Deli Nation,
Our Year End Poll for Emerging NYC Artists was – as usual – a painstaking (and somewhat excruciating) process.
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 30+ NYC scene expert (our jury, list at the bottom) and asked them to nominate 3 more bands of their choice each. Then we polled our writers, 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 NYC produced in the year 2012, this list is all you need. Enjoy!
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BEST OF 2012 POLL FOR EMERGING NYC ARTISTS
– FINAL RESULTS –
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Final results out on Monday!!!! The Deli’s Staff
NYC
NYC band on the rise: Drowners play Pianos on 02.20I told you… deep down, tough guys are just big romantics like the rest of us. In fact, the fiercer the leather jacket, the bigger the heart. Friends of band Skaters, Drowners pick up similar riffs from that group’s messy rock stature and turn them into a glorious montage to rock n’ roll the way we New Yorkers want it. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)
NYC
Seen live: American Royalty at Mercury on 02.07.2013On Thursday, February 7, LA – turned Brooklyn – based American Royalty rolled out the red carpet at Mercury Lounge for their newest “Prismatic EP.” Melding grungy rock riffs with heavy electronica vibes, melodic synthesizers, and shining two-part vocal interplay over heart-pounding dance beats, the three piece packed out the venue and fed off the crowd’s non-stop energy. Drawing from their previous two EPs, the trio included notable “oldies but goodies,” “Blood Keys" and “Lately.” Celebrating their new release, the band showcased distorted vocal lines and pulsations of a mini-megaphone on “Honey & Queen” (streaming) sultry electro-breakdowns tinged with bluesy nuances on the highlight song, “Hungry”, whistling beat-box overtones on “EVO,” and smooth shuffling, hip-hop vibes, and bluesy close on “Change the Colors of the Sky.” American Royalty’s quality rock songs and the energy of their live shows will certainly help this band grow their fan base in the city. – Meijin Bruttomesso
NYC
Frances Rose is The Deli Readers’ Best NYC Emerging Artist of 2012
NYC Deli Readers, The Deli NYC’s Best of 2012 Readers and Fans’ Poll for local emerging artists is over, thanks to all those who cast their vote in support of the emerging local bands and artists in our list of nominees. Congrats to electro pop ladies Frances Rose (pictured and streaming) for being The Deli Readers’ Best Emerging NYC Artist of 2012! Kudos also to alt rockers Apollo Run and folk-poppers Julian Fulton & the Zombie Gospel who placed second and third. Here’s this poll’s top 15 chart, full results can be found here. We’ll soon celebrate the artists that won the genre polls.
MOST IMPORTANTLY THOUGH! Stay tuned for the composite chart, to be released soon, which will include the point nominees accumulated from the jurors and Deli writers’ votes, and will crown The Deli’s Best Emerging NYC Artist of 2012. The Deli’s Staff
NYC
Total Slacker, Hunters, XRay Eyeballs + Cassie Ramone at The Studio on 02.14A not to be missed Valentine’s Day show is slated to go down at Webster Hall’s Studio in Manhattan on 2/14. Presented by Kristina Tequila, the star studded night will be headlined by scene veterans Total Slacker (pictured and streaming below). Their classic track “Crystal Necklace” set a standard for that low down, creep-along groove with appropriately reverberated boy-girl tandem vocals. Expect more of that and surely some bowl-cut fueled guitar jam-outs too. Hunters have been making waves all over the place this year, and one would expect their performance on this night to be just as punk-rock manic as recent shows of theirs have demonstrated. XRay Eyeballs spent a good portion of last year touring all through Europe. That kind of road-honed experience will surely be on display as they continue to showcase songs from their latest album “Splendor Squalor.” Opening the night will be none other than the tireless Cassie Ramone, who appears to be effortlessly juggling gigs between her bands The Babies, Vivian Girls and now these solo acoustic shows. –Dave Cromwell
NYC
Weekly Feature: Companion (Pepi Ginsberg’s new project)With a a voice that bears the ghosts of Nico or Patti Smith, and lyrics that touch on her extensive poetry background, Pepi Ginsberg is an otherworldly figure in the New York music scene. The singer and current frontwoman of Companion hails from Philadelphia with an Ivy League education from the University of Pennsylvania, and crafts songs that are as intelligent as they are inspired. Since making the transition from poet/storyteller, to singer/songwriter in 2006, Ginsberg has amassed body of work that includes four albums and collaborations across the spectrum, including an album with Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog and forming the Brooklyn Ladies Choir. In 2010, Ginsberg enlisted some of her choir singers for Companion, a band of rhythm-minded friends from New York which just released the self-titled debut album. – Read Devon Antonetti’s interview with Pepi here.
