Rocks Off returned from vacation this morning and looked at the calendar to discover - yikes - there are barely six weeks until the Houston Press' annual Music Awards and its attendant showcase, which is scheduled for Saturday, August 7 at various venues dotting Washington Avenue.
Since there was such an astronomically high response to this year's call for HPMA nominations, and a resulting higher than usual turnover of nominees from last year - see here and here if for some reason you missed them the first time around - Rocks Off figured it would be a good idea for our readers to get better acquainted before voting begins July 15 (online) and July 22 (in print).
So hear ye, hear ye, all HPMA nominees: Please send a maximum of two (2) MP3s to [email protected] as soon as you can, with "HPMA" in the email header. Rocks Off would prefer relatively recent recordings to give people a decent idea of what you sound like now, but if you haven't been that active in the studio lately, we're willing to negotiate. (Also, get the lead out.) A brief synopsis of your recent musical activity and any upcoming shows wouldn't hurt either.
We will parcel them out a few at a time over the next few weeks. Here are a few offerings from some early birds: 2010 nominees Tianna Hall (Best Jazz, Best Female Vocals), Kyle Hubbard (Best Underground Hip-Hop) and the Lotus Effect (Best Rock, Best Guitarist - Rick Marquez). Keep 'em coming.