Hump Day News helps the 2023 Boston Music Awards do Best Rawk Artist better.

Didja see? The Boston Music Awards nominations started rolling out in September.

What are the BMAs? Well, the annual music awards ceremony is presented by the whiskey drink Jack Daniels. It’s held at Big Night Live on December 20th. Tickets are sold for seats you sit in. And the logo looks like Paul Revere on a horse, carrying a boombox?

The website says the nominations were pinned down by September 18th.

If you have the time and prolific output, do what Pile did this year: release a killer album (All Fiction) earlier in the year, reap the extra attention won in a relatively quiet time of the year for album announcements, then drop a short & sweet EP (Hot Air Balloon) in the last quarter to remind everyone that you’re still alive and you’re awesome.

Evil genius!

If you want to vote, vote here.

RAWK ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Rawk n roll! Taking its toll.

The legendary guitarist and composer Glenn Branca (RIP, 1948-2018), who cut his teeth in the NYC No Wave scene, once quipped that the genre rock n roll, like jazz, was in danger of becoming moribund as an inevitable consequence of its own success.

It’s unclear whether he quoted the quote before or after the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame broke ground in Cleveland.

Don’t pay too much attention to the naysayers. People with nothing to say are always saying the novel is dead. But there are new novels worth reading every year. Tune out the haters and turn up the amp.

Here’s the list of BMA nominees:

Aviations, Dino Gala, Extreme, Miracle Blood, Paper Tigers, Pile, The Blue Light Bandits, The Endorphins, The Rupert Selection, and Vundabar.

Hump Day News has caught Dino Gala, Pile, and The Endorphins live. We were in the general vicinity of the stage at In Between Days when Paper Tigers played this year. That counts as coverage!

Let’s improve the list with a few adds.

How about Jean Paul Jean Paul?

Raise a beer, shout/sing-a-long, do the Watusi. These rockers aren’t dour-core. It’s a party when Jean Paul Jean Paul takes the stage.

How about Andrew Stern?

The guy’s got chops enough to blast off into the futuro-jazz stratosphere, but he hangs out with us here on Earth because that’s his grind. He lifts up the rock n roll vernacular rather than skating above it. Catch his 1,001 bands, including AS3, Crystal Lizard, and Hellbender, playing around town at fancy digs and musky dives alike. New album Lonely Hunter might be a Carson McCullers ref?

How about Bikethrasher?

This band thrashes. It’s unclear whether bikes are involved, but the rhythms and progressions are tight. This is a coiled muscle of a rock n roll band.

How about Astral Bitch?

This band is getting listed for New Artist of the Year, so they get passed over for mention in their genre? Pile didn’t. Hump Day News will make the necessary correction. You need to appreciate the six-string, Joan Jettitude of this four-piece. Go see them live.

Music Publication Of The Year