Big D's Great Roar

As long as this talented quintet decides to remain together, they will probably keep winning this award. For one thing, they have some pretty damn good source material. I mean, it's one thing to pummel a well-lubricated crowd with AC/DC or Led Zeppelin riffs and quite another to skillfully re-create some of the most cherished songs in music history. Second, these guys get special kudos for helping Club Dada get back in business; just how vacant would an already echo-filled Deep Ellum be without the glimmer of Dada? And finally, by expanding the set list to go beyond the standard British Invasion Fab Four fare (even throwing in some great McCartney and Lennon solo numbers), these cheerful lads avoid the annoying tendency of cover bands to champion authenticity over enjoyment. Sure, Hard Night's Day still dress the part in those fey suits and skinny ties, but when it comes to keeping 40-year-old memories alive, there are few groups better than Bob Cummins and crew. Check the Internet and you will find more than a dozen Beatles cover bands using the name Hard Day's Night, but you will find only one Hard Night's Day. —D.S.

PPT
Best Rap/Hip-Hop

"It's a blessing to be a hip-hop group in Dallas," says Pikahsso, one-third of PPT, a trio of talented artists and producers who have quickly gained critical acclaim and a rabid, multi-ethnic fan base from all around the metroplex. Along with writing the official Dallas Mavericks playoff theme song and performing at a rally for Kinky Friedman, the trio found time to complete Tres Monos in Love, their impressive debut released early this year on Idol Records. "People want to like hip-hop, but they fear it," says the hyperkinetic and humorous 31-year-old Pikahsso, who insists his real name is a closely guarded secret. "PPT relates to the Dallas audience, and we can help them overcome their fear." Pikahsso is a graduate of Lincoln High School, and he met his cohorts, Picnic and Tahiti, at local nightspots. "We are a triple vortex," says Pikahsso, who claims he got his moniker because his rapping skills were so abstract. "PPT is like three tornadoes coming together as a funnel cloud, tearing up trailer parks." Already recording their next effort, Denglish, Pikahsso and crew have a leg up on the competition in that they mercifully never take themselves too seriously. —D.S.

THe BAcksliders
Best Blues

Forget records and CDs and MySpace—THe BAcksliders are a band best experienced live, preferably on a cramped stage in a sweaty club in a dubious part of town. And if you think it's unusual for a rock band to be named the Best Blues act in town, then you haven't heard Kim Pendleton sing. Imagine a much sexier Janis Joplin, all Tina Turner fishnets and Mick Jagger swagger, milking each song for all it's worth as husband/guitarist Chris Bonner, bassist Nolan Thies and drummer Taylor Young make a righteous garage-soul racket behind her. (Now imagine her doing the same thing in her third trimester, as she did earlier this year before having her first baby.) Relentless self-promoters, the band has recorded two albums and played 130 shows in their brief two-year existence—and it's doubtful even parenthood will slow them down too much. "I have little advice on rock momdom," Pendleton says. "Just be clean and find a good sitter." We'd gladly volunteer for the job, but we heard THe BAcksliders were playing. –N.W.B.

Shanghai 5
Best Jazz

Ironically, Shanghai 5 is in the process of finishing up their latest record with Earl Harvin in the producer's seat...Earl Harvin, the winner of a bajillion Best Jazz DOMAs, including last year's (at which point he was officially retired from the ballot). Reid Robinson, the angular and tree-tall Shanghai-ster, is hesitant to describe the sound of the new recorded effort for a lack of satisfactory words, but mention of the collaboration with Harvin plays to the band's "all together" style enough.

Robinson asserts that Shanghai 5's forte is really putting on and performing in variety shows. "We do better when we collaborate with people," he says. "It makes our energy better, and it's really more about the whole show than about an individual act. Those are the shows we love to have." The band has worked often with hip-hop outfit PPT, played with the odd-duck Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players and was featured on PBS' Roadtrip Nation. They dig activist events for the sheer challenge of turning what could be an uncomfortable situation into an entertaining but meaningful occasion. Hell, they even collaborated with designer Lori Fox on a DIFFA jacket.

And all this variety only celebrates Shanghai 5's diverse grooves. The group produces a mélange of sound, with elements of cabaret (much of that coming from Amy Curnow's torchy pipes), blues, tiki/luau, lounge, rock and outright improv. By that very definition, Shanghai 5 is all forms of jazz rolled into one incredibly hardworking band. —M.M.

Burden Brothers
Best Hard Rock

When former Toadies frontman Todd Lewis and former Reverend Horton Heat drummer Taz Bentley decided to merge their angst, neither could have imagined how quickly their new band would entrench itself in the musical consciousness of Dallas. Or maybe they did. By tapping into the recognizable, male-centered passion of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Guns N' Roses, Lewis knew that Dallas bands are not often known for subtlety or arty pretension. Buried in Your Black Heart, Burden Brothers' 2003 debut, was meat-and-potatoes rock with riffs hammered into your skull by sweat, volume and veteran dexterity. Mercy, the sophomore follow-up, showed the band expanding its range, however slightly, mixing in some somber reflection ("Life Between") to go along with the expected snarl of "Shine" and "She's Not Home."

