SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL >>

• BEST ACOUSTIC PERFORMER
  This man is out of his era. Looking at "Lonesome" Dan Kase, with his spare suit, fedora, and battered guitar, thumbing the blues from his own lead belly, you realize he's completely from another time. He's stepped from a grainy film still or a distant stage. Fortunately, though, he's right... More >>
• BEST ADULT VIDEO STORE
  Granted, the lighting is a bit intense. But that's all the better to see this multi-level palace of iniquity's pornucopia of video delights. While the focus lately has been on amateur productions, Sex World's vast holdings touch nearly every, uh, base, imaginable--from '50s tighty-whitey gay... More >>
• BEST ALBUM OF THE PAST 12 MONTHS
  "First there's violence, then there's silence." When Craig Finn uttered those words on "La Quereria" in 2000, the same year Lifter Puller broke up, he could have been singing his own band's epitaph. After playing and recording together in Minneapolis since 1994, feeding the after-hours carnage... More >>
• BEST ALL-AGES VENUE
  This year saw a resurgence of all-age clubs in the Twin Cities: The Whole at the U of M's Coffman Union reopened; the Babylon in Minneapolis has evolved from the Bombshelter's pepper-sprayed ashes; the Dinkytowner continues to host its "In the Garage" Sundays; First Avenue and the 7th St. Entry... More >>
• BEST AVANT-GARDE ARTIST
  Unlike many experimental sound artists, Cordell Klier hasn't labored in vain. Until a couple of months ago, though, when he finally moved to Minneapolis, the leonine 28-year-old labored in faraway Bloomington. While relative isolation and apparently untreatable workaholism have largely kept... More >>
• BEST BAND NAME
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• BEST BAND NAME - SECOND PLACE
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• BEST BAND NAME - THIRD PLACE
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• BEST BAND TO BREAK UP IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
  We don't mean to pry, but if the marriage is over, and the band is gone, isn't it time to take down the bulletin board? The Selby Tigers live on, thanks to Internet life support, complete with a thread started in 2002 titled "Any shows soon?" that ends tersely in 2003 with "They died." For a... More >>
• BEST BAND TO LEAVE THE TWIN CITIES IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
  Oddjobs didn't so much leave Minnesota in the past 12 months as arrive nationally during that period. Having relocated to New York in shifts over the past three years, the quintet began stepping out from the shadow of their more famous friends Eyedea and Slug last year with Drums, a shotgun... More >>
• BEST BARTENDER
  In just their second home game of the season, the Minnesota Twins have managed to force extra innings against the Toronto Blue Jays. The beer vendors, however, have already called it a night, so what's a parched fan to do? Those in the loop make a beeline for the Rally Room, the secret bar... More >>
• BEST BEER SELECTION IN A BAR
  There's a tiny wine list on the back of the beverage menu, and a few bottles of booze sit behind the bar upstairs, a half-filled bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin looking like a lonely blue beacon through the smoky haze. And we swear we saw people drinking liters of pop one Saturday afternoon. To... More >>
• BEST BLOODY MARY
  The bloody mary mixed at the St. Paul Grill is like every aspect of the storied downtown restaurant: elegant, simple, and first-rate. You won't get any celery sticks the size of small trees sticking out of your glass. Nor will you find your eyes watering because the bartender believes that... More >>
• BEST BLUES BAND
  Some people like their blues to articulate the agonies of life on planet Earth, while others want the music to be a hedonistic, howling hoedown. Color the Lamont Cranston Blues Band with the latter shade of foot-stompin' azure. Their boogie beat has kept the West Bank and points east, north,... More >>
• BEST BLUES BAR
  Certainly, the metro boasts bigger and much fancier blues venues. But this storied West Bank hole-in-the-wall is still the unbroken link to those halcyon days when Tony Glover, Dave Ray, Willie Murphy, and "Spider" John Koerner put Minneapolis on the 12-bar map, back during the first big blues... More >>
• BEST CLUB DJ
  With an alias like Jack Trash, a tongue-in-cheek reputation for being "sloppy," and mix albums sporting titles like Hoggily Delicious, this choice might seem a little suspicious to the average Joe. But J.T. has been making the weekends of local dance music fans for years, via his extraordinary,... More >>
• BEST COCKTAILS
