The 1997 Dallas Observer Music Awards

The group has been around since the late '80s, evolving from a party band to a slick, highly visual dance machine spewing as much original material as radio hits. The band has sold more than 2,000 units of their debut album, Certified Funky, currently being remixed for re-release with three new songs.

While there is nary a rap number to be found in any of the Playschool's musical classrooms, its rabid followers will happily attest to the band's otherwise comprehensive curriculum in all forms of danceable music.

--Rick Koster

Pump'n Ethyl
Nominated for: Album Release, Male Vocalist (Turner Scott Van Blarcum)
Pump'n Ethyl is a collective of veteran Dallas punks--led by the inimitable and highly tattooed Turner Scott Van Blarcum, the galvanizing force behind the quartet. Van Blarcum is charismatic and nothing if not striking: A tall, hulking figure, he has skull tattoos dripping down both sides of his head, seemingly leaking out from under his irregularly cut mohawk. From beneath the sleeves of his torn shirt, more skulls and bones spread out across his upper arms. Turner doesn't so much walk out on stage as he storms, growling and roaring his barrage of anti-society, anti-government, pro-gun, self-empowering rants with titles like "Too Punk to Fuck," "Jesus was a Homo," and "Heavy Metal Dickhead." Thank God I'm Living in the U.S.A. came out last March, full of skatepunk gobbing and plain ol' smart-ass bad attitude. Several songs since have garnered airplay, but most successful has been the quirky local hit "I Hate Work," which has helped sell nearly 2,000 copies of the album so far.

--Alex Magocsi

Henry Qualls
Nominated for: Blues
Spin magazine just wrote up Black Possum, a label specializing in Mississippi bluesmen whose sound is so rugged and violent, mainstream blues fans flee in terror. Texas' version of these Delta badmen is Henry Qualls, killer of feral hogs and possessor of the deepest, darkest blues voice since Lightnin' Hopkins. His guitar sound is distorted and dirty; his playing technique depraved. Discovered playing for drunken fryfests behind his country home, Qualls cut the exceptional Blues From Elmo, Texas for the Dallas Blues Society label in 1994 and began making the rounds of blues festivals here and abroad. The UK's Juke Blues magazine called him "the surprise hit" of Holland's Blues Estafette '94, citing a performance that left the crowd "open-mouthed in delight and disbelief." Nothing wrong with the city slickers that presently personify blues, but for a look at the loam from which their idiom sprang, consult Qualls.

--Tim Schuller

Quickserv Johnny
Nominated for: Most Improved Act
To say Quickserv Johnny is vastly improved somehow suggests that--what, a year ago?--they awkwardly pawed chords like Cub Scouts in their fathers' flannel shirts.

Actually, a year ago the band had a Shiner Bock sponsorship and a hit tune, "Larry," in heavy rotation on area radio stations. Even so, on the strength of a hummably consistent new CD, Satellitely, and another radio fave, "Janitor Man," one could argue that Quickserv Johnny has improved. At least to the extent that the driving, melodic rock band is now considered hot on the heels of the Deep Blue/Old 97's/Grand Street buzz-makers that passed before them.

--Rick Koster

Radish
Nominated for: New Act
"Silverchair? I love them, man!" exclaims 15-year-old Ben Kwellar, leader of Greenville's Radish. "But [there's] one thing I've noticed: They were really cool, but they would fart and burp all the time and be dumb-asses and never talk about anything serious, you know? I couldn't carry on too many conversations with them." Kwellar sounds disappointed, but quickly reiterates: "But they're cool, man--I love their music."

Ben's obvious youth inevitably translates to the band's audience. At this month's Deep Ellum Arts Festival, scores of preteen and early-teenage girls squealed and hopped to the beat as Radish performed their signature "Dear Aunt Arctica."

Appropriately, "We call our music 'sugar metal' because it's kind of like the Monkees with loud guitars," Kwellar says. "We're not afraid to let our pop side show or to be happy. Everybody in the '90s is like, 'this sucks, life sucks.'" Their first major tour hasn't yet started, but Kwellar is already looking ahead. "I'm working on the second record, and it's going to be more of a concept: the [music] industry and how much it can suck." Fans needn't worry about Kwellar baring an angst-filled soul any time soon, though. "I don't know," he says. "I'm just...happy, I guess."

--Howard Wen

Johnny Reno
Nominated for: Cover Band
In the space of a year, tenor saxman and longtime local fixture Johnny Reno's made Thursday "lounge nights" at Red Jacket a lava-lit hub for the young and hip

In the process, Reno and his band, the Lounge Kings, have introduced them to a whole style of music: the warm jets of a Hammond B-3, the retro restraint of a guitar amp turned up only to 4, brushes on drums. More importantly, he's introduced the nightclub set to the idea of music as something more than a canned addendum to gin-crazed rutting rituals. Folks who otherwise might have been content to focus on trash disco for 15 more years have another option.