Happy 2010 musical Newyorkers!

Here at The Deli we start the new year with the much anticipated results of our Open Contest linked to our Year End Best of NYC 2009 Poll for emerging artists.

For the unaware, this Open Contest is the part of our Year End Poll which nominates artists through an open submission system – while the majority of the finalists are freely selected by a jury of NYC bloggers, promoters and scenemakers.

First of all I would like to say that it was truly difficult to choose the winners for this contest, and I can genuinely assure you that if we had an endless amount of time to devote to this we would have probably selected 50 to 100 bands instead of 15 or so. This is a testament to how amazing and strong the NYC music scene is right now.

The incredibly high number of submissions forced us to think about a system that would allow our jurors to listen to all the artists’ music properly and to allow all musical genres to be present at the end of the process. To serve this purpose we decided to break down this mass of submissions, and split the entries according to the following genres (which we’ll tackle in detail in the next few blog entries):

1. Alt Rock + Metal
2. Indie Rock + Electro Rock
3. Avant Indie + Noise Rock + Psych Rock
4. ndie Pop + Electronic + Other Genres
5. Rootsy Genres + Songwriters

It must be said that in this case the artists themselves assigned their music to each category during the submission process.

As of course all our NYC writers’ objectivity is flawed by their familiarity with some of the bands involved, to keep the voting as objective as possible we decided to put our out of town editors in charge of the judging. We assigned 3 of them to judge each category – their names are listed next to the results. And to keep things fair, we rewarded a similar amount of artists from each category, rather than going for the highest scores overall.

I personally removed myself from this voting process and it was tough to see some of my favorite local artists not make it to the final phase of our Year End Poll. Nonetheless, I still think that our in house jurors did a great job and that this list of emerging MYC artists is nothing short than phenomenal.

Keep an eye on our poll on the right, as it will soon be populated with all the bands nominated for our bigger Year End Poll.

Paolo De Gregorio
www.thedelimagazine.com

Categories: Alt Rock + Metal
Region: NYC + NJ + Long Island
Jurors: Deli SF,LA and Philadelphia Editors

NOMINATED FOR NEXT PHASE
1. The Shake – 8
2. The States – 7.833
2. Midnight Spin – 7.8333
4. Cavalier Rose – 7.5

RUNNERS UP
Starring, Surefire, Porter Block, The Living Kills
 

Categories: Indie Rock + Electro Rock

Region: NYC + NJ + Long Island

Jurors: Deli Ryan, Chicago and Philadelphia Editors

NOMINATED FOR NEXT PHASE
1. The Courtesy Tier – 8
2. Anamanaguchi – 7.5
2. Streetlab – 7.5
2. Zambri – 7.5

RUNNERS UP
Field Mouse, Waking Lights.

[Monogold]

Categories: Avant Indie – Shoegazer – Noise Rock

Region: NYC + NJ + Long Island

Jurors: Deli Chicago, New England and Philadelphia Editors



NOMINATED FOR NEXT PHASE
1. Monogold – 8.33
1. The Vandelles – 8.33
2. Dinosaur Feathers – 7.66

[The Vandelles]

RUNNERS UP
Werewolves, Von Haze.

[Catarina Dos Santos]

Categories: INDIE POP + ELECTRONIC + OTHER

Region: NYC + NJ + Long Island

Jurors: Deli Portland, New England and Philadelphia Editors

NOMINATED FOR NEXT PHASE
1. Catarina Dos Santos – 8.333
1. The Paper Raincoat – 8.333
3. Savoir Adore – 8.166
4. Miracles of Modern Science – 7.666

RUNNERS UP
Pow Wow!, Brit & the Cavalry, A Big Yes and a small no, Twin Sister

[April Smith and the Great Picture Show]

Categories: Rootsy – Folk – Songwriters
Region: NYC + NJ + Long Island
Jurors: Deli SF,LA and Philadelphia Editors

