Scene Cleveland Music Awards 2006

Cactus 12 frontman Sam Getz has been slinking around the city's rock and blues scenes since he was 14, and his band's raucous live shows have the energy of a teenager in heat. Getz plays his six-string like he's having rough sex with it, twisting it behind his head, tossing it to the ground, spastically having his way with it. He can inject his music with emotion just as impressively.

A man about town, Ryan Humbert truly came into his own this year. A former staffer for indie alt-radio station WAPS 91.3 the Summit, he now plays music just as evocative as the records he once spun. Versed in rock, bluegrass, country, and folk, Humbert applied his diverse background to his band's recent Hangman LP and is currently collaborating with Akron's Tracey Thomas.

Plasma for Guns plays live-wire postpunk and has the musical chops to trade roles on guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. This unpredictable crew whips up a whirlwind of noise that never drifts too far from the central groove, even when the feedback crackles like thunder.

Crawling from the bubbling goo that is modern post-punk, Cleveland's Who Killed Marilyn? has spent the last year lurking around Peabody's, setting up its own record label (Ghost Lab Records), and unleashing a full-length debut, Escape From the Scene, an eclectic mash-up of brawny metal riffing, pop-punk swagger, and emo self-awareness. -- Ferris

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Best Live Act
The New Lou Reeds bear a closer sonic resemblance to Pere Ubu's art rock than the onetime Velvet Underground frontman, but no matter. The Cleveland trio uncorks tales of twisted beauty salvaged from the city's urban wreckage. It's blues from the rubble, rock in the rust, and punk in the place dreams go to die.

Know this about Nine Shocks Terror --though you'll have guessed it early in the band's riotous live set: Its hardcore lifers are huge marks for pro wrestling, and they show it by going apeshit. This year, they've trailed each others' blood from the Grog Shop to Japan.

We would describe This Moment in Black History, but this e-mail we received says it best: "Frontman Chris Kulcsar is a madman. Jumps around like a psychotic rabbit . . . A synth got trashed by a flying can of Pabst."

The demented duo Uncle Scratch's Gospel Revival isn't humble -- but it's on a mission from God, so it's OK. "LORDY, LORDY, WE ROCK! We are the two-headed beast that's gonna kick the devil in the balls," declares the band's mission statement. Wearing cheap ball caps and cheaper sunglasses, Brothers Ant and Ed are as explosive as M-80s, playing inspired, twisted honky-tonk. By show's end, you'll be a believer.

In an alternate universe, the Whiskey Daredevils' antihipster anthem "Ironic Trucker Hat" is the national anthem, and happy hour lasts all day. The Devils formed from the warm ashes of the Cowslingers and uphold their reputation as a dusty, bourbon-soaked, country-punk band.

Not only does Wish You Were Here recreate the music of Pink Floyd -- Wish does everything it can to recreate perhaps the most beloved live production in the history of rock. Since last year, the Cleveland sensation has graduated from sold-out clubs to major venues including Blossom Music Center, bringing along a huge airborne inflatable pig, a towering wall of white bricks, and a giant video screen showing the same footage Floyd used. -- Ferris

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Best Punk/ Hardcore
American Werewolves' sophomore LP, 1968, takes its name from a landmark year in horror, and the band's distinct brand of hardcore is imbued with an eerie, creepy edge. Hulking frontman Trevor Moment is one of the most recognizable figures in the scene, even when he's not crooning violent ballads.

Nine Shocks Terror was stomping and thrashing to tribal beats when most Warped Tour attendees were in diapers, lurking in Cleveland like a junkyard dog since '96. Think the scene's elder statesmen can't hang with the younger breed of pit ninjas? Please feel free to show up and heckle them -- and learn why they titled an LP Zen and the Art of Beating Your Ass.

Playing grimy gutter punk in the tradition of the Dead Boys, the Sex Crimes run with classy-monikered bands like Lower Class Brats and Clit 45. The members of this mixed-gender lineup wouldn't know a frill if they spat on it. In tunes such as the sleazy "36 Matches," they sing about dying young -- and mean to do it by the end of the song.

Trendy frontman Aaron Wilson has been picked out of a concert crowd by Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong twice -- which is both a remarkable coincidence and proof that high-caliber punks can sense their own. This powerful trio cut its teeth in the Green Day paradigm of tightly coiled wiseass punk, but has come into its own on the new Stupid Generation album.