Voting has begun for the annual Syracuse Area Music Awards, or Sammys, and the list of venues and musical talents is long. People are encouraged to vote online for ‘The People’s Choice’ at this link. Easy to do, enter an email, choose a venue and a band listed, and hit the submit button and viola! Done!
There are some interesting choices in there this year to say the least; a local marathon (The Mountain Goat Run and Outdoor) a t-shirt business (Zink Shirts) are in the venue category and there are acts I have never heard of under the artists’ category (The Rome NY Blues Brothers?) and DJ’s? No offense to DJ’s, I just never thought of them as artists but I’ve been wrong before! So, it’s eclectic and that is the point I suppose as this tends to morph into a popularity vote more than an assessment of who truly deserves an award. People do that though, just look at the all-star voting in any sport. But, that is also what makes it fun, the different opinions that I see and hear. ‘I love this music from the 70’s’ vs. ‘Heavy metal rules’ vs. ‘No man, it’s the blues!’
You know that the areas old proven names are there so the new bands have to get the people voting to unseat them. The venues have to as well. So make sure you vote!
I asked Executive Board President Liz Nowak about it, this first list is all write-ins by you the fan (or friend, or maybe you nominated yourself) the voting goes until next Tuesday when the top 64 move on to the next weeks voting, then the top 32, etc. The nominations are seriously looked at but some oddballs get through (hey! You try and catch every little thing in that mountain of names!) Liz said ‘in the past "joke" entries weed themselves out or are deleted but the top vote getters are verified’.
Thanks for letting me bug you Liz, you rock!
Now to address an important issue that is brought up every year; rap and heavy metal get no love and/or are ignored by the judges. I’ll get with the judges and all that in a separate article but here are the facts on something that answers that preconceived notion quite easily. They received, after much calling for submissions to all of you, ONE (yes, one!!!) heavy metal music submission. ONE! Yes, we are talking physical recordings. Rap/Hip-Hop had seven so at least they are getting in the game kids! You can’t complain if you don’t get yourself in the field of play. Which brings up the whole MP3 thing too. Go get a real recording done! Yes all the do it yourself stuff is easy, I wanna be a producer, blah blah blah but seriously, go get it done by a studio professional. Call them, get pricing, get with it! Call Jeff over at Moletrax! He loves fresh rock!
With one lousy physical submission to the judges, metal/hard rock bands, you have nothing to complain about, end of story.
http://www.syracuseareamusic.com/peopleschoice
Tune in next time as I hunt down the judges and see what they are all about.
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