Best Local Artist
Steve Tulipana
As a founding member of Season to Risk, the group that redefined intensity for local audiences for more than a decade before going on indefinite hiatus this year, Steve Tulipana already deserves permanent hall-of-fame status. But this award recognizes the stunning tear he's been on just in the past year, outdistancing him from any other local artist. Last Halloween, he unveiled Unknown Pleasures at the Madrid Theatre, blowing away the highly touted informal Joy Division cover band (Interpol) that had recently played the same venue. Sticking with the devil's night spirit, he continued to provoke with the Pornhuskers, a group whose outrageously offensive stage antics often overshadow its raw-nerve garage-thrash glory. He joined Onward Crispin Glover as a second guitarist and took that KC indie-rock staple's sharp sound to new, jagged peaks. This year, he would have come full circle with another uncanny '80s revival (the as-yet-unseen Psychedelic Furs tribute Ghost in You), but duty called when Reggie and the Full Effect recruited him to man the ax on a major club tour. Oh, and he sent Season to Risk to sleep with one of the finest farewells in recent memory. In a two-night stint at the Hurricane, the group split its output into two eras, assuring seamless set lists, while passing the torch to up-and-coming experimentalists (and likely future recipients of this plaque) such as Ad Astra Per Aspera and Hot Children.
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