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• Best Theater Company

  Teatro ZinZanni

  Moulin Rouge meets Las Vegas: Teatro ZinZanni is as fabulous as it is zany. From its headquarters, an antique theater tent imported from Belgium and set up right across the street from Seattle Center, the company presents a three-hour evening show featuring performances by international cabaret, cirque, and comedy acts as well as a five-course feast designed by Tom Douglas.… More >>

• Best Radio Station

  KUOW2

  There are two places where you can find programming as diverse as Radio Australia, The Thomas Jefferson Hour, Vatican Radio, The Sound of Young America, and Voice of Russia. One of them is the Internet. The other is 91.7, better known as KUOW2, the 5-year-old sister station of KUOW. Broadcasting out of Tacoma, its only real flaw is a signal… More >>

• Best Vocalist, Female

  Vicci Martinez

  Tacoma native Vicci Martinez has been performing her brand of bluesy guitar rock since she was a teenager. So even though she’s only 26, she’s already a showbiz veteran, having opened for the likes of Annie Lennox and B.B. King. Martinez is only 5’1”, but has mighty pipes—which is why it’s appropriate that the platform that finally brought her a… More >>

• Best Concert in the Past 12 Months

  Robyn

  Every now and then an artist’s rise to fame will happen after they’ve already booked a tour, which results in said artist appearing at smaller venues that they’ve outgrown in the interim. Such thrillingly intimate shows don’t happen often, but one did late last November when Swedish pop superstar Robyn performed at a beyond-sold-out Neumos. It was likely the last… More >>

• Best Garage Band

  Koko and the Sweetmeats

  Koko and the Sweetmeats are just a dude and his wife, but they make as much racket as bands three times their size. Garett van der Spek, a Seattleite by way of Durban, South Africa, writes, sings, and plays a jangly guitar on rough-and-tumble songs for which his wife, Laura, gamely beats along on the drums (Koko occasionally plays with… More >>

• Best Vocalist, Male

  John Van Deusen

  Arrows, The Lonely Forest’s highly anticipated full-length debut on Chris Walla’s Atlantic Records imprint, Trans, turned out to be a disappointment, largely lacking the engaging and memorable melodies that made their earlier songs shine. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that TLF’s frontman John Van Deusen is one of the strongest and most compelling vocalists this city has… More >>

• Best Local Label

  Hardly Art

  The mighty Sub Pop may have released Seattle’s two most talked-about records this year (Fleet Foxes and Shabazz Palaces, if you live under a rock), but SP’s smaller sister imprint, Hardly Art, had a fruitful year of signing and releasing interesting records from acts previously unknown. And isn’t that what indie labels are all about? Hardly Art’s tongue-in-cheek slogan—“sometimes, we… More >>

• Best Cover Band

  The Davanos

  It’s super-cool that the Dusty 45s got to back Wanda Jackson while they toured in support of Adele, but it’d have been a lot cooler had Dusty guitarist Jerry Battista’s cover band, the Davanos, gotten the gig. That way, legendary Davanos drummer Fred Holzman would have doubtless duped the British chanteuse into joining him onstage for a shot of Rumple… More >>

• Best Band Name

  Hobosexual

  Hobosexual sounds like a meaningless play on words, but it actually has a dictionary—or at least an Urban Dictionary—definition: “the opposite of metrosexual; one who cares little for one's own appearance.” For singer/guitarist Ben Harwood, the moniker is inconsequential (he has said his band’s name “doesn’t really mean anything”), but it happens to mesh perfectly not only with the duo’s… More >>

• Second-Best Band Name

  Deathmocracy

  SoDo’s Studio Seven is a prime location for underage metal shows and, more important, for finding awesome band names. In July alone, the venue hosted bands with names that ranged from goofy (Poke Da Squid) to violent (Murder Death Kill) to morbid (Dying Fetus). But of the bands that have played the venue in the past few months, Seattle-based metal… More >>

• Third-Best Band Name

  The Talking Deads

  Billed as “the one-and-only zombie Talking Heads cover band,” The Talking Deads speaks for itself. Any “Psycho Killer” jokes are made at your own peril. ANDREW GOSPE… More >>

• Best Musical Farewell

  Gerard Schwarz

  In June, Gerard Schwarz ended his 26 seasons at the head of the Seattle Symphony with a grand and immense work that also happens to be a specialty of his and the orchestra’s. His m.o. was to end each season with a symphony by Mahler, and for his envoi he chose the Second, the “Resurrection,” with its choral finale setting… More >>

