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Best Cover Band
Hard Nights Day

Let's be honest. Bands come and go so quickly these days it's hard even to remember some of their names. A lot of the groups that get written about in the Weekly fit this pattern. How refreshing it is then to see Beatles cover band Hard Nights Day (that's no typo) top eight years with no signs of slowing down.

"We like the music, and we're doing it for fun," drummer Doug Cox explained. "We don't take ourselves too seriously. But we take the music seriously."

The band has remained a quintet since its conception at Dallas' Club Dada in March 1994 (where HND has been holding a weekly gig ever since). Cox said having five people makes the live experience more like what fans are used to hearing on those classic John-Paul-George-Ringo recordings. Cox said Beatles cover bands that employ only four players have a hard time recreating live those signature Beatles double-guitar parts and piano fills.

Every member of HND is involved in other musical projects, but as HND they can gig constantly -- and generate revenue. Their goal, said Cox, isn't monetary as much as it is personal: They love the Beatles and they want to bring the best Beatles sound to fans. Hard Nights Day has played everywhere from Fort Worth to England -- but, said Cox, they'd still like to do a few more Fort Worth dates. Cheers to that. --Adam Woodyard

Best Live Band
The Riverboat Gamblers

Using a name no one would instantly associate with punk, The Riverboat Gamblers make no excuses for their brand of Texas rock. The boys in the band just wanted something "classy lookin'," vocalist Teko said, to act as counterpoint to all that nasty rock 'n' roll they play.

The Gamblers, whose members also include Tuffy, Spider, and Colin Ambulance, have been gigging around Fort Worth the past four years, but Teko said it's only been in about the past year and a half that things have really started to take off. Bands they've played with have just kept inviting the Gamblers out to cities farther and farther away, and, Teko said, "The idea of drinking somewhere else sounds appealing."

An atomic fusion of rock and punk (always a dangerous mix at a live show), the Gamblers' sound delivers lots of sweaty aggression. Teko said experiencing the Gamblers live might even change a body's outlook on life: "They'll leave with a little more rock 'n' roll in their soul."

The Riverboat Gamblers have a self-titled album out now on Vile Beat Records, but the show remains The Thing (as any true rocker will tell you). Either way, the clubgoers of Fort Worth must know what they're talkin' about.

See The Riverboat Gamblers Saturday, June 22, at Spider Babies in Dallas, with special guest Electric Frankenstein. --AW

Best Experimental
Sub Oslo

There's probably a fair portion of North Americans who don't know that, in the beginning, some creative souls (in Jamaica, rumor has it) yanked the vocals out of songs, played up the bass lines and rhythm tracks, and looped additional beats over the result, for what has become a very complex musical experiment called dub.

In the past few decades, dub hasn't gone anywhere -- or you could say it's gone everywhere. In late 1996, what would become Sub Oslo began as an idea in far-from-Jamaica Denton. The two-headed rhythm section met their future mixer in a dark and crowded bar. (Don't all good adventures start out in a dark and crowded bar?)

From that core of three -- mixer John Nuckels, drummer Quincy Holloway, and bassist Miguel Zeliz -- the experiment has since grown to eight members -- nine, if you count video projectionist Paul Baker, which they do.

Sub Oslo's first full-length c.d., Dubs in the Key of Life, was released in 2000 in the United States on 2 Ohm Hop Records. It has since been re-released on sister labels in Europe and Japan; this allowed the band to tour Tokyo in the summer of 2001. "It's a patient, ethereal sort of sound," Holloway said of the band's sonics; he also called them, "galactic skank." It's "the kind of music the Rastafarian in Neuromancer listens to."

Sub Oslo is currently at work mixing its next full-length, tentatively titled The Dubs Remain the Same. --AW

Best Classical
Fort Worth Classical Guitar Society

Best Classical: Jan Ryberg and Christopher McGuire of the Fort Worth Classical Guitar Society.

The newest winner in this category is an old one. The Fort Worth Classical Guitar Society took the honors in 1998 and 1999, then was beaten out for the last two years by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. This year, the Guitar Society is back on top. "The symphony does three concerts a week for a couple thousand people, while we do five concerts a year for a few hundred people, so people must think that guitars are groovy," said the Guitar Society's Christopher McGuire. On a more serious note, he added, "We have consistently brought in, over seven years, the very best internationally touring concert artists, and then we also have two world-class ensembles that are in residence here [the World Guitar Trio and the Fort Worth Classic Guitar Quartet]. Hopefully, we're developing a reputation for high quality on a smaller scale."

Guitar fans can expect more of the same next year, plus a few new features. The society will be featured on WRR-FM on the first Sunday of every month next season, playing material from previous or upcoming shows. The society will also take a page from the Van Cliburn Foundation and host an international guitar competition for new artists. The best from this top-flight organization may be yet to come. --Kristian Lin

Best Jazz
Johnny Case Trio

Best Jazz: the Johnny Case Trio.

A few weeks ago, in talking with a big Fort Worth jazzbo, jazz pianist Johnny Case's name came up. The jazzbo paused, sipped his water, and then said matter-of-factly, "We all worship Johnny Case."

Hard to argue with such reverence. It's been well-earned.

Case began his musical career in the 1950s as a child performer, singing and playing guitar with his older brother Jerry Case. The duo played old-timey country-western music on regional tv shows, radio programs, and in front of live audiences around Fort Worth and Dallas. Then, when he was about 15, Johnny discovered budget jazz LPs -- Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Dave Brubeck -- and jazz piano. "I knew at that distinct moment that's what I wanted to do," he said. "From that point on, I had focus. I was fortunate, I guess, to learn at a young age what I wanted to do in life."

Johnny taught himself piano and played the instrument in Jerry's assorted western swing bands throughout the 1960s and '70s. Johnny honed his jazz chops on the side. In the mid-1970s, Johnny began Priority Records, his own independent jazz label. "It was just an outlet for me and brother and other guys we admired. We put out about 10 or 12 albums. We didn't expect them to sell well, but we got them out there and distributed and reviewed in some national and international jazz magazines."

Johnny landed his first six-night-a-week jazz gig in 1980 at JR's Place off Camp Bowie. He played there for about a year, and then freelanced until 1983, when he scored his current nightly spot at Sardines. (That's 19 years with one place!)

"I'm pretty content the way things are," Johnny said. "It makes me happy to have that recognition. I've been doing it at Sardines for so long. It means a lot to me. I appreciate everybody who voted."

Johnny's most recent c.d., Creative Explosions, is available at Record Town on University. --AM NEXT »

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