Live, Burden Brothers have created a buzz not heard around these parts since, well, the Toadies' halcyon days. When they play the Granada, the line stretches seemingly to Fair Park and the shows become cathartic celebrations, linking fans of disparate ages in a communal sauna of familiarity and fury. The day after a Burden Brothers performance, once the hangover subsides, fans are never too far off claiming they've seen the best band in Dallas. —D.S.

The Paper Chase
Best Experimental/Electronic

In the last year, The Paper Chase have seen a new album released (Now You Are One of Us), along with seeing Alaska (and many other parts of America), Europe and a lineup change (new drummer Jason Garner). Hell, they've even celebrated the birth of the first TPC offspring. It's been a busy year for John Congleton and the rest of the band, but they've taken it in stride, continually knocking audiences on their asses show after show.

Much of what makes The Paper Chase successful both live and recorded is a flawless combination of the beautiful and the cataclysmic. Lyrically, the band ventures heavily into the horrific and political (which, to be fair, is often horrific), and while the instrumentation supporting such lyrics ventures into minor keys and throbbing, low tones, it does so with near luxurious symphonic aplomb. The experimentation with mood via melody leaves one both frightened and feeling romantic and, at the same time, incredibly challenged and energized.

All this comes from some of the most passionate but approachable folk in the industry. Every member of The Paper Chase has his iron in more than one musical fire, but the chemistry is unparalleled when they play together and, for this, they are grateful. "Every aspect of the band, as far as how we work together, has been so healthy," Congleton says. "A lot of what's fun about being in a band is having a shared experience with these other guys. And I can feel fairly safe in saying everyone's giving everything they've got when we're playing live. It's nice to share that with other people. If other people think it's awesome, that's fucking great." —M.M.

The Valentines
Best Indie

Sigh...when is the music world gonna retire the term "indie"? Its meaning has been through so many incarnations, who the hell knows what it signifies?

For the sake of argument, let's set down a general definition. If indie means independent in spirit; if indie means celebrating the legends of the past who cared not a whit about smashing drum kits or slurring sexily into a mic or wearing tight pants; if indie means rocking roller-coaster Britpop melodies, drifting up and down over guitars that sound like the Beatles through the Smiths through the Stone Roses through the streets of Deep Ellum, then the Valentines are certainly the Best Indie band in the 'plex. With their revved-up garage dance pop and bangs-in-the-face aesthetic, this is a crew that brings a touch of Manchester, Soho (both London and New York) and the Lower East Side to our fair part of the world. Had they been born in another place at another time, there's no doubt Factory Records' Tony Wilson and 4AD's Ivo Watts Russell would have had a fistfight over their collective soul. And no matter who won, the Valentines would have told them to piss off. —J.W.

Fair to Midland
Best Metal

Hailing from Sulphur Springs, Fair to Midland have taken their share of ridicule over everything from their name to their rabid, quickly expanding fan base. Although the members can be legitimately chastised for the former, the "haven't paid their dues" critique doesn't carry much weight in these days of the digital download, where MySpace has created an audience for bands yet to form.

Working in the oddly profitable progressive metal genre, Fair to Midland are currently in Europe, touring in support of the recently released and ponderously titled Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True. Cultivating an international following, singer Darroh Sudderth, guitarist Cliff Campbell and the rest of this instrumentally nimble-fingered quintet just keep getting better, heavier and more popular. "Dance of the Manatee," the album's single, reached No. 19 on the Mainstream Rock chart as the band continues to draw an unlikely mix of geeks, jocks, and disaffected, pasty-faced youths to their lengthy performances.

For better or worse, Fair to Midland will always be linked to the Mars Volta, but that association, despite the snickering of critics, has increased the likelihood that these local boys will be confounding audiences all over the world for many years to come. And, as Sudderth notes, they are still Texans at heart: "We put some shit in our kick," he notes. And they certainly are kicking ass to boot. —D.S.

Best Producer
Salim Nourallah

"The thing that blows my mind day in and day out is how many ridiculously talented musicians play in this city," Salim Nourallah says. "This city has a huge, untapped potential that would explode somewhere else." A family man, Nourallah has a nurturing nature that seems perfectly suited for enhancing the sounds of the city's so-called untapped. "I feel really blessed that a few of these guys seem to be finding me." That's probably because you won't find Salim Nourallah's Pleasantry Lane under "recording studio" in the phone book. He doesn't advertise, and he doesn't need to. A prolific musician in his own right, Nourallah has had a hand in some of Dallas' recorded successes by way of knobs and dials. Among his recent client roster are Sorta, I Love Math, Carter Albrecht, J.D. Whittenburg, the Cut-Off and, soon, the Old 97's.

He remains as humble and enlightening a father to his projects as he is to his own son—reminiscent of the relationship of two of his pop favorites, father and son Neil and Liam Finn. Hopefully, unlike the elder Finn, Nourallah will be lauded by more than cult followings or those in his own city haunts, but it seems that wouldn't matter to him either way. "Being nominated and winning this is better than a Grammy to me," says Nourallah. "This is my home. These are my peers! That's what means the world to me. It isn't this ridiculous rock-star-famous trip. Leave that to the rest of the world. It's a wonderful thing." —M.M.