2006 Houston Press Music Awards Supplement

For guys who claim their main influences are "really fucked-up headaches," God's Temple have big ambitions: They want to open for U2. Or just be a huge commercial success, either one. If U2 ever needs an opening act that plays "really heavy, really slow, kinda loud, wait, really loud" music, God's Temple might have a shot. In the meantime, they'll stick around Montrose and put out independent releases.

Name: Dizzy Pilot

Nominated In: Best New Act

Web site: www.myspace.com/dizzypilot

Personnel: The White bros. (Josh: guitar, vocals; Jason: drums), Kody (bass), Bill (guitar)

Here, in its entirety, is how Dizzy Pilot describes itself on its MySpace page: "A Hell spawned mixture of the bowels of fornicators and the sinew of thieves and gluttons! If the Butthole Surfers, The Rolling Stones and The Flaming Lips were to catch a cat, put it in a bag, set it on fire and beat it with socks stuffed with bar soaps, all while singing nursery rhymes on a burning airplane that is plummeting to its death...it would sound like us." Sounds good to us.

6 p.m.

Name: Rotten Piece

Nominated in: Best Experimental/Avant-Garde

Web site: www.geocities.com/lazysquidrekkids

Personnel: Carol Sandin Kelly and Shaun Kelly

Rotten Piece hopes to see you in the dark sometime soon. No, they aren't perverts (okay, they might be perverts). It's just that they want to score films for a living. But until that happens, they'll stick to their "monster movie" music act on stage. Rotten Piece does mostly originals. Not originals as in songs they wrote, but originals as in "What the hell is this?" The few times they do covers, it's the Butthole Surfers, thrown in with Stickmen with Rayguns and a little Dwarves. Despite their high standards (anyone who covers Butthole Surfers has really high, high standards), the duo does sell out every once in a while, like the time they wrote some music for the opening of a Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The score was built from samples from the first Star Wars film, but Luke Skywalker and Co. are on Rotten Piece's "Hate It With a Passion" list. If the pair doesn't get asked back to the museum, they won't mind. They like it better at Super Happy Fun Land anyway.

7 p.m.

Name: Sky Blue 72

Nominated in:

Web site: www.skyblue72.com

Personnel: Jessica Zweback (drums, vocals), Frank Zweback (bass), Davis Jumper (guitar, vocals)

Brother and sister team Frank and Jessica Zweback claim bandmate Davis Jumper as an honorary brother, and he's along for the ride as they travel "fearlessly along an uncharted road of rock, soul and emotional fortitude. The gravelly road ahead reveals ever-evolving musical exploration. Strap yer boots on." Jessica and Frank have both won Music Awards before -- Jessica for Best Female Vocalist in 2003 and Frank's band zwee for Best Funk Band. Sky Blue 72 was born later that year, when Davis started writing songs with Jessica, and Frank gave up front-man duties for a regular stay on the bass.

8 p.m.

Name: Davin James

Nominated in: Best C&W

Web site: www.davinjames.com

Personnel: Denny Dale "Cletus" Blakely (bass), Drew Balog (keys), Michael "the General" Patton (skins)

Kingwood-based James, who took Best Song honors in '01 for "Magnolia," dishes out "honest, real-life, Southern music with a general feel-good attitude groove."

9 p.m.

Name: Deep Ella

Nominated in: Best Alternative Rock

Web site: www.deepella.com

Personnel: Jeff Crowder (vocals, guitar), Carlos Fumero (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Jason Light (bass, Jäger shots), David Garcia (drums)

Deep Ella got its name when the girlfriend of one of the band members got lost on Ella Boulevard. Meaning to say she was looking for a shop that was on the other end of Ella, she said the store was in "deep Ella." Thankfully, the band has a better musical direction, and they found their groove lots easier than the girlfriend found the shop. (Oh, yeah, the band wanted to say, "Hi, Mom!")

RED CAT JAZZ CAFÉ

4 p.m.

Name: Bright Men of Learning

Nominated in: Best Traditional Rock

Web site: www.myspace.com/brightmen

Personnel: Marshall Preddy (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Kahlich (guitar, keyboards), Jeff Senske (drums), Johnathan Sage (bass, vocals), Benjamin Davis Murphy (guitar, keyboards, vocals, percussion)

"Dark, sad-bastard character studies" framed within songs with "memorable, shiny pop hooks, woo-hoo choruses, and lots and lots of guitar solos" are the current stock-in-trade of the Bright Men of Learning, the latest band name longtime Houston scene vet Marshall Preddy has engaged. "A kind of sonic mid-life crisis" is another way the band explains themselves; "a muscular hybrid of classic rock and beloved mid-'90s indie heroes like Pavement, Yo La Tengo and the Lemonheads" is a third.

5 p.m.

Name: Cl'che

Nominated in: Best Underground Rap/Hip-Hop

Web site: www.myspace.com/clche

Personnel: Cl'che