BMAs // Live Venue
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
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Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix
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Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️
Small Live Venue // Nominees
Club Passim / Deep Cuts / Grace By Nia / Lilypad / Lizard Lounge / O'Brien's Pub / The 4th Wall / The Burren / The Jungle / The Rockwell
Hump Day News gets around, so there’s not many local venues that we haven’t been. But we’ve never graced Grace By Nia, a new dinner-and-music jazz, RnB, and soul to Boston’s Seaport neighborhood. And if there’s one thing that ritzy tourist trap of a neighborhood needs, it’s (a) soul!
Deep Cuts is good music, good food, good beer, good times. Their calendar is a nimble mix of local and nationally-touring indie music acts, with a liberal dose of comedy, DJ nights, and all kinds of weird artsy/craftsy events to boot. Our favorite shows this year? Hard to pick, but Impossible Dog was a revelation, the solo Rick Maguire (of Pile) gig was cool, and the Puerto Rican punk night with Dávila 666 was pure gold.
Happy Birthday to The 4th Wall. One year in, and already the spot has become a reliable oasis for local and out-of-town DIY music lovers to set up shop for a night. Kudos to the organizers, Ethan and Biff, and kudos to Digital Awareness (who really need a whole category unto themselves) for providing the visual projections that transform a humble screening room into a concert space. Highlights of 2024? It was cool to see Pile play the main room, Jim E. Brown was hilarious, and we were blown away by Circus Trees’ performance of “Save Yourself.”
Midway Cafe has been nominated before for Best Music Venue, and it needs to get back on that list because they’re the real deal when it comes to supporting the local scene. Like the awning above the door reads, music “7 nights a week.” That’s no joke. Matinees too! 2024 highlights include the E record release, the Jerry’s Got Jokes sendoff, and the annual classic Smell the Love, a JP Music Fest fundraiser.
The Silhouette Lounge proves how much vibes matter when it comes to performance spaces. No one is going to confuse the darts & pinball room in the back of the Allston dive bar for MGM Music Hall, or even Brighton Music Hall down the road. But if you want to drink straight from the DIY firehose of Allston Rat City in the company of tallboys served up by Bill the Bartender, where else would you want to go? Regular music on Mondays and Wednesdays, and sometimes other days too. 2024 highlights include Jiddo in the pit, Hell Beach rocking a keytar, and the grate getting stuck shut.
BMAde Betterz
BMAde Betterz Cards
Trace Mountains outlines summits at Deep Cuts.