Meat Wave is The Deli Chicago’s Best Emerging Artist of 2015! 2nd Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta, 3rd Campdogzz

Deli Readers,

Our Best of Chicago Poll for Emerging Artists has been – as usual – a lengthy and painstaking journey which took us through prairies of numbers, horizons filled with band names, and a dense, (mostly) joyous rain of music. We have finally reached our destination and we can announce the final results!

The Post-Punk trio of Chris Sutter (vocals/guitar), Joe Gac (bass), and Ryan Wizniak (drums) known as Meat Wave formed in 2011. In September of 2015 they released their third album, first on Hollywood’s SideOneDummy Records, Delusion Moon. The band spent most of 2015 touring the UK and North America fine tuning a sound that is both chaotic and pleasingly melodic.

The spirit of this Cumbia Jam band is undeniable, and Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta has a unique sound that our readers and voters both agreed on. 2015 saw the release of their thrilling debut album, Dos Santos.

Campdogzz is the duo of Jess Price (vocals/guitar) and Mike Russell (of Wedding Dress, Suns) (multi-instrumentalist) creating gritty blues-infused rock. The will be expanding the band and touring in 2016. 

Check out our poll’s top 15 below, and don’t forget to get even deeper, exploring all the finalists organized by genre:

ALT ROCK – ELECTRO-HIP HOP – INDIE POP – NOISE ROCK/AVANT – PSYCH ROCK/POP – PUNK/GARAGE/METAL – ROOTS MUSIC

[JASON, PLEASE UPDATE THE HEADPHONE LINKS IN THIS CHART!] BEST OF 2015 POLL FOR EMERGING Chicago ARTISTS ****** FINAL RESULTS – TOP 15 ******

ARTIST J OS R TOT   1 Meat Wave 6.5   0.017 6.517 2 Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta   3 2 5 3 Campdogzz 3   0.072 3.072 4 Soddy Daisy 3   0.065 3.065 5 Luggage 3   0.012 3.012   Al Scorch 3   0.012 3.012 7 Bleach Party 3   0.009 3.009 8 Circuit Des Yeux 3   0.008 3.008 9 Disappears 3   0.005 3.005 10 Whitney 3   0.004 3.004 11 Archie Powell & the Exprts 3   0.002 3.002 12 Saba 3   0.002 3.002 13 The Congregation 3   0.001 3.001 14 Jude Shuma 2   0.5 2.5   Burnside & Hooker   1 1.5 2.5 Legend: J = Jurors, R = Deli Readers, OS = Open Submissions

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If you wonder how this chart came into existence, here is how it all went down: first, we let the local bands submit their music (for free), and got our Deli editors to pick the nominees. Then we polled a list of 15+ Chicago scene expert (our jury) and asked them to nominate 3 more bands of their choice each (3 points for the top choice, then 2 and 1). Then we polled our readers. We tried to keep things open for each single genre, from Indie Rock to Roots Music to Hip Hop.

If you are a geek interested in all the subtelties related to how this poll works, you can read its rules here (happy reading!). But if all you care about is the awesome new music Chicago produced in the year 2015, this list is all you need. Enjoy!

Many Thanks to our Jurors: Michael Gebel (Empty Bottle), Lisa White (Freelance Music Writer), Eric Muhlberger (Sofar Sounds Chicago), Bill Valenta (Theft Liable To Prosecute), Jim Kopeny (Chicagoist), Brendan Losch (Count Me Out), Jason Behrends (The Deli Chicago), Eric Schelkopf (The Total Scene), Adam (Saki Record store), Elle Quintana (Reggie’s Rock Club), Coleman Brice (Cole’s Chicago), Matt Baron (Coach House Sounds), Bill Valenta (TLTP.com)

Hope you’ll find some awesome new artists you weren’t aware of!

The Deli’s Staff