Showcase Showdown

This year marks the arrival of the first Pitch Music Awards.

The event is different in name only from the Pitch-sponsored Klammies of the past five years. Why change now? Well, first of all, we just like the straightforward name better. It's classier, it's more self-explanatory and, as Bad Brains fans, self-help gurus and high-school athletes everywhere know, its acronym, PMA, also stands for "positive mental attitude." Second, we're admittedly caving in to pressure from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which is cracking down on any and all Grammys soundalikes (look out, Press Your Luck reruns!) with the same sort of ferocity NARAS president Michael Greene displays when he pillories Napster. And third, if Jam's Mike Metheny asks, the change reflects increased sensitivity to jazz musicians, since a "clam," in jazz jargon, is a sour note -- something that obviously shouldn't be rewarded.

In a few other significant changes this year, we've separated pop from rock, keeping melodically minded acts apart from heavier-hitting hellraisers. And we finalized the divorce between punk and ska, which have long been estranged; the change leaves ska's local delegates to shack up with the world-music crowd. This year's new category, Best Live Act, celebrates artists who make each concert a unique experience, thus rendering superfluous the already weak argument for skipping area gigs by esteemed local acts. ("Ahh, they'll be back next week.")

The pages that follow include profiles of all of 2002's Pitch Music Awards nominees, who were picked by a select panel of club owners, promoters, record-store staffers, music writers and radio personalities. But Kansas City music fans get the final say, whether they vote online at pitch.com, send in ballots from Pitch issues or vote at the five showcase venues on April 4, the final polling day. We'll announce the winners during an April 12 ceremony at the Uptown Theater.

Among the candidates are some familiar faces, but none of these artists coasted onto the ballot by reputation and past accomplishments alone. Perennial rap-category winner Tech N9ne justified the voters' love with AngHellic, a concept-driven dynamo that might be KC's best-ever hip-hop release. The Get Up Kids and the Anniversary toured with indie-rock royalty and treated fans to new discs. Kristie Stremel and Season to Risk contended last year on the strength of their unreleased gems; in 2001, they finally, and effectively, translated their sets into coherent records.

This year's comeback crew includes Ultimate Fakebook, currently spitting pure rock fury at the major label that did it wrong; Creature Comforts, who grabbed numerous awards three years ago before shrinking from view, then triumphantly returned with high-profile engagements with the Strokes and Tech N9ne (at Spirit Fest); and Coalesce, a cloud of noise that rained productive side-projects (members play in the Get Up Kids and Casket Lottery) during the three-year calm before its latest storm.

First-time nominees range from 85-year-old Myra Taylor to 19-year-old Danielle, from stage-destroyers Last of the V8s to majestic scene-setters Namelessnumberheadman.

Voters get to check out a diverse cross-section of the talent themselves at the Pitch Music Showcase (don't play the acronym game with this one), now in its second year. On April 4, no fewer than 25 bands will play sample sets within easy walking distance of each other at five Westport clubs.

The showcase offers a small-scale springtime replacement for Kansas City's now-defunct Blues and Jazz Festival, with the legendary Taylor and saxophone standout Bobby Watson -- among other luminaries in both genres -- making rare Midtown appearances. And the Showcase always manages to resurrect one or two left-for-dead bands; this year, the members of Big Jeter and Go Generation set aside their crippling artistic differences for at least one hour to give their groups festive funerals. Almost half of the groups performing on Showcase night are newcomers to the ballot, meaning that many of these musicians will be counting on first impressions to sway curious concertgoers. And no direct competitors share time slots, meaning that, say, a novice jazz fan could become intimately familiar with three of the genre's local masters in one night.

The Showcase provides a last stand for candidates from each of the fifteen categories, but it also stands alone as a premier entertainment event, serving up 25 outstanding acts in one dizzying five-hour fling. April 4 brings the end of Music Awards voting, but for many showcase-goers, it marks the start of a new appreciation for area artists -- an unqualified victory that's as important as the kind that results from tallies and tabulations. --Andrew Miller

Best Pop

The Anniversary
The table was set for the Anniversary to follow the lead of so many promising local bands that recorded a great album (1999's Designing a Nervous Breakdown) and promptly faded into obscurity. But while the group did lay low for a while, preferring to tour incessantly before writing new material, obscurity was never in the cards. In fact, with its cohesive 2002 release, Your Majesty, the Anniversary one-ups Nervous Breakdown. Rolling Stone calls it "goofy" but says it works; we call it hard-working power-pop goodness.

Creature Comforts
If this award recognized the band that epitomized the Midwest's sound, Creature Comforts would win by a landslide. But that's not its function, so the quartet will have to bank on the hummable merits of its prairie pop. Still, you've gotta like the group's chances -- it won three Klammies for its debut disc, The Politics of Pop. On record number two, Teaching Little Fingers to Play, the Creature Comforts maintain the melody count while slowing down occasionally so frontman Christopher Tolle can show off his ever-maturing songwriting chops.