Pure Rawk Awards
25 February 2011
Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes, London
Pure Rawk started life in 2006, aiming at giving coverage to UK unsigned, break-through and non mainstream talent.Having expanded since then, the site now also covers larger bands, but maintains its support with annual awards for the new, unsigned and breaking talent.
Having received 159 votes in 2006, the Pure Rawk awards this year had an overall total of 15,814 votes with 10,593 of those in the final stages.An impressive achievement, as was selling out the awards shindig, this year at the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes.
The Bowling Lanes’ Kingpin Suite formed an interesting venue, where you could enjoy a game of ten pin bowling between watching the awards and live bands, grab a beer and mingle with the crowd and attending bands or even grab a charity cup cake.
Pure Rawk’s founder and editor Nix Crichton welcomed us all the event and first entertainment of the evening came from an acoustic set from Sworn To Oath. Having bothered the crowd’s eardrums last year with a full electric set, it had been agreed to offer something different with the distortion pedals turned off. The band’s performance eased us into a long evening with renditions of their own songs, such as This Is Hell, and a well received cover of Alice In Chains’ Would? I’d certainly like to catch these guys play a full electric set as many complements had been paid about them.
Time for Nix to announce the first round of awards winners and here’s who grabbed what:
Record Label of the Year:
Winner: Trash-Pit Records
Runners Up: Too Many Robots Records & Wrath Records
Underground Photographer of the Year:
Winner: Trudi Knight
Runners Up: Mark Latham & Heather Fitsell
EP/Single of the Year:
Winner: James Warner Prophecies – Fell (EP)
Runners Up: Godsized – The Phoney Tough & The Crazy Brave (EP) & Patchwork Grace – Play Dead (Single)
Album of the Year:
Winner: Obsessive Compulsive – Dreams of Death & the Death of Dreams
Runners Up: King Lizard – Viva La Decadence & Shush – Soundtrack of My Life
 
Kiria was up next and I have to confess, as she hobbled past me on crutches heading for the stage, I was heading in the other direction in order to meet up with some friends who were just arriving. To be honest Kiria’s bubblegum punk pop was not my cup of tea, though she did have a loyal group of supporters who went particularly wild when joined by a life sized red jelly baby, christened “Terror baby” for single Jelly Baby.
  
Back to the awards and here were the winner of the next batch.Of note was The Gaff, which has now been closed and will become a Costa Coffee, scooping best local venue.
Promoter of the Year:
Winner: Emma Scott Promotions
Runners Up: Flag Promotions & Frantic Promotions
Video of the Year:
Winner: Eureka Machines – These Are The People Who Live In My House
Runners Up: King Lizard – Viva La Decadence & Obsessive Compulsive – $$
Local Venue of the Year:
Winner: The Gaff (London)
Runners Up: The Sugarmill (Stoke) & The Old Bell (Derby)
John Rayner Award – Support of Underground Scene
Winner: Dom the Dark Lord Of Barnet
 
Any regular readers of Rockers Digest will find it no surprise that Illuminatus were the biggest draw for us tonight. The band have just put out their second album Glasnost, which represents a further step up in terms of song writing, performance and production and comes highly recommended.
Since this was not strictly a music venue, the very narrow stage space for the band had them lined up with Felix Rullhusen drum kit on the far left of the stage. This led to something of an unbalanced sound depending where you were standing, however the band battled through and with a few shouts to the soundman, things improved, if were not perfect.
Glasnost & Murdocracy, the two opening cuts of the new album, opened the set in a furious fashion, before more light and shade was applied with Captive State. With a short time frame and a pumped up band, this was anything but a reflective performance.Keep Calm & Carry On, which was anything but calm, looks set to be a new fan favourite, but whilst the output was aggressive, thanks for support were heartfelt and amusement was added with a quick rendition of Happy Birthday for drummer Felix. Wargasm wrapped up the short set with the best news that the band are back in London 5 days later at The Bowery.
Illuminatus setllist:
Glasnost / Murdocracy / Captive State / You’ll Never Know What This Means / Keep Calm & Carry On / Wargasm
  
On to the next set of awards and unfortunately I missed the runners up in the Axe Hero category due to a powerpoint malfunction.
Drummer of the Year:
Winner: Al Junior – Sworn To Oath
Runners Up: Sky London – Tres Calaveras & Dan Williams – James Warner Prophecies
Bassist of the Year:
Winner: Rob Lane – Teenage Casket Company, The Black Mollys & more
Runners Up: Tish Burgess – Stereo Juggernaut & Steve Golder – The Rocket Dolls
Axe Hero (Guitarist):
Winner: Dave “The Sleaze” Leese – Sworn To Oath
Frontperson of the Year:
Winner: Tom Shaw (Sworn To Oath)
Runners Up: Milena Yum (Shush / TNTT) & Ben Main (Stereo Juggernaut)
 
Stereo Juggernaut were next up with an amalgamation of Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins and rave sounds that you might expect from Enter Shikari. Whilst it was an intriguing mash-up, I once again must confess it was walkabout time and on my return it was time for the next round of awards.
  
New Breed Award
Winner: Saint Jude
Band of the Year:
Winner: Black Spiders
New Band of the Year:
Winner: Stereo Juggernaut
Runners Up: Generation Graveyard & A New Tomorrow
 
Final act of the night were Italians Arthemis. Having seen them at Bloodstock a couple of years ago, tonight guitarist and band leader Andrea Martongelli presented a revised line up. Newly in on vocals was Fabio Dessi and I must say that his richer tone suits the bands sound better than the departing Alessio Garavello.
Whilst the band have put out six albums to date, the focus tonight is their newest, and best, album Heroes.Scars and Scars made for an impressive opener, but Vortex was the pick from that release. I’d found it quite odd that Arthemis label themselves as a thrash band, however if you consider what Megadeth were doing around Countdown To Extinction and Youthanasia to be in that genre then it’s a valid claim. Mechanical Plague from 2008’s Black Society in particular bore a heavy melodic era Mustaine influence.
On the down side, unfortunately the sound set up didn’t do Arthemis that many favours, though I did wonder whether the fact that they now no longer have a second guitar somewhat thins their crowd. Speaking of thinning, Arthemis time slot meant for a dwindling crowd, however a good group did remain to see them play a credible rendition and Holy Diver before departing with Resurrection.
Arthemis setlist:
Scars On Scars / Fright Train / Vortex / 7Days / Mechanical Plague / Holy Diver / Resurrection
  
Oh dear, the evening starts to get a bit blurry now as DJ sets played on into the small hours.All in all though a great night out and congratulations to Nix Crichton and the Pure Rawk team.
LINKS:
http://www.purerawk.com
http://www.arthemisweb.com
http://www.myspace.com/stereojuggernaut
http://www.illuminatus.biz
http://www.kiria.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/sworntooath
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