After almost 2 weeks of voting open to readers and fans, indie rockers Driftless Pony Club (pictured) emerged as the winners of our Chicago Best of 2011 Fans’ + Readers’ Poll – congrats to the guys! The most rocking pony club in history had definitely a great 2011, and this is a nice way to start the new year. Kudos also to sexy industrial-pop-rockers i:scintilla and roots rock advocates The Steepwater Band, who placed respectively second and third. The overall results of the Chicago year End Poll for Emerging Artists – including the votes from jury and open submissions – will be released soon.

1. Driftless Pony Club

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2. i:scintilla

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3. The Steepwater Band

Mellow folk duo Bird Courage returned to Brooklyn after 4 months to release their new EP "A Promising Flee"with a show at Spike Hill on january 29. The album is emotionally and vocally charged and introduces an abstract theme of ‘coming of age’. – (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here). The Deli’s NYC Open Blog is powered by The Music Building and APS Mastering.

Stepping out into the numbing Chicago air after a Bad Drugs show you start to notice the sweat freezing all over your body, and you think to yourself "What the fuck just happened in there?" It was all over in a flash and you could barely hear yourself think over the vocals grinding through the crash of guitars and the relentless slamming of the drums. Kyle Reynolds may be in a few bands around town, but there is no doubt in my mind that Bad Drugs is the one that opens the flood gates to his aggression. No matter how disoriented everything may seem while surrounded by professional slam dancers, there is no need to worry because these guys definitely have their created chaos under complete control. – Michael H 

Country Mice aren’t new to these columns – the band played more than one Deli showcase, including a packed CMJ one a couple of years ago. The band released their full length debut last year and is about to go on tour in the spring and hit SXSW on the way. They just released this video of the single "Morning Son", compiled of footage that was shot during their last tour.

They say a great cover is one that does something new with a song, without destroying its essence. Otherworldly shoegazers Golden Gardens did just that on their six-song EP, The Covers, released in December, despite a selection of songs that isn’t exactly intuitive. Golden Gardens’ greatest talent lies in their ability to create dreamscapes out of soundscapes, something that serves them well as they take on other artists’ works – after the first track, it’s easy to forget that these are songs you’ve heard before. The band interprets the songs of Creepshow, Morrissey, Red House Painters, Tears for Fears, Hole and Julee Cruse, with each piece receiving the same gauzy treatment typical of the band’s original material. Every listen creates a different sub-universe built on rippling guitar play and careful percussion. The dream-pop duo defy all skepticism and cover Hole successfully – on “Violet”, Audrey Bramble achieves the perfect tone, translating Courtney Love’s anguished howls through her own diaphanously pure vocals. Bramble and bandmate Gregg Neville released their first full-length album, Between the Siren and the Amulet, last August. With Neville’s recent relocation to Seattle, the band is looking forward to more shows in the city, starting with a March 4 appearance at The Crocodile.

– Kate Shepherd

Recently signed to Merge Records, home to numerous indie luminaries, Hospitality is in excellent company. There’s something irresistibly charming about the band members’ unassuming dispositions that bleed into the quartet’s accessible pop music. The band will be releasing their debut, self titled full length with a show at Glasslands on Friday 02.03. – Read Nancy Chow’s interview with the band here.
 

Moonmen on the Moon, Man, the lo-fi project involving Cake Shop owner and booker Andy Bodor, will be celebrating their debut EP release with a show on Friday February 3, at the Ludlow Street venue. The band blends punky guitars, lo-fi attitude and girl vocals accompanied by a somewhat crooked choir of backing vocals.

Nate Martinez’s brain child Thieving Irons recently released this video of the song "So Long," which sent us flat out on a trip to the early 2000s, when The Beta Band was our favorite band in the universe. This music’s most peculiar quality is that it manages to be haunting and melancolic but at the same time also fun. The band will be playing a Monday February residency at The Rock Shop, we recommend indie pop seekers to make plans to catch at least one of their shows.

There’s a very simple way to describe Holy Wave‘s music: the Austin based group sounds like a shoegazer version of early Pink Floyd (the awesome ones still under Syd Barret’s musical influence). Barret’s unpredictable but haunting songwriting and his band mates’ knack for droney experimentation are revisited here and taken to the sonic extremes proper of shoegazer music. Psych rockers from every corner of the universe will surely be happy to get lost in this (interstellar) ocean of sound. Holy Wave qualified to the final phase of our poll through SonicBids.

As the bleakness that is post-holiday winter in New York stretches endlessly ahead, the phrase, “I need a vacation” rings all too true for many. If you can’t get the time off, look no further than Vacationer’s “Gone EP” set to drop on the last day of the month. Members of electronic collective Body Language plus Kenny Vasoli, formerly of The Starting Line, bring lush waves of ambient indie pop stacked with beachy melodies. The Brooklyn and Philly based band’s dreamy sound is bound to transport souls to a hazy, thoroughly tranquil parallel world. While their music may be quintessentially mellow, Vacationer certainly won’t be relaxing much in the next few months. After they release their EP on the 31st, they’ll be supporting The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, playing shows throughout the US as well as several dates in Canada. In March, Vacationer comes out with their “Gone LP” and will be joining Naked and Famous on another tour. – Corinne Bagish

Brooklyn-based five-piece band Snowmine will be curating and headlining four nights at Piano’s beginning on February 2 and continuing every Thursday for the remainder of the month. Each night will feature three supporting acts and be co-presented by a different partner including ExFm (2/2), The Wild Honey Pie (2/9), our own The Deli Magazine (2/16), and the creative agency Pulp Lab (2/23). The shows are sure to be unique events each time, and will serve as essential hometown showcases before the group heads out to SXSW in March, as well as an upcoming tour in the South & Midwest. The band’s sound embraces an imaginative brand of psych-pop with emphasis on echo pedals, tribal beats, electro-acoustic soundscapes and classical orchestrations. Snowmine is fronted by composer Grayson Sanders, whose vocals have been compared to Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, and Jim James of My Morning Jacket. – Dave Cromwell