• Best Boy Band

  Go Periscope

  Without a hint of irony, Joshua Frazier and Florin Merano of Go Periscope cite Dr. Luke, the producer responsible for hits by Katy Perry and Ke$ha, as a huge source of inspiration for their music. In a city chockablock with music snobs, it’s rare to find a duo that plays unabashed pop. But Go Periscope’s approach has worked: They became… More >>

• Best Club DJ

  Richard J. Dalton

  Despite being courted by artists like Lady Gaga and Rihanna and opening for Beyoncé at KeyArena, popular C89.5 on-air personality and club DJ Richard J. Dalton doesn’t take himself too seriously. The self-described geek often rocks a feather boa and an outrageous hat while spinning an eclectic mix of what he calls “hands-up techno”—guilty pop pleasures like Britney Spears and… More >>

• Best Poster for a Concert

  Wes Winship of Burlesque Design

  When Seattle heard Arcade Fire was coming to town, excitement erupted. Then, when it was announced that they would play at KeyArena, Seattle quickly retracted its fist-pumps and complained that the venue was, well, just simply “too mainstream” (little did anyone know the band would later win the “Best Album of the Year” Grammy). However, one thing did bring some… More >>

• Best Country Band (Alt)

  Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers

  It’s kind of unfair to label Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers as an alt-country act. But because she isn’t part of the super-slick, overly packaged pablum Nashville likes to crank out, Muth feels alternative by default. (And besides, the Maldives are so 2009.) Muth earns frequent comparisons to Iris DeMent and Emmylou Harris, both accurate. Her latest album,… More >>

• Best Music Blog

  KEXP

  A by-product of having a really good local music scene is that you also get a lot of really good local-music coverage, which makes this category particularly challenging. The thing that stands out about KEXP’s blog, however, is its approach, which manages to be cool but not alienating. Like the station itself, it doesn’t have a superior air—it manages to… More >>

• Best Homecoming

  Craft Spells

  A year ago, Justin Vallesteros was just a kid writing and recording songs at home in Stockton, Calif. (rated the most miserable city in the country this year by Forbes). But after playing a wildly successful show at Cairo in January and then recruiting a permanent trio of Seattleites—Peter Michel, Jack Doyle Smith, and Javier Suarez—to play in his ’80s-throwback… More >>

• Best Rock Band

  The Globes

  If anyone’s going to restore Seattle’s reputation as the country’s most notable rock city, it’s the Globes. That’s because the Spokane quartet offers what, in this age of hip irony, has become a rarity: gimmick-less guitar rock. This April, the Globes released Future Self, their debut full-length on Barsuk Records, a serious triumph of blistering guitar riffs, smooth and subtle… More >>

• Best New Band

  Beat Connection

  In a phalanx of competition, two precocious University of Washington juniors, making electronic music together as Beat Connection, managed to stand out as the most exciting new addition to Seattle’s music scene this year. Using a carefully curated melange of synths, electric guitar, drum machines, and samplers, the tender-aged Reed Juenger and Jordan Koplowitz create washed-out pastiches of sound—some dreamy,… More >>

• Best Local Album of the Past 12 Months

  My Goodness

  It could be argued that the world needs another blues-based drum-and-guitar duo about as badly as Casey Anthony needs another moment in the spotlight. But guitarist/vocalist Joel Schneider and drummer Ethan Jacobsen of My Goodness are only killing audiences in a good way these days. Their eponymous debut (released in April by Sarathan Records) reignites the formula that made the… More >>

• Best Band to Die in the Past 12 Months

  Throne of Bone

  What was notable about the now-defunct Throne of Bone, aside from frontman Michael Frieburger’s earnest, druid-esque persona and the band’s fluid ability to shift from aggressive thrash onslaughts to more melodic detours, was their fondness for performing in unconventional settings. They sharpened their teeth playing the local house-party circuit and random dive bars, drawing an impressive crowd that included an… More >>

• Best Poster Designer

  Shay Roth

  Shay Roth helps booking agent Mike Jaworski get the word out about the rock, punk, metal, pop, and alt-country programming that Ballard’s Sunset Tavern is known for, but in the last year, his ability to promote a show went to the next level, aesthetically speaking. Roth’s artwork (sometimes conceived in concert with the imagination of neighboring Anchor Tattoo artist Rempe)… More >>

• Best Metal Band

  Helms Alee

  Full disclosure: Helms Alee frontman Ben Verellen has become a dear friend over the years since his band first came on my radar with the release of Night Terror in 2008. However, Verellen, silver-throated bassist Dana James, and punishing drummer Hozoji Matheson-Margulis don’t need an ounce of nepotism to make their mark as the city’s most forward-thinking and disarmingly beautiful… More >>

