Best Funny Performance
Stasha Case in Bonanza: The Purposely Lost Episode
Most of the year's great comic turns came from the actors on the edges, those performers not burdened with shouldering an entire show. The exception: Stasha Case, who dominated Late Night Theatre's February production of Bonanza both in stage time...
Best Performance in a Play
Kaleo Griffith Man and Superman
Like high school bullies, George Bernard Shaw is all talk. But what glistening, dangerous talk, stuffed with politics and metaphors, disgust and poetry, curlicued wit and endless windbaggery. The best of the Shaw plays staged in recent years by...
Best Musical
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story
Whether a songbook musical flies or falls has much to do with the songbook, of course (which explains why we don't feel bad never giving that Billy Joel show a chance). Cut down before he had a chance to suck, Holly is the perfect subject for the...
Best Play
Fifth of July
Bleary with drink, stubbed out by life, the Talleys of Fifth of July (the final chapter of Lanford Wilson's trilogy about one Missouri family's collisions with recent American history) got us in the gut: laughs from it and kicks to it. Under...
Best Morning Show
Afentra's Big Fat Morning Buzz KRBZ 96.5
Enough with those eggheads over at NPR, discussing Iranian nuclear disarmament and documentaries starring Al Gore. Nobody needs to be confronted with all the ills of the world before a third cup of coffee. On Afentra's Big Fat Morning Buzz, it's...
Best Radio DJ
Jason Nivens KQRC 98.9
As the nightly DJ on KQRC 98.9 The Rock, Jason Nivens makes listening to head-banging metal feel authentic. The antithesis of the modern shock jock, he tells great stories but not obnoxiously. He doesn't use bathroom humor or rant. He's witty and...
Best Hip-Hop Radio Show
The Show-Me Mix Show KKFI 90.1
Up-and-coming hip-hop artists in this city are always complaining about how Kansas City's corporate radio stations don't play their homegrown releases. Instead of complaining, they should be sending their (edited for radio) tracks to Mz. DeShai...
Best MySpace Music
Joe Good and Mac Lethal "Welcome to My MySpace Page"
Musicians all over the country must have slapped themselves on their foreheads when they first heard the chorus to Joe Good and Mac Lethal's MySpace song. Everyone knows that MySpace is the No. 1 networking tool for garage-made American idols. A...
Best Band
The Architects
The Architects don't stop. Because nobody can stop them -- not indifferent music-industry lackeys and not a teenage American market enamored of black bangs and screamo. The Architects will still play a limited Warped Tour run, open for Rancid,...
Best MC
Joe Good
Jamal Gamby had already gained recognition as one-half of the MC-producer duo SoundsGood, whose Biscuits & Gravy came out last year, to much acclaim. As a solo artist on his and Mac Lethal's Black Clover imprint, Gamby -- aka Joe Good -- truly...
Best Breakout Band
The Pomonas
More than a year ago, Lawrence's Pomonas recorded an EP that wasn't so hot. This year, they turned out When You're Electric, an album on which everything fell into place. It's the kind of catchy, energetic rock that bands like Spoon hear when...
Best Small-Scale Lawrence Venue
The Jackpot Music Hall
The Jackpot is where to go to hear your favorite local band before everyone else gets the T-shirt. It's the perfect place for uppity vinyl nerds to say, "Oh, I saw [insert newly minted king of hipster music band's name here] at the Jackpot before...
Best Local Label
Anodyne Records
A local label is often nothing more than a clever name that some unsigned band slapped on the back of its self-released CD. Not so Anodyne. For years, it was hard to tell just what Anodyne was doing outside of the immediate area, but now this...
Best DJ/Producer
Miles Bonny
Even though his SoundsGood partner, Joe Good, branched off, Miles Bonny didn't recede into the background. In a series of moves that would make Beck jealous, Bonny rediscovered jazz and vocal R&B and still maintained a presence on the scene...
Best Album
Roman Numerals Roman Numerals
Our ultimate party: We're headed out to visit a friend in Brooklyn. We take a few shots of Grand Marnier, and in our jacket pocket is this CD from a Kansas City band that was repeating on our iPod the whole flight over. It's catchy and dance-y,...
Best Local Song
"Savannah" In the Pines
At first, In the Pines was noteworthy for its novel lineup -- acoustic guitars, four-part vocals, loping drumbeats, a 1940s pump organ and violins. The band's mournful-to-brutal dynamic was enough to turn heads. But we're past that now, and the...
Best Rap Track
Joe Good "In Ya Mouf"
There's civic pride, and then there's the earnest search for a local identity. "In Ya Mouf" from Joe Good's mix Hi May I Help You? goes way beyond the Chiefs, the Royals and barbecue. It calls for all local hip-hop artists to rise up, resist the...
Best Soundman
Dave Gaumé
"It wasn't our best show, but Dave was there, so at least we sounded good." We've heard this statement numerous times at bars while listening in as area musicians reported on their latest gigs. A true gentleman and amplification wizard who cares...
Best Sexy Musician
Jamie Searle It's Over
Jamie Searle, of relative newcomer band It's Over, resembles two people. One is hometown hero Matt Dunehoo of Doris Henson. The other is the John Lennon of the early '60s, who led his fledgling Beatles through rundowns of original ditties and...
Best One-Man Freakout
This Is My Condition
Craig Comstock looks normal enough -- a bald guy wearing shorts and sneaker who's cheerful and approachable. But when he sits down behind his trap set -- a gnarled, ancient guitar laid across it and a microphone swung around the high-hat -- a wild...
Best Live Band
The Last of the V8s
Time was, just about every car that rolled out of Detroit packed a V8 engine, the monster that drove families to church and propelled teenagers recklessly down back roads after dark. Now, big engines are the albatross around America's gas-guzzling...