NYC
Upcoming: Vive The Rock – Fundraiser for Académie Lafayette at recordBar, 2.8.13Join an eclectic bill on Friday, February 8 at recordBar for a special fundraiser for Académie Lafayette, a K-8 public charter/French immersion school in KCMO. All proceeds go to the Académie Lafayette General Fund, which pays for music and arts education, interns, extracurricular programs, sports, free tutoring, etc. Each band will feature at least one parent of an Académie Lafayette student. The Quivers will kick off the evening at 9:30 with a raucous set of soulful rock tunes, followed by the heartfelt songwriter pop of The Sexy Accident. Rounding out the evening will be the freak pop stylings of The Hillary Watts Riot and the heavy-hitting sounds of Federation of Horsepower. The show will be emcee’d by Cody Wyoming. T-shirts for the event and raffle tickets will be sold. Tickets to the Friday show are available for $25 at this link. They will be $35 at the door. –Michelle Bacon
NYC
Show review: The Growlers/Radkey/UZIS at Riot Room, 2.3.13While sports fans gathered together over watered down brews and chicken wing cupcakes, The Riot Room celebrated Super Bowl Sunday by opening its doors to a menagerie of leather-clad locals in support of Costa Mesa band, The Growlers. While The Growlers certainly captivated Midtown with their upbeat surf-psych melodies and Brooks Nielsen’s listless shimmying, the band was framed by a full-bodied lineup, including Kansas City bands, Radkey and UZIS. A newer band made up of familiar faces, UZIS started off the night during the death rattle of Sunday’s game. Mitch Clark and Jessie Brown vocalize well together, their harmonies serving to complement the simple, upbeat energy of their set. Backed by Chris Farmer on drums, the trio executed a neatly compact set of melody-driven, lighthearted punk rock. By starting off the show with “Spider” and “Black and Blue”(a particularly well-written track), UZIS set the tone for the remainder of their performance. What the band lacks in self-indulgent guitar solos, they make up for in accomplished simplicity, reminiscent of a time the term “pop-punk” was not a musical death sentence. Their cover of La Peste’s “Don’t Wanna Die (In My Sleep)” paid tribute to the late ‘70s melodic punk reincarnated by their set. “Shut Your Mouth” evoked a sneering swagger from Clark, which accentuated the mood of UZIS performance with the perfect hint of irreverence.
UZIS, of course, were not the only band to celebrate a throwback to puritanical punk rock during Sundays show. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Radkey took the stage after a sobering break provided by Jessica Hernandez and her band, The Deltas. While their set was well executed and soulful, their placement in the lineup created a break in the pace of Sunday’s show, although I am doubtful that this was the fault of Hernandez. However, whatever energy had waned since the UZIS set was quickly rekindled by the three brothers that have recently turned so many heads in Kansas City.
After being named The Deli’s Emerging Kansas City Artist of 2012, Dee, Isaiah, and Solomon Radke have been stealing the spotlight in Kansas City, and Sunday’s show was another for the boys to add to their ever impressive resume of performances. What blows me away every time that I have been fortunate enough to see Radkey is the stunning depth of sound that they accomplish through their intelligent and well-placed guitar solos (a particularly well-placed solo during the track “Little Man” was a brilliant punctuation to their set), which are simultaneously brief and complex, as well as Dee’s deep and resonating vocals. Most press that the band has received has harped relentlessly on how incredibly young the members of Radkey are, which is understandable. But after the year that the boys have had, they have made it clear that they are not relying on any cheap gimmicks, including their own youth, to draw a crowd to their shows. Bursting out of the gate with “Where Do You Stand,” the brothers set a fast pace….and kept up with it. The track “Cat & Mouse” seems to remain a crowd favorite every set the boys have played, and Sunday’s show was no exception, the solid thumping rhythm of the song commanding attention from the steadily growing audience.
The Growlers, and their touring partners Jaill, wrapped up Sunday’s show with a notably lighter collection of tunes, culminating in the much anticipated set by The Growlers, whose current tour will culminate in their appearance at Austin’s annual PsychFest, hosted by The Black Angels this April.
Radkey will be opening for Illinois duet Local H next Wednesday, February 13 at recordBar. UZIS will be playing at recordBar as well, on Saturday, March 30, with local heroes The Architects.
–Stephanie Bloss
NYC
MS MR releases new video for “Fantasy”What makes Brooklyn electro-soul band MS MR so damn exciting is how they manage to re-configure sugary pop with some honest-to-goodness social insight. Not that Lady Gaga and Florence + the Machine (MS MR’s two most obvious influences) haven’t done that already. But, by casting a group of cheerleaders, who, outside a diner in Jamaica Queens, puke up red, gold and blue glitter, MSMR’s new video challenges some of the sucrose that seems endemic of Gaga’s celebrity overreach. Fuckin’ genius! What’s most impressive is how, in spite of all the social satire, the song remains deadly serious. My only hope is that MSMR don’t start taking themselves too seriously, as well… a major problem for the mischief-less music scene in Brooklyn right now. – Brian Chidester
NYC
The Deli Readers’ Best NYC Alt Rock Emerging Artist of 2012: Apollo RunOur year end polls closed yesterday and the results are coming in! As you may have noticed, our artist pool this year was so massive we had to organize qualifying bands by genre. While the end results were based off most overall votes, regardless of category, each genre had it’s own winner as well. Apollo Run took first place in our Alt Rock category. There is a lot of stale, predictable alternative rock out there in the music world today, even in the mainstream. That’s why a band like Apollo Run really catches our attention. Taking the alt rock sound and reinterpreting it with bright pianos, horn sections, and experimental vocals, this band is an innovator of the genre. Congratulations are also in order to Chron Turbine, who came in second place in the Alt Rock category, and The Prigs, who came in third. Both are promising bands who are solid members of the NYC Alt Rock scene. – Lucy Sherman
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