Yo, Kansas City! It's time to rock the vote!

Kirsten Paludan (Olympic Size)
Kirsten Paludan has one of the purest, most unaffected voices around -- a voice that got her a guest spot on Melrose Place a few years back. A veteran of the stage and the thankless wedding-singer circuit, she's also been in Bellweather (on indefinite hiatus) and an early incarnation of the Stella Link. Paludan now croons with the acoustic Metropolitans and with Olympic Size, a gloomy, bedroomy combo whose first album, Set Free, came out earlier this year and gained the band a following among the indie scene's many sleepwalkers and night owls. Paludan is due to release a solo album shortly -- a preview listen at the Pitch offices revealed an autumnal cabaret of seductive balladry.

Kim Anderson (Flee the Seen)
See Punk.

Heidi Phillips (Abileen)
Abileen's Heidi Phillips has been a local star since her band Frogpond hit it fairly big in the '90s. (Interesting factoid: Another amphibious band, the Toadies, was all the rage in Abilene, Texas, about the same time Frogpond took off.) Phillips has said that her fast rise and fall with Frogpond left her a bit burned out, and that's almost how her new band sounds -- but it's a romantic, diner-by-the-desert-highway kind of burned out. With Abileen, the coffee-voiced Phillips continues to steam, brewing up a moody, rambling product of the parched prairie. (www.abileenmusic.com)

Best Folk/ Singer-Songwriter
Arthur Dodge
Hail a taxi in Lawrence and there's a chance you'll find yourself in the company of one of the area's most prolific singer-songwriters. The release of Room #4 last year, the cab-driving Arthur Dodge's fourth with his backing band, the Horsefeathers, further cemented his rep for crafting the sort of songs that could be born only from late nights and odd fares. (www.arthurdodge.com)

Kasey Rausch
Kasey Rausch is notorious for writing songs that inspire her audiences to bust out and sing along (something they do often), and she has the talent to make local spots such as Parkville seem just as romantic as her own East Texas roots. Still, she's no mere folkie. Rausch also deserves props as a fan, an organizer and a constantly enthusiastic presence who has worked far beyond her music to build an area folk scene that's more vibrant than it's been in 20 years. (www.kaseyrausch.com)

Forrest Whitlow
Even though his recent work has been closer to deranged, electric slacker rock, Forrest Whitlow is still best-known as the rather eccentric folk singer who brought his smooth tenor and finger-style acoustic from Kentucky to Westport a few years back and roped area freaks E. Clarke Wyatt and John Bersuch to form his backup band, the Crash. Speaking of which, Whitlow's Web site claims that the Crash is on hold "but will likely reconstitute itself in some unrecognizable form at a roller rink in the south of France on a random Friday in 2081." Just in time for this prolific songwriter's 478th album, we predict. (www.forrestwhitlow.com)

Jerry Dowell
Jerry Dowell is a folk dreamer with his head in the clouds and both feet planted firmly on the Kansas prairie. Equal parts traditional, country and guitar rock, Dowell creates his own sound without ever abandoning deeply entrenched musical heroes like Neil Young and Stevie Ray Vaughan -- and every lick on any of his three full-lengths reinforces his roots. Now playing a handful of local shows, Dowell is also working on his second book, On Some Passionate Night, a collection of prose that brings his lofty ideas down to Earth. (www.jerrydowellband.com)

Old Canes
It's been a year since Old Canes' Early Morning Hymns came out on Kansas City's Second Nature label, but there's still nothing too old about the Canes. Led by Appleseed Cast frontman Chris Crisci and fleshed out by members of Minus Story, Casket Lottery and a bunch of other underground ragtaggers, the Canes -- though silent of late -- remain among the vanguard of young folkies (In the Pines, Drakkar Sauna) who aren't afraid to reinvent the American music traditions that gave Bob Dylan a reason to pick up a guitar in the first place. (www.oldcanes.com)

Best Hardcore/Metal
The Esoteric
The Esoteric has survived just about everything that can be thrown at a hardworking metal group -- lineup changes, record-company headaches and, most recently, a house fire that destroyed nearly all of the group's equipment. Fortunately, the Lawrence metal unit rallied and turned tragedy into triumph. The Esoteric's summer road trek (including 11 East Coast dates on the Warped Tour) packed venues from coast to coast, and the band's latest opus, With the Sureness of Sleepwalking, can only be described as incendiary. (www.the-esoteric.com)

Eyes of the Betrayer
It's already been an award-winning 2005 for Eyes of the Betrayer. The group dominated February's Heavy Frequency Awards, taking honors for Best Hardcore/Metalcore Band, Best Frontman (Dustin Albright) and Album of the Year (for Recovery). Betrayer also performed at that event, proving that it deserved every accolade. Albright, a self-assured showman, prefaces crushing breakdowns with improvised jokes and non sequiturs -- people actually stop midmosh to catch his latest quips. The group just embarked on its longest-ever nationwide tour in support of the Los Angeles group (and Recourse Records labelmate) Winds of Plague. (www.eyesofthebetrayer.com)