Beyond Daylight

Figuring the local music scene needed a jolt of ... of ... something, a little-known label called BackAllie Music stepped up to present The Pittsburgh Music Awards last Saturday at the Andy Warhol Museum.

One of the nominated musicians, who chose to be anonymous, gave us his/her perspective on the event:

The awards show was interesting, using the analogy of a blind date, I’d say it 'had a good personality.'

As a band, almost weekly you get hit up on Myspace from unknown entities trying to get you to be in some kind of battle/awards, etc. -- mostly are all a scheme. We were thinking to ourselves, 'Ok, here are some possible awards and it is nice to be nominated, but who are they actually from and what does it actually mean and do we have to pay/sell tickets or something like that? Also, around this time of year there are more well known things to solicit fan voting for, so from our perspective there was a hesitancy.

Anyway, about the show, they tried to make it the traditional awards show format like the Academy Awards. So they announced a category, who was in it and then announced the runners up and the winner. They played the winner's music over a small stereo and if the winners were there they could come up and make an "acceptance speech.' Many times the winners were not in attendance, so no speech happened, but a few times it did. I’d say there were 80 to 100 people there, almost all of them were from bands nominated.

The other interesting thing about the show was that while there was a brief performance from Phat Man Dee (she has an amazing voice) and a couple of others, it was almost entirely a reading of awards announcements and then it was over. So it was a quick way to spend 10 or 12 bucks. The awards were black and white printouts of the category and in one case it was just written in Sharpie. A highlight of the night was when Justin Sane from Anti-Flag talked a couple of minutes about why he plays music and what he thinks a music community should be like, very cool and inspiring.

It took place in the foyer of the Warhol, which was a great visual backdrop, but not really suited for audio. We did get to talk to a couple of bands we’ve never met before so that was another cool thing.

I understand and very much respect Allie did this all DIY and I give her a lot of credit for that. A few things about it seemed very, very DIY, and some of them seemed more legit. There are a lot of easy improvements they could/should make (easy for me to say, I know), depending on what direction she takes it in. So I think if she wants to make it super-professional seeming, she has a great foundation to do that from, or if she wants to keep the DIY feel, she can do that also. Will be interesting to see if/how it happens again.

Here is the list of winners, with the runner-up(s) listed first.

BEST ALL-AROUND MUSIC VIDEO
2: Identity X – “Archetype”
1: The Composure “Stop now, Start again”

BEST PUNK BAND
2: Plastered Bastards
2: Children of October
1: Ghostwrite

BEST PUNK ALBUM
2: Children of October - “Die baby, Die”
1: Chances Are High - “This Is What It Takes”

BEST PUNK SINGLE
2: Children of October “Die baby, Die”
1: Ghostwrite “Apple Bomb”

BEST HARDCORE BAND
2: Seas We Fear to Sail
2: Gutrench
1: Liquified Guts

BEST HARDCORE SINGLE
2: Colors -”This Shouldnt Be Legal”
1: 50 Caliber Dream - “Of an Angel, Of a Whore”

BEST ALTERNATIVE ROCK BAND
2: Alive in the Underground
1: Beyond Daylight

BEST ALTERNATIVE ROCK ALBUM
2: The Cascade Atlantic - “Tacoma”
1: Identity X – “Perception Is Reality”

BEST ALTERNATIVE ROCK SINGLE
2: Identity X - “the Depth Perception”
1: Yours Truly

BEST INDIE ROCK BAND
2: Gramsci Melodic
1: You the symphony

INDIE ALBUM
2: Chux Beta - “Now We Rise and We Are Everywhere”
1 :The Cascade Atlantic - “Tacoma”

BEST INDIE ROCK SINGLE
2: The Cascade Atlantic
1: Chux Beta - you’ll live forever

BEST METAL BAND
2: Dethlehem
1: Maesion

METAL ALBUM
2. Sathanas-
1: Ursus –Awakening Of The Absent Minded
1: Maesion - “I Am Atlas” - Pittsburgh Post Gazette