet Hard Nips‘ CD release party. The band plays rather spartan punk pop, with what I would call "classic female Japanese rock vocals" – a style of singing that I would describe as high in pitch, super-simple in the choice of melodies, and non-dramatic in the delivery. I’m sure there is a deep cultural reason behind what I’m hearing and associating with Japanese singing (and if not, then perhaps it’s just a coincidence), but for now I’ll just be happy to coin a new genre, by the name of "Nip-Pop". Hard Nips will bring their punky Nip-Pop to Cake Shop on 12.07 to celebreate the release of their debut CD.