SA Music Awards (2014)

Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2014

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Best Album

Best Album 1. Are These the Good Days? (Crown) The debut LP from the bluesy trio of Carlos Zubillaga, Josh Borchardt and Oscar Webber, Are These the Good Days finds Crown in righteous psych form. One of the best-sounding albums of the year, Crown employed Brian Lucey, who also mastered the Black Keys’ El Camino…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Best Singer-songwriter

Best Singer-songwriter 1. Bekah Kelso Holding down the fort as SA’s best singer-songwriter, Bekah Kelso is branching out with her backing band the Fellas, a neo-soul outfit with extreme chops: keyboardist Ricky Hernandez, bassist Damián Rodriguez and drummer Ryan Kelso all charted in their respective categories. 2. Felix Truvere 3. Reed Deming

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Grupo Texas Heat

Best Tejano/Conjunto Act Best Guitarist (Ryan Ortiz) Best Vocalist (Ryan Ortiz) Best Keyboardist (Richard Salazar) Best Drummer (Andrew Rodriguez) Most Underrated Artist (Second) Well, if Grupo Texas Heat was underrated, those days are in the rearview. After winning the Best Tejano/Conjunto referendum in 2013, the SA quartet cleaned up this year, courtesy of a tradition-preserving,…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: J. Ryan

Best R&B Artist Best Song (“Apology,” Second Place) Best Album (‘Apology,’ Second Place) Best Video (“No Happy Ending,” Second Place) Most Underrated Artist (Third Place) Though he’s from the crawling ’burbs of Stone Oak, J. Ryan hasn’t been spending too much time around San Antonio these days. Two years ago, after an impressive run on…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: BLK Sheep Music Group

Best Video Best Record Label Best Hip-hop Group (3rd Place) With Positive 4 Opiates Vol. 2, the Texas-toasted, syrup-for-breakfast rapper South Sil won the nod for Best Hip-hop Artist last year. For 2014, Sil teamed up with some newcomers to San Antonio, creating BLK Sheep Music Group, a hybrid between a record label, video production…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Best Jazz Band

Best Jazz Band 1. Royal Punisher Featuring Estevan Garcia on sax, Don Robin on guitar, Phillip Luna on bass and Kory Cook on drums, Royal Punisher’s incendiary improvisations and keen compositions continue to land them at the top of the polls. It’ll have to be a true revolution in SA jazz to dethrone this royalty.…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Tides

Best New Artist As far as best new artist winners go, Tides. feels like an unassuming choice. The band name, wisely shortened from Spirit Tides, still lacks a certain splash value. At first pass their music—a chiming, pleasant blend of indie-pop—glides by evanescently, often leaving no trace it was ever there. But in the spirit of…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014 Current’s Choice: Femina-X

What does a band that claims Aphex Twin, Erykah Badu, mariachi singer Vicente Fernández and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as influences sound like exactly? You’d be hard-pressed to come up with Femina-X out of that cross cultural jumble of influences, especially given the overt turn-of-the-millennia Björk vibe the group exudes. However, that wide-ranging eclecticism comes…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014 Current’s Choice: Lonely Horse

When the Lonely duo of guitarist Nick Long and drummer Travis Hild employs the ‘desert’ descriptor on their first EP, My Desert Son, it’s referring to the actual desert, right? The exquisite solitude and sublime might of the Chihuahuan melted down and poured into a rock ‘n’ roll mold—something like that? “It’s just the heat,…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014 Current’s Choice: The Bolos

San Antonio garage act the Bolos plays a fuzz-enthused twang-infused brand of boozy blues that really crackles and cooks. With strong East Texas roots, these boys are drawn to the blues—particularly in the style of Howlin’ Wolf, Ledbelly, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Junior Kimbrough—before anything else. On the other hand, as aficionados of garage rock old…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014 Current’s Choice: Milli Mars

“Milli Mars: a metaphor for change,” explains the SA rapper. “Mars, space, wanting to get away totally. I love Greek mythology, and Mars is the god of war. Milli: a thousand gods of war. It’s just me, I can’t give anybody anything else.” In his rhymes, videos and in conversation, Milli Mars radiates confident energy…

San Antonio Music Awards 2014: Most Underrated Artist

Most Underrated Artist 1. Kae Hache The crown jewel of the Fresh New Sound collective, Kae Hache has the potential to be a one-woman hit machine, delivering on deft verses and memorable, syrupy R&B on her hooks. “I’m feeling myself, but I won’t stop ’til I’m feeling my wealth,” Hache promises on “Vi$ion.” 2. Grupo…


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