Hey boys n' girls, the results from our "Best Of 2015" Reader's Poll are in! Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who listened and voted. Here are your Top 5!

1 - Ol'CD: Deadly 4 piece garage band. Throwing in some elements of punk and surf into their rock jams. They fire on all cylinders during their live shows. Awesome pick to win it all this year. Don't miss them when they come through your town! 2 - The Cardboard Crowns: Originally from Ottawa, the Cardboard Crowns find a way to mix in almost every element of music possible. They're like all dressed chips. They do folk/alt-rock/punk/ska/etc, etc. Check out their "Global Citizen" album on bandcamp. They're heading down south later this year so jump on the bandwagon now. 3 - Sedge: Bronze medal going out to Sedge. Cool 90's vibes from these fellas. Their album "Selective Reasoning" was released in August of last year. I hear some blue album Weezer, Age of Electric and Dandy Warhols influences. 4 - Shallow Waves: Of course a band with waves in the band name would have some surf influences in their tracks. However we're not talkin Beach Boys stuff...I'm talkin dirty rock n roll that'll make you dizzy with headbanging. Crunchin guitars, Dee Dee bass rips and "f*ck you" vocals. Lookin' forward to hearing more from these guys. 5 - Fat As Fuck: Roundin' out the top 5 is an experimental psychedelic outfit called Fat As Fuck. They might not be for our basic music fan but if you like your tunes a little weird...or a lot weird then go listen to Fat As Fuck. Your ears will get a barrage of noise headin' straight to the center of your cranium. Sounds like video game music at times. Good to go! Thanks again to everyone involved in the Deli Magazine Reader's Poll. Giving you all the best Toronto has to offer! -Kris Gies

Picture the opening car ride in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but let's imagine things go a little differently. What if Hunter and the good doctor had smoked those two bags of grass, dropped those five sheets of acid right there, and left a couple dozen empty cans of beer on the side of the road? Things might have started to look a lot more like Heavy Metal, and the music playing in their desert-heat delirium would quite possibly be All Them Witches. They award-winning band  just released a video for "Open Passageways" from last year's Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, and it's a doozy. Between the twitchy, raw animations and the disintegrating portal-jumper of a main character, it's a far-out match for a solid track. -Austin Phy

The Deli Magazine Reader's Poll Results are completed! Congratulations to the winners, especially the amazing Heartwatch who came in first, stealing the hearts of The Deli Mag Bay Area Readers! We wish all the bands the best of luck in their endeavors!

Heartwatch

 
Annie Girl and the Flight

Emily Afton

Lost Dog Found

And a huge shout out to our honorable mentions!

Kendra McKinley
Keyan Keihani
Night Shapes
Debbie Neigher
Dangermaker
The Soft White Sixties

You can see all the nominated artists organized by genre here:

AVANT INDIE - ELECTRONIC - INDIE POP - PSYCH- REVIVAL POP/ROCK - ROOTS MUSIC

The Deli's Staff

If there's one thing kids need more of in their lives, it's music. It's a way for the younger geneation to express themselves - their angst, anguished emotions, disdain for the world they'll soon have to traverse - music is a neccessity. Yet with music programs in schools across the country steadily falling to shambles, any efforts to keep this outlet available are more than needed, and much appreciated. Music in the Schools is aiming to keep music alive for those under bar age here in Portland. MITS has teamed up with Clinton St. Theater to put on their monthly showcases, spotlighting young bands and opening them to vernal audiences.

Last night's showcase touted a four band bill with sponsorship from local all ages festival, PDX Pop Now. Opening up the night were the comically clad KULULULU. Part frenzied rock set, part lively performance art piece, dancers ran around the audience as they thrashed about on stage. Undergrads Dad Rock took the sophomore slot. They haven't even graduated high school, yet last night marked the release of their second album, Papa Defeats the Beast. It's pleasantly punky, and proof of how musical guidance at a young age can conceive greatness. 

With the second half of the night being dominated by slow rockers Sabonis and closed out by indie loves Just Lions, February's MITS installment only further ascertains the importance of keeping music open to everyone, regardless of age.

