Most Spooked Cover Model

HUZZAH!  What’s our second favorite local BEST OF (aside from our own) every year?  You got it, the, uh, Houston Press’ Best of Houston issue, where bands who might have missed out of the Trophey earlier in the year vie for a wall plaque, and many of the fine folks, eateries, establishments and abstract concepts get their gloss-covered due.  Since there’s about a thousand categories and it’s actually contained inside an issue of the Press that you’ll have to read as well, we thought we’d wade into the picks and point out a few that might be of interest to folks as attractive as you are.  SHAKA!

Best Benefit to Living Downtown: Not Driving a Car
Until you have to goto a grocery store, that is.

Best Place to Meet Single Women: Vinyl Ranch at Leon’s Lounge
Uhh, This monthly wax-only golden-era country throw down may be one of most underrated and WHIPS evenings of fun in the 713, but we’re pretty sure the number of women there tends to be pretty low. Granted, retina burner Rachel Hewlett is usually one of them, and quality does go a long way addressing quantity. But we think you’re better off going to the Starbucks on West Grey to catch all the women that will be heading there now that it’s been recognized as the best place to meet single men.

Best Contribution to Downtown Development: Discovery Green
Someone needs to get their act together and throw a festival here. There are TWO outdoor stages. Who wouldn’t want to play a show while people piloted remote control sailboats in the background.

Best Lawsuit: Walters Takes on its Tormentors
THIS CLUB IS AN INSTITUTION AND WAS THERE BEFORE YOU. When are we going to all get together and do the thing where we put all the for sale signs in their yard?

Best Local Blog: Off the Kuff
SNOOZE. His helicopter can only hold like four people.

Best Band Name: Young Mammals
This is a terrible band name. It doesn’t have ‘wolf,’ ‘fire,’ ‘black’ or ‘Jandek’ anywhere in it. Just name yourself Young Young Mammals Mammals and get it over with.

Best Bar Bathroom: Rudyards Downstairs Men’s Room
We prefer bathrooms where we don’t have to stand on our tip toes to minimize urine exposure, but we’re kind of prissy that way.

Best CD: Indian Jewelry – Free Gold
Holy Crap, we still haven’t reviewed this record. We’re fired. If it weren’t for POWERHOUSE!, we might have to agree. Def in our top five for the year.

Best New Club: Boondocks
We’re gonna go ahead and agree on this one.

Best Club For Local Acts: Continental Club
WHICH LOCAL ACTS?! We’d kill to see some of our favs here, but apparently you need to play a Telecaster through a tweed amp to get onto the stage.  Oh yeah, the bands that play here tend to know their songs too.

Best Club for Out of Town Acts: Warehouse Live
We needed this club so bad. Sure, we’re not particularly interested in most of their lineups, but think of what a catastrophe it would be if it hadn’t opened and now we were without the Engine Room?

Best Performance Space: Backroom at the Mink
The little room that could, that’s for sure. We’ve been to (and held) more than our fair share of shows here, but we might give the edge to Boondocks upstairs if they had shows that weren’t just on weeknights. Also, they have Barenjaeger.

Best Patio: El Pueblito Place
Also a winner for least attentive service ever. But seriously, if you can snag a cabana table and are more concerned with ambiance and tasty food/drinks than cost, this is the place to be.

Best Bachelorette Party Entertainment: You(genious)
Confirmed.

Best Bar: Poison Girl
OMG PG HH ASAP PLZ

Best Bar Atmosphere/Decor: Lone Star Bar
Also: Loudest Jukebox, drunkest Metro patrons and most morbidly hilarious shot ($1 Firehouse Specials available only when you can hear emergency vehicle sirens).

Best Coffeehouse: Catalina Coffee
Ahem. The owners of this place COVERED UP their electrical outlets in the aftermath of Ike. Antidote in the Heights let patrons use theirs even when they were running on a GENERATOR. Guess who gets our business?

Best New Bar: Pearl Bar
Funny how a Brad Moore bar won best new bar in 2007 (Pearl Bar, back when it was just a Patio), 2008 (the renovated and finally fully open Pearl Bar) and 2009 (Big Star Bar, which has been open for just a few weeks and is already our new Jam).

Best Unsigned Band: News on the March
Woah. It’s nice to see these guys getting attention like this already. It’s weird to thing about being signed versus unsigned in these times, however. Team Science put out the Papermoons records – does that make them signed? Are there actual documents anymore, or are negotiations carried out via text and MySpace? Where are our funny pills?

Best Concert Series: Saturday Secret Shows @ Shady Tavern
WE KEEP TELLING YOU! Two awesome things about the winter: 1) Cold Weather Clothing. 2) Listening to music on a crisp clear Saturday afternoon, where the beer is only slightly colder than the wonderfully still air.

Best Dive: Crowe Bar
We’d like to say that this is incorrect and that the award should goto the Shiloh club, but we keep forgetting that this last resort of townie culture in the Heights has an internet jukebox and a big-screen TV. However, the people watching is intense and the drinks are heavier than a Dodge, so we might stick with our guns on this one. Tie goes to DUTCHMAN.

Best Local Rapper: K-Rino
WHO?

Best Place to Lie Around Drinking Beer: Valhallah
Bwahahah. Until it got SHUT DOWN.

Best Midtown Club: Shoeshine Charlie’s Big Top Lounge
Known as ‘Big Top’ to everyone not involved in it’s paperwork, it is a great place to catch a drink when you need to sneak out of the Mink, or just want to chill after catching Beetle at Continental. Wait a sec, so every bar on the block where the Press’ Music Editor lives got an award? Next thing you know we’ll be reading about Sig’s Lagoon .

Best Novelty Store: Sig’s Lagoon
Oh.

Best Beach: Crystal Beach
Oh.

Best Place to Buy Music: Cactus Music
We gotta say, we never really liked the old Cactus. Dunno why, just never did anything for us. We really dig the new incarnation. Granted, we drop more dime at Sound Exchange, but we sure spend a heckuva a lot of time digging through the Cactus bins. I mean, somehow they scored a massive portion of the old KILT 45 library – it’s like the sun opened up and rained down 97.1 FM onto our turntable. Genius.

Best Vintage Record Store: Sound Exchange
Also – best place to buy local releases of the non hip-hop, navy rock, or en Espagnol persuasion.