The Music Poll

Vote! Now!

• Cast your vote for the best of 2010 at roanoke.com/musicpoll
• See full list of winners

The results are in for The Roanoke Times Music Poll, version 2010, and as usual, there are surprises mixed in with the expected.

A new band to the scene, Save The Flame, from Christiansburg, sparked enough votes to top the favorite band category, despite less than a handful of gigs. Save The Flame's frontman, Joshua Sizemore, won the favorite male singer, favorite guitarist and favorite original songwriter categories by huge margins. And the band's bassist, Drew Taylor, topped the list of favorite bassists, again by many, many votes.

The numbers: Save The Flame received 1,128 votes. The next closest act, Frantic Recovery, received 239.

The latter three categories are part of our expanded local favorites list, which we ran this year in lieu of national music categories. And sure enough, there was plenty of interest in almost all of the categories -- maybe too much interest.

It's a largely ungoverned and completely unscientific poll, and it produced such winners as Chris Shepard's "Hellbender" (favorite local record) and Acoustic Lounge in Roanoke (favorite live music venue).

Now I'm a fan of Shepard, and I've been writing about him ever since I first heard his Darryl Strawberry lament, "The Crack Song." But "Hellbender" got 1,096 votes. Acoustic Lounge, a once-monthly showcase for original songwriters, happens at Studio Roanoke, capacity about 40. It got 1,078 votes -- certainly far more votes than total attendance at the event in its year or so of existence. Shepard organizes and hosts that show.

But he said he was baffled to learn about the totals.

"I truly don't know if I believe you," he said in an e-mail conversation on Facebook. "Seriously, I am not sure. I would have to comb the Internet to find out. I voted for Floyd Country Store (shhhhh). I really didn't go out of my way to campaign for it either."

Sizemore of Save The Flame said in a Facebook e-mail that he was equally baffled: "Wow, no clue," he wrote. "We do have a pretty good underground following and go viral a lot."

Overall, the poll logged more than 4,700 votes. Last year, we received more than 4,100 replies. The year before, 1,119 votes were cast.

An editor's choice

According to readers' votes online and via paper ballots, your favorite bands, in order, are: Save The Flame, Frantic Recovery, The Kings, Monkey Fuzz and Polychrome.

This is a good mix. You've got your up-and-coming in Save The Flame. You've got your stalwart rockers in Frantic Recovery. You've got your party time cover bands in The Kings and Monkey Fuzz. And you've got your originals/covers diverse mix in Polychrome.

To that, I'm adding an editor's choice for the second round of the music poll, in which voters will select the two bands who will play The Roanoke Times Music Poll Concert on Jan. 29 at Jefferson Center. My editor's choice this year: The Bastards of Fate.

I've found in my three years of doing this poll that the Roanoke and New River valleys' mainstream is pretty well represented in the voting. And that's great. But I've also been a little chagrined over the years at how little love comes to some of the region's excellent indie bands.

Groups like The Bastards of Fate, The Young Sinclairs, Eternal Summers, HopeHop and more barely get enough votes to register.

There could be several reasons for this, but I'm going to speculate that most readers who vote in the music poll simply haven't been exposed to this stuff. Each of those four bands has done good work, and I wonder if they're not better known out in the wider world than they are here in their own hometown.

Well, here's your chance to check it out. Go to our updated poll page, roanoke.com/musicpoll. There, we'll have video and audio of each band, with links to their websites. Check out the music, and vote for your favorite.

Other winners

Monkey Fuzz, as is often the case, turned out to be a music poll darling.

The band's Lisa Martin won the favorite female singer category, finishing ahead of Brittany Sparks, Christy Bowles, Judi Jackson and Kat Mills.

Martin also won the favorite keyboardist category, and her cohort John Gardner was selected favorite drummer. The band's performance at Gallop 4 The Greenways is this year's favorite live performance.

Check out the winners. Then go out and hear them play.