-Cervante Pope

Whew boy y’all! The Readers’ Poll for the 2015 Austin Deli Artist of the Year contest has done gone and finished, and what a hell of a thing it was. We deeply appreciate all of the nominated artists and the fans taking the time to put your votes in, and we think the results are pretty darn interesting.

1. Wonderbitch

Wonderbitch takes the whole shebang for the Readers’ Poll after mobilizing their fan base, which is obviously ravenous for the hard prog-psych riffs and heady concepts this group offers up. Wonderbitch made a big splash on the scene in 2015 with their eponymous record, and it’s obvious that it hit big with the fans from the way they voted their little clicking fingers off for the group.

2. The Cuckoos

Young psych rockers dominate this list, and none are younger or of a purer old-school psych sound than The Cuckoos. A very new band, big things loom in the future for this Doors-esque act that elicited some truly impassioned commenting from fans on their poll page. It was close there for a while, but a steady push of voting bolstered by a late-game surge saw The Cuckoos take the crown in the Psych Rock category this year.

3. Daniel Eyes & The Vibes

Few bands have shot to local glory as quickly as Daniel Eyes & The Vibes, whose first EP is barely a month old but who already have a huge fan base in the city. Riding some intense hype from live shows and early singles, this true rock ‘n roll band has stormed through Austin this Winter, and it’s very likely you’ll be hearing their name no matter the season for a while to come.

4. The Bishops

The all-family silky smooth hip-hop act The Bishops has barely been around in its current form, but the three members each have a damned extensive catalog of top notch music as solo artists and in collaborations, often with each other. They’ve barely been together officially as a named trio, but heads around the city and far beyond have had the beats and the bars from these kids on repeat for a while. This group is pretty much destined to hit it big- they almost certainly have by far the most listens on SoundCloud across their four accounts out of any of our nominees bar none)- so if you voted for them here, feel proud of yourself for getting in on the ground floor with one of the city, and the nation’s, most exciting young groups.

5. Kev Bev & the Woodland Creatures

Apparently the answer in fair ole Austin to that timeless musical question, “Who wants the funk?” is “We want the funk.” Welp, it's a good thing then that Kev Bev & the Woodland Creatures are here to turn this mother out with their big funk jams. Turning out big time is also what their fans did to the Hip Hop + Funk poll, where they slid in just barely behind newcomers The Bishops to take second in that poll and fifth overall. In terms of just straight-up fun music, Kev Bev et al. are second to none in the city, however, nor do they slack on the number of members front. This is the kind of band that almost needs to be seen live to really know them, and luckily for us all, that’s an opportunity Kev Bev & The Woodland Creatures provide in spades to the city of Austin.

6. The Halfways

The Halfways found themselves in a hell of a contest against upstarts The Cuckoos in the Psychcategory, and it’s not a damn little piece of surprising to us that they made our top 6 after the year they’ve had. Excellent, frequent shows, a few dead-on newpsych singles and one of the best-received and more critically acclaimed records in the city with EP The Halfways were what led this band to dominance in the burgeoning Austin psych scene this year, but in reality, it’s the hazy, dreamworld sound they cull from the ether to play in your ears like a hippy in a good sunny field that make them one of the top acts working in Austin today.

Honorable Mention: The Cover Letter, Sophia Johnson, Annabelle Chairlegs

Once again: enormous and buttery thanks to all of the acts and bands who promoted the poll, and to all of you loverly fans out there with your awesome ears to hear this good stuff with and your fingers to choose what you like the best. You really da bes.

By the way, if you’re interested in the details of each poll by category and would like to see how it all went down, here are the links to each genre’s results:

ALT ROCK - FOLK ROCK - HIP HOP + FUNK - INDIE POP - INDIE ROCK - PSYCH - PUNK/METAL - ROOTS MUSIC - SINGER-SONGWRITER

Congrats to everyone who came up big in the poll, and stay tuned to this site to find out what act is our overall Deli Austin 2015 Artist of the Year. We’ll be releasing that as soon as we add the tally together for the juror votes and the Readers’ Poll combined, and we guarantee it’ll be some damn fine music.

It is Austin, after all.

The Deli Austin Staff