The Scottish BAMS Award 2012 (The Scottish Blogger And Music Sites Award)

Regular visitors to this site will more than likely already know all about the BAMS, but for any newbies out there I'll you a quick intro. For the past 4 years I have been running an annual poll entitled the Scottish Bloggers and Music Sites Award or Scottish BAMS for short, in which I ask an array of bloggers, DJs and folk who run music web sites to vote for their albums of the year. I then take all these votes and tally them up to see what the most popular of the last 12 months has been. Past winners of the BAMS have included The Phantom Band, The National and Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat, who later went on to win the inaugural SAY Awards.

This year we had a whopping 41 entries, which included votes from the following bloggers, music sites and DJs:
Scots Whay Hae!,  Jim Gellatly, Detour, Jock N Roll, Houdidontblog, Rave Child, Fusion New Music, Fish In A Sub, Manic Pop Thrills, Kowalskiy, 17 Seconds, Net Sounds, The Steinberg Principle, Songs Heard On Fast Trains, Peenko, Hercules Moments, Dauphin Mag, JockRock, Play That Song For Me, The Spill, The Tidal Wave of Indifference, HP, Inverness Gigs, Elba Sessions, Fresh Air, Scottish Fiction, Tenement TV, Marion Scott MFR, Last Years Girl, Dear Scotland, Blues Bunny, The Pop Cop, Vic Galloway, Ally McCrae, Glasgow PodcART, I Hate Fun, Avalanche, Edinburgh Man, Everything Flows, Nicola Meighan, Aye Tunes and Song, by Toad.

Anyway, without further ado here's a selection of the top Scottish BAMS albums of 2012...

Joint 9-12th

Chris Devotion and The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital 

Paul Buchanan - Mid Air 

The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know

 

We Are The Physics - Your Friend, The Atom

8th

Admiral Fallow - Tree Bursts In Snow

7th 

 

Sharon Van Etten – Tramp

6th 

Miaoux Miaoux - Light Of The North

5th

Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

4th

RM Hubbert - Thirteen Lost & Found

3rd

PAWS - Cokefloat!

2nd

Django Django - Django Django

And the winner is...

1st Place

Meursault - Something for the Weakened

I managed to catch up with Neil from Meursault at Kid Canaveral's Baubles III event yesterday, where I also got to present him with the much coveted BAMS Buckie!

Pic by Mike from MPT

Congratulations Neil, you are this years' winners of the Scottish BAMS award, how do you feel?        

I feel like the chubby lad at school after being picked first for the football team. I fear that any minute now I'm going to be told it's all a joke and you're going to burn my shoes and flush my head down the toilet.        

It seems to have been a pretty exciting year for the band, what with European tours supporting Clap Your Hands Say Yeah to headlining the Queen's Hall back in July, aside from winning this years BAMS, what's been your personal highlight of 2012?   

My highlight is probably the QH gig. I've wanted to play that venue since I was 18. Feels nice to have ticked that one off.             

Last years the BAMS was won by Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells, who later went on to win the SAY Awards. Have you allowed yourself the thought that you might potentially be in with a shout at next years SAY Awards?   

What? I thought this was the SAY awards? You ARE still giving me £10000 though right?  (whip round anyone? - Peenko)          

I noted that once again you've decided not to head over to Austin for next years SXSW, is not something that interests you or are you just keeping our friends on the other side of the pond waiting?   

It's not something that appeals to me to be honest. I get really tired of the competitive aspect of playing music and do my best to avoid it. I've no interest in travelling halfway round the world (at great expense) to peddle my music to pissed up strangers in laminates  . Playing in the states is something that I'm keen to pursue but not that way.      

       

How important do you feel that the support of music blogs has been to the band?   

It's been hugely important for us. After all it was a blogger (song, by toad) who put out our first 3 records.              

Seeing as we are on the subject of albums of the year, what have been your personal favourites of the last 12 months?        

I've not sure if all of these came out this year but I'm going with them anyway...  

Chad Vangaalen- Diaper Island 

Youth Lagoon- The Year of Hibernation 

Charles Latham- Fast Loans 

Grouper- alien observer 

Paws- Cokefloat   

Cheers!

Pic by Mike from MPT

Thanks to Neil for taking the time to do that for me and for producing my favourite album of 2012. 

"Something For The Weakened" is out now on Song By Toad Records

Thanks to all of the music sites, blogs and DJs who took part in this years BAMS, I don't know about you guys but I am already pretty damn excited about what 2013 has in store for us.

Django Django - 6Music Session (31/01/12)

Track Listing

1. Storm

2. Default

Download

Artists To Watch Out For In 2012 - #4 Django Django

Good things come to those who wait apparently, in Django Django's case they really did make us wait. It was way back in May of 2009 that I ran a tiny wee introduction post on the band, since then the band have been taking pretty slowly with the odd single here and there, they've spent the past few years doing the odd tour here and there. You'd hardly call them prolific, but then again they have just spent the past three years holed up in the East London bedroom of their drummer, producer and de facto leader David Maclean, crafting their debut album. 

The psychedelic art-pop four-piece who originally formed in Edinburgh, but now reside in East London, are all set to release their self-titled debut album on Because Music (home to Justice, Jarvis Cocker and Metronomy) at the end of this month. Sadly I didn't manage to grab a word with the band (not through a lack of trying I should add), so I am afraid you're stuck with my ramblings this time round, or you could always just check them out for yourself, I promise you won't be disappointed!

  Django Django - Default by Django Django

Django Django play Stereo in Glasgow on the 19th of February, tickets for the gig are available here. Their self titled debut album comes out on the 30th of January, you can stream some of the album on Because Music's site.

Home
Twitter
SoundCloud
Facebook

Django Django - Marc Riley Session (18/10/11)

Track Listing

1. Waveforms
2. Default
3. Wor

Download

Django Django - Maida Vale Session (04/03/2010)

Track Listing
1. Wor
2. Default

Download

Django Django - Marc Riley Session (06/07/09)

Track Listing
1. Wor
2. Love's Dart
3. Storm

Download

Introducing - Django Django

If you are a fan of either the Beta Band or the Aliens then this should be right up your street, so it might not come as a surprise to you to learn that Dave MacLean is the brother of John of the afore-mentioned bands. Hailing from Scotland, but now based in London, Django Django release their 1st single on the 15th of June - double A side Storm and Love's Dart (on Glasgow's Shadazz Records)

Myspace