NOMINATED FOR NEXT PHASE
1. April Smith – 8.5
1. Motel Motel – 8.5
3. Jones Street Station – 7.833
3. Julie Peel – 7.833
4. Midnight Masses – 7.5

[Motel Motel]

RUNNERS UP
Hymns, No Eye Contact, Quiet Loudly, Kagero, Numbers and Letters

Finally! Something classic and clean streaming through my ear buds. Break of Reality is exactly what their name implies. A break from all of this indie rock madness and a step into the simple eloquent pleasures of a striking clan of cellos. Maybe I’m biased because I played the bowed 4 string as a youngen, but nothing beats the sound of a cello – listen to the bow’s horsehair passionately caressing the strings! These guys are ripping their instruments to shreds with passion – it’s gold! This is cello music you can bang your head to. – CS

This album could very well be a relic from the 1960s.  Doug Gillard is like the Cat Stevens of 2009 with his deep (sometimes robotic monotone) vocals and classic guitar oldies sound. And he has the music cred to back up his solo endeavors having been a guitarists for Death of Samantha, Lifeguards, Gem, Cobra Verde, Guided by Voices, the list goes on.  He has something special to offer as a soloist and Call From Restricted is a chance to hear the pure Gillard sans collaborations.  So if you thought his first solo Salamander [2004] was a gem, just play “Time is Nigh” for a song that could very well be on the Harold & Maude soundtrack. Doug Gillard plays the Mercury Lounge on January 05 – CS

“I was born on False River in Louisiana. Moved around a lot. Joined the merchant marine. Fell off a boat and was rescued by a magical sea turtle. Worked at a Jello factory. Was followed home by a bear cub who I raised and taught how to skydive. His chute failed to open one day and the hole must go all the way to China. After that I moved to New York.”- AA Bondy will play Union Hall on 02.06. Read Erin O’Keefe’s full AA Bondy feature here.

Led by vocalist Leo Maymind, Spanish Prisoners blend bubbly psych pop with dark telltale vocals and daydream guitar textures. Recently the band has played shows with the likes of Daniel Johnston, John Vanderslice and Foals. Shortly after their debut Spanish Prisoners expanded with keyboardist Amberly Hungerford, who also contributes with vocals adding even more diversity. They have recently released the “Los Angeles Guitar Dream” EP to a mass of good press, followed by a 7”, with remixes by RAC and Blind Man’s Color. In July they played a residency at the Cameo Gallery sponsored by The Deli and The Music Slut. – Read Stacy Surface interview with the band here.

Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweethearts in Bands,

As usual, The Deli’s Year End Poll (for emerging artists) will assign the cover of our Spring Issue 2010. The polling process is as complex as rocket science (if you want to try and get your head around it be our guest and go here).

The submissions for the open contest that will select minimum 3 artists for the next phase is now closed. We are currently receiving the jurors’ votes. The next phase will be the readers’ vote, which will start on January 3.

All the bands that submitted to our open contest were also added to our chart system for indie artists – which will get them some exposure in the future. 

Here we are taking a little bit of a holiday break – we’ll still have some content up in the next few days, but not as much. We will see you back in early January – in the meantime Happy Holidays to you all!!

The Deli’s Staff
www.thedelimagazine.com

Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweethearts in Bands,

As usual, The Deli’s Year End Poll (for emerging artists) will assign the cover of our Spring Issue 2010. The polling process is as complex as rocket science (if you want to try and get your head around it be our guest and go here).

The submissions for the open contest that will select minimum 3 artists for the next phase is now closed. We are currently receiving the jurors’ votes. The next phase will be the readers’ vote, which will start on January 3.

All the bands that submitted to our open contest were also added to our chart system – which will get them some exposure in the future. 

Here we are taking a little bit of a holiday break – we’ll still have some content up in the next few days, but not as much. We will see you back in early January – in the meantime Happy Holidays to you all!!

The Deli’s Staff
www.thedelimagazine.com