BMAs // Rock

A guide to the 2024 Boston Music Awards

The 2024 Boston Music Awards is at Big Night Live on December 11.

Hump Day News was nominated for Best Music Publication.

You can vote for all the nominees here.

To honor our glorious symbolic inclusion and insufferable clout chasing, we’re rolling out the BMAde Betterz series for 2024. In this series we send the nominees through the meat grinder to yield three main categories of sodium-enriched meat byproducts.

The “New To Us”
- Never heard of them, or at least never heard them. But they’re on the list, so let’s have a listen.
The “House Specials”
- We’ve covered these acts, we treasure these acts, we 100% get why they’ve been nominated.
The “New To You”
- These artists didn’t make the list, but they should have!

Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

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Hump Nights

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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️ Hump Nights 〰️

Hump Nights

Nov 13

The story of women making the Boston music scene. In-house appearance and Q&A (and maybe a uke performance?) with Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls).

The Modern Faces / Perfectly Lethal / Whyte Lipstick / Luddites

Nov 13

The Modern Faces, pop punk powurrr. With Perfectly Lethal, Whyte Lipstick, Luddites.

Linnea’s Garden / The Ghouls / Catwolf / Goodkarma

Nov 14

Linnea's Garden EP release, w/The Ghouls, Catwolf, and Goodkarma at Deep Cuts.

Nov 15

The 4th Wall celebrates its 1-year anniversary with Trash Sun, Lady Pills, Petal Dance, and the Dreamtoday at the Capitol Theater.

Nov 22

Hard rocking Cortez has a real metal ripper with their new album Thieves and Charlatans. With Worshipper and Curse the Son.

Nov 30

Punk in broad daylight. Get there early for WORM, Presidential Disgrace, Screw Cart, and Neponset Monastary.

Dec 14

Biribá Union w/ Balla Kouyaté at the Regent Theatre.

Dec 26

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along. The movie like you've never seen it before: host, goody bags, glam ups encouraged!

Dec 31

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along. The movie like you've never seen it before: host, goody bags, glam ups encouraged!

Hump Nights

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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️

Rock Artist of the Year // Nominees

Exit 18 // Hyber // J Mascis // JVK // Parts Per Million // Pet Fox // Pile // Salem Wolves // The Ghouls // Tysk Tysk Task

OK, Hyber isn’t 100% new to us. We covered them way back for the 2023 Hope Fest, which since transmogrified to the 2024 Moon Over Salem. Either way, they got the sandwich rock vibe, whatever that means, and dropped a new EP All The Things It Hurt To Know in August. And Salem Wolves dropped a concept album about a down-on-his-luck pro wrestler this year. How many bands bother to attempt concept albums these days?

J Mascis – why the hell not? He’s certainly done enough to earn his Massachusetts stripes, so he’s eligible for your vote, and he’s blossoming all sorts of different color shades late career. Love it.

The Ghouls won the Rock N Roll Rumble, so that’s a no-brainer. They narrowly beat out Gut Health. Seemed like a tossup to me, despite what the yahoo Lowell crowd says in the comments. And that just means both bands were great, bozos.

The Ghouls

And The Winner Is…

The Ghouls take the W in the Rumble Finals at Sonia.

Two Out of Four

The Ghouls fly to the Finals at Sonia.

From Lowell, With Love

Burp. pushes out excess air from the upper digestive tract at the Middle East.

JVK and Tysk Tysk Task leveled up with an Orange Stage appearance at Boston Calling.

Pile and Pet Fox continue to be some of the most credible local bands in the (post?) rock n roll space.

Trophy Husband shreds on their new album Trophy Husband Hates You. Husbands experiments with some of the best gazey rock textures around. Main Era’s latest album The Bank, A Farmer backs off the pop sound for a deeper, darker, No Wavier grind. (Might list that band in the Alt/Indie category too. You can’t stop me.) And Awnthay’s genre-bending sound is hard to categorize, easy to love. And we’ve never been to a boring Electric Street Queens show.