• Best Single of the Past 12 Months

  I Don't Wanna Live in the City No More

  In the pantheon of local songwriters pining for a simpler, more satisfying life, Whalebones' "I Don't Wanna Live in the City No More" is the magnum opus, and also the least insufferable. Instead of prancing around the notion that a hard day's work tilling the field is a more honorable way to live, Justin Deary comes out and shouts it.… More >>

• Best Band That Hasn’t Formed Yet

  Mamas & the Papas

  For all the talk in today’s scene of a revival of ’60s harmonies, few have given the propers due to the Mamas & the Papas, whose contribution to that canon bests CSNY’s and rivals the Beach Boys’. With the city’s music scene percolating with non-ironic cover bands (The Rolling Stones, American Girls), the soil is fertile for Cass and co.… More >>

• Best Music Festival

  Reverb Local Music Festival

  Here’s my fair and balanced assessment of Seattle Weekly’s Reverb Local Music Festival: It stands a cut above for being the city’s biggest only-local music festival. With 60-plus bands performing every year (Reverb helped Fleet Foxes and Cave Singers, among others, garner more widespread recognition), there is no better snapshot of what the local scene is producing than this, scheduled… More >>

• Best Punk Band

  Unnatural Helpers

  Genres are worthless, convenient, and make for some of the most enjoyable gin-and-tonic-fueled debates. When I suggested an act for best pop band, a colleague countered that they were a punk band. And when I recently ran into Unnatural Helpers frontman Dean Whitmore, he made reference to his band being a pop band. UH is the city’s best punk band.… More >>

• Best Recording Studio

  Anywhere that’s not a recording studio

  The recording technology at the disposal of today’s up-and-coming musicians vastly exceeds the tools available to the likes of, say, Count Basie and his colleagues generations ago. As a result, booking an expensive studio has become less critical for bands making records, which has resulted in an explosion of DIY recordings, not all of them atrocious. That’s why the recording… More >>

• Best Old Band

  The Posies

  Attention, aging hipsters: The Posies are old, and so are you. Reagan was still president when Bellingham native Jon Auer and UW student Ken Stringfellow bonded musically, finding common ground in their Big Star fixations and love of ’60s British pop. Naturally gifted songwriters who personify the push-and-pull of the creative process, they’ve been the core of, and lone constants… More >>

• Best Dollar Music Store

  Leary Records

  Leary Records is like a big, well-curated record collection, only it's all for sale (and not on actual records). If you've only brought a buck, you're not going home empty-handed. Leary has all the classics on cassette, and if you, like so many of the rest of us, were introduced to '60s and '70s hit-makers via radio singles and greatest-hits… More >>

• Best Hip-Hop Artist

  Macklemore

  Best Hip-Hop Artist It’s ironic to hear the lines in Macklemore’s 2005 track “Ego” that lament other MCs rising ahead of him, considering he spent 2011 making the most meteoric rise of any Seattle rapper in recent memory. If you can accept his sincerity as a strength, Macklemore becomes an artist responsible for a transfixing live performance—one that sold out a… More >>

• Best Hip-Hop DJ

  DJ Swervewon’s

  If demand is a sign of talent, DJ Swervewon’s omnipresence on the bills of DJ nights and hip-hop shows across Seattle alone make him one of the city’s best. Swerve is an expert at spinning the records you didn’t know you wanted to hear, inciting endless exclamations of “This was my jam!” and “This is my new favorite song!” NICK… More >>

• Best R&B Artist

  Shaprece

  First glimpses of up-and-coming neo-soul songstress Shaprece came by way of appearances backing local hip-hop acts, but her sound marks a smooth fusion of funk, electronic, and hip-hop sounds into the R&B framework. The refinement and matter-of-fact beauty of her vocals belies the fact that her first recording dropped just over six months ago—and makes her proper debut, the Scatterbrain… More >>

• Best Art Class

  WAPI

  "OK, just so you guys know, it's not cool to paint on living things," a teacher tells a dozen or so 12-to-18-year-olds crowded around a TV in a basement classroom. She's referencing a scene from the seminal graffiti documentary Bomb It, in which a tagger leaves his mark on the side of a zoo animal. Graffiti is about rebellion and… More >>

• Best Zoo Animal

  Evita the Baby Ocelot

  "Awwwwww, look at the little kitty cat!" Some variation of this exclamation is the universal reaction when anyone lays eyes for the first time on Evita, the Woodland Park Zoo's baby ocelot. The wee feline is a fluffy ball of cuteness, complete with gorgeous orange and black leopard stripes, glistening black eyes, and oversized ears that poke up from her… More >>

