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Best Icehouse

West Alabama Ice House

No effing contest. Once again, West Alabama Ice House gets the prize. The beer, the bikers, the bands -- this place has it all. Where else can you dine on dogs, pitch shoes and take it to the hole, all in one place? In your own backyard, you say? Well, that's the point. This place has always been more of a family barbecue than a watering hole, albeit one where even your ne'er-do-well uncle can fit in. On any given day the party is populated by hippies, yuppies, kikkers and hipsters. At least a few of them have got to have something in common with your drunk unc. Bring him out, but make sure he stays clear of the horseshoe pit: A lot of these folks aren't the best when it comes to aiming.

Best Montrose Bar

Rudyard's

Sure, Poison Girl may have come along and seduced away some of this venerable bar's clientele and staff, but Rudyard's has kept on keeping on. Mike Simms has continued longtime booker Scott Walcott's great tradition of quality music; the new outdoor seating area is the tops; and the beer, burgers and fish and chips are as tasty as ever. All of 27 years old now, Rudyard's today seems reinvigorated, somehow a bar apart from what it was a few years ago. Or as Mr. Kipling himself once put it, "Funny how the new things are the old things."

Best Reminder that Houston Is Still in Texas

Goode's Armadillo Palace

With the Inner Loop getting all cosmopolitan and whatnot, it's often all too easy to forget that you're in Texas. Thank our lucky stars for the Armadillo Palace, Jim Goode's latest paean to all things Lone Star State. There's museum-quality lore on the walls, twangy sounds on the stage, lots of little Texas touches (pistol-grip door handles, saddles on the barstools), the clack of dominoes and plenty of Goode's wonderful Gulf Coast grub. It may not be subtle -- 15-foot, red-eyed, smoke-breathing armadillos like the one outside the saloon's front door never are -- but Houston needs more oases of Texan-ness like this one.

Best Place to Be Glad You're Alive

Next Door Coffeehouse's garden labyrinth

The cell-phone tower a pistol shot away is probably frying your brain. Horns are honking. But once you're inside Next Door Coffeehouse's garden labyrinth, that world starts to disappear. This secret spot features short, teenage shrubs clipped into a sort of labyrinth, a meditative path. Somehow, it encourages you to pay closer attention to your steps, and to what's happening right now. When you get close enough to the center, you'll spot a leaning live oak with a fanned-out canopy surrounded by a semicircle of plain wooden benches, perfect for sitting. And looking. Here, there is solitude. Under the shade and the imperfectly shaped oak that offers it, things are still. And quiet.

Best Radio Station

KCOH/1430 AM

This is the last place on the commercial dial where the DJs still pick a lot of what they want to play. This is the last place on the commercial dial where virtually all of the DJs are natives of Houston and care about the city for its own sake -- Houston ain't some stint on a resume to these folks. This is the last place on the commercial dial that still knows how to mix talk and music effectively, and only the Box mixes in as much local music to the playlists. And what playlists they are: tremendous mixes of R&B, soul, funk, blues and zydeco. And then there's The Passion Zone, DJ Stevie Good Time T's nightly love power hour -- 60 minutes of luscious jams ideal for...Well, you know what's up.
Readers' choice: KPFT/90.1 FM

Best Art Show

"Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion"

"Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion" was a like a tent revival, a great awakening for subversive art in an America becoming increasingly more repressive. Curated by DiverseWorks visual arts director Diane Barber, the exhibition was rife with provocative art that dealt with everything from politics and social issues to pure, joyful brattiness. Preemptive Media asked us to subvert the evil empire of Wal-Mart using giant Madagascan hissing roaches. Tricksters the Yes Men masqueraded as corporate spokespersons to dupe the BBC and shame Dow Chemical. Joe Wezorek gave us a portrait of George W. Bush constructed from the faces of the dead. Then there were the Neistat Brothers, who showed us how to blow up a pickle. "Thought Crimes" gave the finger to the repressive powers that be.

Best Band Stage Show

Chango Jackson

They always bring the rocenrol, but you never what they'll be wearing when they do. Over the years, Chango Jackson has taken the stage in everything from dresses to gorilla suits to ruffled tuxes to cowboy duds to chemical suits and gas masks. They break stuff, throw tamales into the crowd, jump around, fall down...In one memorable rock and roll apocalypse, all of them except the drummer ended one song in a five-foot-tall pileup of tangled limbs, some of which were still flailing away at guitars. What's more, little of it seems calculated. It's like they put on their costumes and improvise based on what they're wearing.

Best Cigar Bar

Downing Street Ltd.

Is that Rush Limbaugh in the corner? Probably not, but we figure if the neocon blowhard ever finds himself in Space City, it's a spot he'd frequent (well, it and Coco Loco, of course). Huge and luxurious mahogany tables with raised ashtrays dot the room around a statue of famed Brit Winston Churchill. Talk of all things England (10 Downing Street is the residence of the prime minister) can be heard over the inhaling of the finest stogies the city has to offer, kept in a state-of-the-art humidor. Ice tings in glasses of those sipping only the top-end 15-year-old Highland Scotch.

Best Club for Out-of-Town Acts

The Meridian

Though the Meridian has yet to hit its second birthday, it's become the tour-de-force venue for national and international touring acts. Everyone from punk laureate Patti Smith and industrial pioneers Ministry to sought-after DJs like RJD2 and Paul Oakenfold has graced the same gargantuan stage in the lofty Blue Room that can hold around a thousand live-music connoisseurs. When first entering the venue (which requires a little stair-climbing), you're greeted by the loungy Red Room, replete with comfortable and private booths for socializing, as well as a small stage where local bands and lesser-known national acts rock out from time to time. A centralized location, just across the freeway from Toyota Center, and the sound are the Meridian's best qualities. But what really makes the Meridian top-notch are the first-rate acts it continues to bring our way.

Best Dance Club Night

Boys and Girls Club

Forget the weekend. Houston's best dance night happens right smack-dab in the middle of the miserable workweek. Close to 400 kids in haute couture fill out 1415 Bar & Grille every hump day to sweat and stomp their feet to an eclectic mix spun by the Boys and Girls Club bunch: DJs Bobby, Damon and Fred. Expect to hear old-school rap mixed in with Joan Jett declaring her love for rock and roll. The latest, hottest mashups share speaker space as well. Look for special guest DJs (Keoki, Franz Ferdinand) to spin their favorites when in town. Wednesday is the new weekend.

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