The 1997 Dallas Observer Music Awards

Along with fellow nominee Light Bright Highway, Mazinga Phaser has ushered in a new music culture to Denton's scene. Now is the age of the Argo, where groups like Mazinga perform their music. "The Argo and Denton have both gotten a really good rep for--as much as I hate to use that word--'space rock' or whatever," says Dover, who also books acts for the Argo. "People are more receptive to that stuff up here than in Dallas."

--Howard Wen

Mess
Nominated for: Album Release
You are in your twenties, and things don't feel quite right. In fact, they suck. New music doesn't sound as good as your old records. You hear your favorite songs about teenage depression and realize you're still depressed. This is some ugly deja vu. Furthermore, you realize that all the extra props you used to fight misery--drinking, pills--are the same ones you use now. You start to panic. Teenage blues feel the same as quarter-century blues.

You start a band. You call yourself Mess, because this is how you feel. You hope it will kick the blues away. You start writing songs about beer, pills, and girls. You play your favorite songs--pretty much--but you change the lyrics to fit your reality. It feels great for a while, then all of a sudden it hits you that instead of escaping the blues, you sing about them. You put out an album called Pretty Ugly, and you wait for your friends to commiserate with you. You celebrate with them for a while, and then get drunk and stupid and pass out--only to wake up the next morning to face the same life. You play the old punk rock and try to make it sound like new punk rock until you realize that the definition is so abused there may be no punk rock anymore. Even so, you thrash about, write a bunch of catchy hooks, and hope things will change for the better.

--Philip Chrissopoulos

Meredith Louise Miller
Nominated for: Folk/Acoustic, Female Vocalist
Ever since a friend compared Meredith Miller to a china doll some years ago, the metaphor has stuck. The association was meant to convey her porcelain features and good posture, but it goes further. Her music is deceptively fragile and simple at first glance, yet is solid to the touch and earthy at its core. Maybe it's her pebble-laden drawl, or her matter-of-fact observations that sting with honesty as well as cleverness.

On ifihadahifi, Miller gives the public a take-home version of the songs she's been singing for years--alone, with Broose Dickinson, and now with a full band. Granted, the album doesn't hold any of her live show's dry, fun, Miller moments, or any of Miller's jokes. But all the classics--songs like "Dreams of You and Elvis," the haunting "His Heart," and her popular cover of the Everly Brothers' "Wishing," are here in all their simple glory.

--Scott Kelton Jones

Mood Swings
Nominated for: Cover Band
This Denton quartet is a true powerhouse with the sole mission of re-introducing all the gems of '60s psychedelic garage punk. As cover bands go, they serve a noble cause: Instead of pounding your brain with rock "favorites," they act as a Cliffs Notes for the magic of pre-FM rock from the likes of the Sonics and Love along with other unsung, worthwhile obscurities. They are as scratchy, edgy, and trebly as those old 45s, and they have an attitude to match.

Only a handful of the songs--be they psychedelic, garage, '60s punk, or whatever you call it--trigger vague recognition. This music was overshadowed by the Summer of Love and the bloat of Woodstock, the raw energy and pure adrenaline swept away by the influx of new rock stars taking rock seriously. After that it was all hour-long guitar solos and rock symphonies.

A big hand, then, to the Mood Swings for looking through rock's back pages and fine print to find these treasures, then presenting them with such demented reverence.

--Philip Chrissopoulos

The Necrotonz
Nominated for: Cover Band
"That totally cracks me up," says Necrophilia, Diva of the Dead, when informed of her band's nomination to the Observer music awards ballot. "We've only played like five gigs. People are sick."

The Necrotonz originally hail from Las Vegas. "We all ended up in the same graveyard, out in the desert, owing to various gangland-type, ah, problems," Necrophilia explains. "When the city started to grow, our graves were disturbed, so we came to Dallas." Once in the Big D, the quintet formed the Necrotonz as a "tribute to bands that are dead, or rock stars who have enjoyed spectacular deaths--Jim Morrison, Lynyrd Skynyrd--and pretty much death in general.

"The whole lounge thing, that's so dead that it's come back again," Necrophilia says, explaining the band. "So it's the whole ugly musical circle come 'round again." Right now the band's specialty is spooky covers of crypt-rockers like Alice Cooper's "I Love the Dead," but they're working on original material in the same vein, and they don't discriminate as to their fans. "We're always looking for willing participants," Necrophilia coos.