• Best Street Artist

  No Touching Ground

  Seattle is an urban wilderness. We are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. Even within the city itself are enough parks blanketed with towering Douglas firs that it is still possible to step out of the concrete jungle and get lost in the deep, dark woods. The work of No Touching Ground only heightens the sense that… More >>

• Best Casino

  Tulalip Casino

  From friendly little gaming joints like the Angel of the Winds in Snohomish County to the flashy Snoqualmie and expansive Muckleshoot casinos east and south, respectively, of Seattle, there are now 28 Indian casinos across Washington state. But none comes closer to Vegas-style surroundings and slots than the Tulalip, the resort and casino off I-5 near Marysville. Its canopied entry… More >>

• Best AM Radio Personality

  KJR’s Mitch Levy

  KJR’s Mitch Levy scores more points when talking about Tony Romo’s on-field performance rather than about whom the Dallas quarterback is dating (Jessica Simpson, Carrie Underwood) or marrying (Candice Crawford). Of course he knows that talking about pretty women brings a vast crowd of heavy breathers, as does The Bigger Dance, his female celeb beauty pageant, and stunts like the… More >>

• Best New Art Gallery

  Storefronts Seattle

  This is something of a trick category, since there are no new galleries opening in Seattle. From Howard House to Catherine Person, galleries are only closing during this brutal economy. Except, that is, for the city-sponsored Storefronts Seattle program, which puts temporary galleries (and work studios) in vacant spaces all around Pioneer Square and the ID. Though the roster of… More >>

• Best Arts Organization

  4Culture

  After much state budget wrangling, King County's 4Culture will live to fight another day. Thanks to its continued tiny allocation of the state lodging tax--thanks, tourists!--the county agency can continue its dispensation of grants and commissions of new work from local artists. Its headquarters in the Tashiro Kaplan building also house the Gallery4Culture, a central fixture on First Thursday art… More >>

• Best Newspaper Reporter

  Ken Armstrong

  Ken Armstrong is the Big Story go-to guy at The Seattle Times, and for good reason. The four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and ex-Chicago Tribune reporter is an experienced investigator, fast on his feet, drafting news stories with a writer’s voice. Winner of the 2009 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, honoring career achievement, Armstrong is frequently the lead reporter… More >>

• Best TV/Radio Reporter

  Susannah Frame

  KING-TV’s Susannah Frame is a former general-assignment reporter and anchor who has emerged as one of her station’s top investigators, most triumphantly with her series last year on the taxpayer money left in the foul wake of the mismanaged state ferry system. The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning “Waste in the Water” revealed how millions of dollars were spent on… More >>

• Best Book by a Local Author

  In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

  We’re confining ourselves to titles published since our 2010 Best of Seattle™ issue, roughly a year ago, and our choice reaches even further back in history. The rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany might not seem a fresh or remotely topical subject for Erik Larson in his In the Garden of Beasts, but he scales the story down to… More >>

• Best TV News Anchor

  Dan Lewis

  The viewing public has watched Dan Lewis’ hair turn gray over the years as anchor of KOMO-TV’s evening and late-night news, but trust and likability never grow old. He’s genial without silly chatter, somber when appropriate, a pro at handling breaking stories. Over the years he has adapted nicely to the station’s changing formats, sets, and co-anchors. Viewers clearly miss… More >>

• Best Film Festival

  Seattle International Film Festival

  OK, this one is both obvious and not. SIFF, aka the Seattle International Film Festival is both the largest such animal in the U.S. and one of the most overlooked. Judged by audience size (more than TK attendees this year) and number of titles (more than 250 features and docs), SIFF leads the nation. But smaller shindigs like Sundance, New… More >>

• Best TV Station

  KING-TV

  KING-TV was in some ways a better station in earlier years under the ownership of the Bullitt family—its more extensive local programming and aggressive news coverage were community assets. But even under the Texas-based Belo Corp. chain today, Channel 5’s news remains the most popular hereabouts, in part due to longtime anchor Jean Enersen, and a sizable, top-flight news staff… More >>

• Best Movie Theater

  Northwest Film Forum

  Paul Allen’s Cinerama is swell, but outside a few special engagements (SIFF sometimes included), it only plays blockbusters. Landmark’s Harvard Exit and Egyptian have better movies and considerable charm, but they’re also pretty threadbare (the parent company was for sale, but no buyers bit). For that reason, on the grounds of programming quality, neighborhood, and local control, Northwest Film Forum… More >>

