San Francisco Music Blog

SF Weekly Music Awards 2008
Ruby Skye
October 16, 2008
Words and Photos by Tamara Palmer

Better Than: Staying home with Ugly Betty

This year's Awards program was a colorful and diverse celebration of local music and people. If you weren't at our special affair at Ruby Skye last night, here are this year's winners without further ado.

2008 SF Weekly Music Awards Winners

Rap/Hip-Hop: Subtle
Dance/Electronic: Wallpaper
Alt-Country/Folk/Singer-Songwriter: Sean Hayes
Club Night: Saturday Night Soul Party
Jazz/Blues: Nice Guy Trio
Experimental, Etc.: Uni and her Ukelele
Indie Rock/Pop: Thee Oh Sees
Metal/Psych/Punk: Wooden Shjips
International: Brass Menazeri
Soul/R&B/Funk: Lord Loves a Working Man

The real delight in watching the winners was that pretty much everyone seemed surprised and excited to be given an award. International awardees Brass Menazeri thanked their fellow nominees and even said how much fun it's been to share the stage with some of them. That's pure class.

Subtle's Dax Pierson thanked his friends and fans for helping him get through the accident in 2005 that has left him partially paralyzed.

The bubbly Uni actually admitted that she didn't prepare a speech because she thought she wouldn't win. Ditto for her Ukelele, which stayed uncharacteristically silent.

Wallpaper had the sartorial splendor in effect as he picked up the Dance/Electronic honors, but he looked more like a certain Neverland-ish pop star.

My interest was most piqued by Soul/Funk/R&B winner Lord Loves a Working Man, of whom I had not previously heard (but later scouring of the Internet radiowaves turned up some super sweet beats).

Oakland quartet the Heavenly States took to the stage to kick off the music, and a creative highlight was the band's sort of Bill Maher remix of Fergie's soft R&B hit "Glamorous," which they renamed "Religulous."

Maneesh The Twister, resident DJ for 2007 Club Night winners Surya Dub, then livened up the dancefloor with irrepressible bass and bop.

Our cute and camera shy music ed Jennifer Maerz presented the last award of the evening, a special tribute to the ever-versatile Lyrics Born. LB then took to the stage with vocalist Jayo Velarde and his tight, funky band to close out the show on a high note.

Critic's Notebook:

Personal bias: Full disclosure: We are SF Weekly.

Random detail: There was a makeshift beauty salon in the back where ladies were gettin' their hair did.

By the way: Icer Air was doing a crazy ski and snowboard demo outside on Mason Street, but I was stuck in traffic and had to watch it from the car.