  Do you like to get tanked on girly drinks in a trendy environment, yet can't afford to plow through Chino Latino every weekend? Then Red Dragon is an excellent place to fight the losing battle against sobriety. Screwdrivers, gin and tonics, Tom Collinses, and other classic cocktails all adhere... More >>
• BEST CONCERT OF THE PAST 12 MONTHS
  The day after the Fourth of July, the Minneapolis music scene declares its independence. In an art space that once housed Sunday school classes, dozens of riotous self-released and minor-label bands (highlights include Wolf Eyes, Charalambides, Six Organs of Admittance, and local psych icon... More >>
• BEST CONCERT VENUE
  It's a testament to First Avenue's reputation that there's at least one musician in this town who would rather play in the club's bathroom than in any number of clean, presumably non-urine-stained spaces across the Twin Cities. Anyone who was there when local techno wizard Fuckstorm staged a... More >>
• BEST DANCE CLUB
  While the rave as a whole rests in peace in Minneapolis (and pretty much everywhere else in the U.S.), most dance music heads still softly bemoan its absence from local nightlife. While we might not see it bounce back before most of us hit thirtysomething, the next best (and well, sanitary)... More >>
• BEST GAY BAR
  Nestled in the only remaining quiet nook of the Minneapolis Warehouse District, this beautifully designed jewel of a room runs well ahead of the local curve, gay or straight. The scene is low-key, the bar smoke-free, and the cocktails sophisticated, with updated versions of classics like the... More >>
• BEST HAPPY HOUR
  "Happy hour" is something of a misnomer at Rudolph's. Maybe they should call the period from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. "unhappy hour," because that's the only time that patrons can't get two-for-one drinks (well, except during the day--we're not accounting for serious alcoholics or third-shift... More >>
• BEST HIP-HOP ARTIST
  Never mind that she hails from Chicago: Mooka has adopted Minnesota, and we've adopted her. At the Red Sea in November, at a party held by her Minneapolis label, Wild Side Records, the 22-year-old did something more than hold her own against more experienced male MCs onstage. North Minneapolis... More >>
• BEST JAZZ ARTIST
  The jazz community's usual veneration of its elders is all topsy-turvy in the Twin Cities--here it's the whippersnappers that garner the national press. Still, veteran pianist Carei Thomas got a nice taste of the spotlight when his CD debut Mining Our Bid'ness (Roaratorio) drew praise from... More >>
• BEST JAZZ CLUB
  How St. Paul, a medium-sized city in a predominantly white metropolitan area, came to be blessed with a trio of marvelous jazz joints is one of the more pleasant mysteries of modern times. Under the steady hand of musician-proprietors Kenny Horst and Billy Petersen, the Artists' Quarter has... More >>
• BEST JUKEBOX
  We have a request for Grumpy's: Turn up the jukebox! The pleasure of pumping quarters into the most distinctive, diverse jukebox in town is often rendered futile because you can't hear a damn thing above the din of the bar crowd. This is a small tragedy. The jukebox at Grumpy's is a musical... More >>
• BEST KARAOKE
  No matter where you decide to get your karaoke fix around town, the mic, the monitor, the drinks, and the crowd all start looking the same. The crowd that comes to Staraoke looks the same, too--twenty- and-thirty-something-year-old hipsters--yet what sets them apart is that they're loyal to... More >>
• BEST LESBIAN BAR
  A monthly lesbian event located in the de facto Minneapolis lesbian bar, Dykes Do Drag pushes well beyond the typical dress-and-act-like-a-man fantasy. There's real talent on display here: modern dancers, sleazeball lounge singers, Michael Jackson look-alikes, and Zombies sound-alikes. Sweet... More >>
• BEST LIVE ARTIST
  When Aphex Twin wants to evoke the uneasy nature of humans living in an industrial world, he lets the machines do the singing. When the Bad Plus want to evoke the humanity in Aphex Twin's mechanisms, they let people play like machines. As the jazz trio performs a cover of "Flim," Dave King... More >>
• BEST LOCAL MUSIC COMPILATION
  Even more than its out-of-print predecessor, 1995's No Slow All Go (Daggers), this beautifully packaged, endlessly playable collection of Minnesota punk rock aspires to be a time capsule and cultural shot in the arm at once. Collectively compiled into two exhaustive but never exhausting discs,... More >>
• BEST LOCAL RECORD LABEL
  Back in 1999, Keith Moran was so successful in picking up buzzworthy new personalities for Guilt Ridden Pop that he nearly got Law and Order's sexiest attorney to play rhythm guitar on Mollycuddle's "The Ballad of Jill Henn-essy." Luckily, though, the primetime buff-cum-label impresario has no... More >>
• BEST MARGARITA