• Best TV Weathercaster

  Jeff Renner

  Why Jeff Renner? Why not? KIRO’s Rebecca Stevenson has the looks, KOMO’s Steve Pool has the charisma, and KING’s Renner has, well, a pretty good notion of the weather. They’re all meteorologists and they all know rain when they see it coming–which is always; they get their forecasting data from much the same charts, maps, and Dopplers. Renner, though, has… More >>

• Best Museum

  Seattle Art Museum

  So long, Derrick Cartwright, don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Though it’s losing its director (quitter! short-timer! LeBron!), and though it took a big financial hit with the loss of office tenant WaMu upstairs (Nordstrom finally leased the space—whew!), the Seattle Art Museum continues to muscle its way forward. The big Picasso and Nick Cave shows… More >>

• Best Strip Joint

  DreamGirls

  With up to several dozen dancers at a time ready to strip naked, it usually doesn’t take long to fill the 200 seats at Roger Forbes’ newest Seattle nudie club, DreamGirls—especially on a Mariners game day. The strip club, part of Forbes’ Déjà Vu chain, is approximately 430 feet from Safeco Field’s home plate, although you don’t necessarily have to… More >>

• Best FM Radio Personality

  Marty Riemer

  When KMTT (103.7 FM, The Mountain) sacked beloved disc jockey Marty Riemer a couple years ago, the Auburn native didn’t take to publicly trashing his longtime employer. Instead, he started a podcast out of the basement of his West Seattle home, and kept right on attracting the same eclectic, high-caliber mix of guests he booked when he had the power… More >>

• Best Reading Series

  Seattle Arts & Lectures

  Though Elliott Bay and University Book Store undoubtedly host more visiting authors, Seattle Arts & Lectures lands the heavyweights. It’s a premium ticket to see guests like Jennifer Egan, Dennis Lehane, and Khaled Hosseini (all coming next season)—more if you want to mingle at the reception. But it’s also worth it. The Benaroya Hall gatherings are a little more formal… More >>

• Best Local Cartoonist

  Ellen Forney

  Peter Bagge, Jim Woodring, Pulitzer winner David Horsey: all justly acclaimed. But Ellen Forney is the only one who also does custom wedding invitations. (Though wouldn’t you love to see a Peter Bagge invitation?) Forney’s curvy, brushy line and text-rich formats adapt to everything from sex—with playful, kink-centered eroticism a favorite topic—to satire; her I Was 7 in ’75 series… More >>

• Best Hair on a News Anchor

  Dan Lewis

  In June, when KOMO anchor Dan Lewis was inducted into the regional Emmy’s Silver Circle, the prestigious club honoring media celebs who’ve worked for more than a quarter-century, the 12-time golden-statuette winner gave an emotional acceptance speech that culminated with him thanking God for his brain, his voice, and finally for his hair. The ’do Lewis then ran his hands… More >>

• Best Local Poet

  Heather McHugh

  Go to Harvard at 17. Get published by The New Yorker before grad school. Receive a “Genius Grant.” Snip your locks into a pixie cut, and voila—you have Heather McHugh, a true word nerd with a knack for poetry with true pizzazz. McHugh has managed to take the word “poetry” and flip it on its axis, not only creating an… More >>

• Best Local Television Commercial

  Gitcha Goomsba Up

  The best TV commercial of the year gets features a faux-Bavarian village in central Washington and its big (as in big pimpin’) mascot, Woody Goomsba. In an experiment with viral marketing, the Leavenworth tourism planners pulled a few bucks together and hired Wenatchee video producers Howell at the Moon to produce a video that would “appeal to a younger audience.”… More >>

• Best Children's-Theater Production

  Go, Dog. Go!

  Seattle Children's Theater's spirited adaptation of P.D. Eastman's classic Go, Dog. Go! served as a perfect introduction for small children to the world of theater, much as the book itself has welcomed generations of the same demographic to the world of the written word. Clean set imagery, bubbles, magical lighting, clowning, a liberal use of primary color, and dialogue lifted… More >>

• Best Newspaper Columnist

  Danny Westneat

  It’s not as though there are too many papers left in town. And how many actually have city-beat columnists in the vein of Emmett Watson and Rick Anderson—or even Robert Jamieson’s slices of downtown life in the late, (occasionally) great P-I? And I can’t pick Steve Elliott—no matter how important a service he provides, writing one of only a handful… More >>

• Best Museum Exhibit

  Nick Cave's "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth"

  The Picasso show may have boasted lines until midnight and seas of striped sailor shirts, but Nick Cave’s “Meet Me at the Center of the Earth” brought something to SAM that most exhibits can’t—the chance to be part of the exhibit itself. Cave’s “Soundsuit Invasions” brought his most mobile creations out of the museum and into Seattle’s streets, libraries, shops,… More >>