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BOSTON MUSIC AWARDS
THE TRIED AND TRUE


Like any awards show worth its paperweights, the Boston Music Awards attracts its share of detractors. Cynics suspect the results are weighted toward performers who play ball with the organizers, and the 15th annual edition of the BMAs, held last Thursday night at the Orpheum Theatre, did disclose a few irregularities. If you take the Boston Music Awards seriously — which is not recommended — then you might wonder how the award for Outstanding Rock Band on an Independent Label could go to Bleu, a singer/songwriter signed to Columbia Records. Or why one of the first performances of the evening was given by Must, a band from England who seem to have fulfilled their residency requirement by sharing a manager with Godsmack. But as with pro-wrestling matches and beauty pageants, at the BMAs a theatrical sense of outrageous injustice makes for scintillating entertainment. And there was, after all, no swimsuit competition at the Boston Music Awards. Indeed, when Countess frontwoman Cynthia von Buhler performed a quick striptease, whipping off a vulgar T-shirt to reveal a hot pink bikini top, one of the expert hecklers in the audience shouted, "Put it back on!"

The Boston Music Awards reward the tried and true; the tried and true, however, don’t necessarily RSVP. Aerosmith, winners of Album of the Year and Video of the Year, were, as usual, no-shows. Springfield’s Staind, a shoo-in for Act of the Year (after all, they sold more records than the rest of the nominees combined), declined to make the three-hour drive. Dropkick Murphys, who live considerably closer, were not on hand to collect their pair of awards; as their manager explained from the podium, they have Bruins season tickets. Godsmack, on the other hand, haven’t missed a BMA shindig since landing a Rising Star nomination in 1999; this is one of the few places on earth, outside of a modern-rock programmer’s office, where they get any respect. They were gracious with their presence, playing two songs — one a gratuitous drone with a lengthy bongo jam, the other their current single from the film The Scorpion King — and taking home two awards. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

There were some who joked that Carly Simon was awarded Best Female Vocalist just for showing up; in a show with so few experienced givers of acceptance speeches, hers was worth it, whatever the price. (The most impressive celebrity present that night was a dead man: The Sopranos’ Big Pussy, on hand strictly as an observer.) Simon sang a tune that must have rung true with, oh, about half the audience: she blamed the tanking of her most recent album on the departure from her label, Arista, of long-time patron Clive Davis and revealed that said album will be reissued on her daughter’s indie label. Somewhere backstage, Tracy Bonham was probably whispering, "You tell ’em, sister."

Host Joey McIntyre, a regular contestant on any MTV or VH1 game show that will have him, pronounced BMA Hall of Fame inductees Mission of Burma to be "godfathers of rock and roll." Bzzzzt. After a rambling tribute by Willie "Loco" Alexander, Burma themselves mumbled polite thanks, then ducked behind the curtain. They emerged to play the one song in their catalogue that’s tailor-made for performing at an awards show: "Fame and Fortune," which includes the lines "Fame and fortune, facts of life/Most of what makes it is useless tripe" and "Fame and fortune is a stupid game." It was a brittle performance: nobody thought to turn on drummer Peter Prescott’s microphone, so his verse was cut in half. But let the record show that it was the first time Roger Miller has played a Burma song without headphones since before there was a Boston Music Awards. And though I probably just misheard them, it sounded as if they’d changed a section in the middle so that instead of singing "The beginning/At the ending," Miller and bassist Clint Conley harmonized "A new beginning/A happy ending." Which, even if it wasn’t what they actually sang, was exactly what it felt like. Then again, just as the curtain was falling, Miller revealed his true feelings: "This is Spinal Tap!" he shouted.

BY CARLY CARIOLI

Issue Date: April 18 - 25, 2002
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