  The Ecuadorian immigrant somehow manages to smile as she tells her sad tale in quiet, lilting Spanish. She came to Minneapolis three years ago, by herself, leaving her five-year-old son behind with relatives. In five more years, she says, hopefully she will have saved enough money--more than... More >>
• BEST MARTINI
  WWJD? Meaning, of course, What Would James Bond Drink? Odds are 007 would go for an elegant, classic martini, like the Imperial Room's Presidential, made with tasty Belvedere vodka and just the right nip of dry vermouth, or the Dirty Goose, which gets its salty kick from a dash of olive juice.... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR--MINNEAPOLIS
  Palmer's serves its West Bank neighborhood well. As the Cedar Avenue respite between the Triple Rock, with its often homogenous clientele, and the 400 Bar, which is always overpriced, Palmer's serves stiff drinks to rowdy, sometimes rough, but always fun-loving patrons. Whether you're a crusty... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR--ST. PAUL
  An intrepid (and/or hard-drinking) anthropologist could spend a lifetime chronicling the rich and varied social life of St. Paul bars without ever hitting bottom (at least in the sense of running out of things to chronicle). Few establishments on either side of the river equal this relative... More >>
• BEST NEW BAND
  When 24 Hour Party People resurrected Ian Curtis only to let him hang himself on the big screen, the death was a sign of a genre reborn. Already, throngs of Anglophilic nostalgists were following the Madchester-aping dirge of Interpol and Radio Vago. And come 2003, the great Revision of Joy... More >>
• BEST OLD BAND
  The trick isn't just how to play rock 'n' roll, it's how to be rock 'n' roll. And if the Flamin' Oh's demonstrate anything, it's that the secret is simpler than you think. Still playing raucous 75-minute sets around town with their original '70s lineup, but without late keyboardist Joseph... More >>
• BEST OPEN-MIC NIGHT
  It's less of a Showtime at the Apollo for suburban would-bes than a genuine hootenanny at this downtown St. Paul stalwart. The Artists' Quarter is a beatnik's pleasure dome, albeit the type of place Sal Paradise might've been booted from for lollygagging (eight minutes, please). The AQ's... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO PLAY POOL
  If pool is just a pretense for drinking or picking up a date, there are plenty of joints in the metro with decent tables and a liquor license. If you're looking for superior competition or state-of-the-art equipment, there's a handful of spacious joints in the suburbs, including past winners... More >>
• BEST R&B ARTIST
  Like Prince, Next singer-producer R.L. can't seem to leave town. He works out and goes out in downtown Minneapolis. He supports local charities on the down low, and he seems to hear every word said about him on KMOJ or B96. He'll show up at South Beach for an impromptu performance with T-Low,... More >>
• BEST ROCK BAND
  Even following the head-kicking, throat-scorching, stick-it-in-yer-yeah! squall of their last album, the Midnight Evils' Estrus release Straight Til Morning remains a high note in their career. And we do mean high. "People may think that pot turns you into hippies," drummer Jesse Tomlinson... More >>
• BEST ROCK CLUB
  Honoring a club that has just been gutted for renovations might seem silly. But the Fine Line deserves this much. On the night of February 17, when some Seattle band set off pyrotechnics that turned the ceiling into a scene out of Backdraft, the staff got everybody out of the building quickly... More >>
• BEST SONGWRITER
  "Our little town is no Jerusalem," hisses Mike Gunther on Every Dream That's Dropped and Died (Heart of a Champion). And the way the words scratch his tongue like a dusky swig of paper-bagged whiskey, you aren't sure whether the line is a warning or an exaltation of all bad things to come.... More >>
• BEST STRIP CLUB
  Cameras are set to roll this summer on Howard Stern's remake of the 1981 T&A masterwork Porky's. Timely? You bet. From the Pentagon on down, everything early-Reagan-era is new again--including the obfuscation of everyday vices. Thus, high-profile downtown strip joints like... More >>
• BEST VOCALIST (FEMALE)
  Even the most bodacious, finger-curling shred of a rock 'n' roll guitar riff can get a little lonely without a substantial scream to keep it company. Fortunately for rock fans, Arzu D2, formerly of power-punks Selby Tigers and currently fronting So Fox, can split the hairs of her beehive wig... More >>
• BEST VOCALIST (MALE)
  It hardly needs repeated kvetching, but Minnesota winters are harsh. Fortunately the voice belonging to local singer-songwriter Robert Skoro is as lightweight and airy as a pashmina shawl. It wraps itself around your neck and keeps you warmer than a hot water bottle. In Skoro's... More >>