The Polaris Music Prize is a yearly award given to a Canadian artist for best album, as decided by a group of music journalists and broadcasters.  The prize includes a cash award of $30,000, and this year it was given to Feist for her album Metals. This  drives me crazy.

Even if Feist’s album wasn’t terrifically boring (it is), she has to be the artist, out all the people nominated, who needs money and publicity the least. Well, okay, Drake was also nominated, but Take Care is really great. So is Japandroid’s album Celebration Rock, which is like a stiff drink and all of the excitement and angst of being young distilled into musical form. Heck, I’d even prefer it if a band called Cold Specks had won, and I know nothing about them.

The Polaris Music Prize provides the opportunity to support a promising young artist so that they can maybe get a shot at paying their rent, and this year the award was wasted. What’s the purpose of arts awards ceremonies, anyway?

Hamilton’s own version of music awards, the appropriately-named Hamilton Music Awards, happened last Sunday, Nov. 18. When I first heard about it, I thought what you’re probably thinking now: “So what?” Well, I’ll tell you what. The Hamilton Music Awards are our antidote to the out-of-touch Polaris Music Prize.

The Hamilton Music Awards don’t come with a $30,000 prize, but they do support great local bands that are playing really close to you, this week, probably for five bucks. One of those great local bands, the Dirty Nil, won punk recording of the year for their passionately catchy single “Little Metal Baby Fists.”

“Mickey, the singer of the band Forgotten Rebels, was announcing the winner,” said Kyle Fisher, the Dirty Nil’s drummer. “But when he went to go say it he would cough, and he did it like three times, for way too long. And I was like, ‘Fuckin’ say it, man! My heart is pounding through my chest, stop doing this to me.’ And then he told us. And it was a relief.”

The Hamilton Music Awards are a refreshing antithesis to the bloated pomp of something like the Grammys.

“There wasn’t anything about business,” said Fisher. “It was a lot of congratulations, and then it became, ‘Let’s all party now.’”

“It’s different because it’s more about the community,” said Fisher. “Hamilton has such an intertwined music community, where punk bands hang out with folk people. There’s a lot of crossover and just a lot of friends. A lot of homies hanging left and right. I think that’s what those awards really stand for. The brotherhood of Hamilton music. And sisterhood.”

Other music awards could learn from our example.

Nolan Matthews, Senior ANDY Editor

The sun was setting, the rain held off (mostly) and cotton candy and red bull were plentiful at the second Welcome Week concert on Saturday Sept. 8. The Sheepdogs, who had come all the way from Saskatoon, were headlining.

Their music exploded with such good vibes that there was even the hint of a crowd surf. It took two attempts and only lasted about half a second, but it was there.

Near the end of the set, the singer thanked everyone for coming out. Despite the fact that there was no drinking allowed at the event, the guitar player ran to his red plastic beer cup and handed it to someone in the crowd, to which the singer responded, “Well, that’s going to be taken away immediately.” And even if it was, at least the person got a good story out of it.

The Dirty Nil, from nearby Dundas, were the first of two openers. They were reckless, loud and catchy. The Toronto-based Great Bloomers were next up. Their folk-indie pop was pleasant.

Before the show, I got to ask the Sheepdogs about their story.

The band has been around for eight years, releasing three albums before their infamous Rolling Stone cover. Their latest album, the first on a major label, is self-titled and came out on Sept. 4.

Before all the magazine covers and major labels, the Sheepdogs were high school band geeks. “Ryan and I first met because we were in schools bands, like concert band,” said singer Ewan Currie. “We both played clarinet,” laughed Ryan Gullen, the bass player. “The macho-ist of the woodwinds,” replied Currie. “Well, after flute and piccolo. We never had a punk phase or anything like that.”

Going from a playing clarinet to the Sheepdogs took a bit of time, and the members were about 20 when it all started. From there, the Sheepdogs did what all young bands do: they toured as much as they could and prayed that they’d be able to afford gas.

“We had doubts. How can you not?” said Currie. “I think it’s natural to have doubts in everyday life, no matter what you’re doing. Certainly there are times where you’re like, ‘Why the fuck am I out here doing this right now?’”

Hearing that Currie doubted himself was understandable, but I wondered how he knew that his doubts didn’t mean that he should give it up. “It’s like an intangible thing, you just have to know,” he said. “It’s just a gut thing. You’ll find out, man.”

Despite the doubts, the Sheepdogs made it to the point where Patrick Carney from the Black Keys produced their most recent album. “He has one of those megaphone things, a cone, like an old-time director, and he sits in a director’s chair, and he goes ‘Cut, cut, cut! All wrong!’” said Currie.

“He wore a beret. He treated it like he was Robert Altman on the set of McCabe and Miller.”

“That was the strangest reference,” added Gullen.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an old western that, like much of the music that has influenced the Sheepdogs, is from the 1970s.

“It’s not like I wish I was in Woodstock and I wish I was in 1971,” said Currie. “I just like the stuff they were doing. The music more closely resembled roots music, like old country and blues and folk. It had chord progressions and melodies and harmonies, and bands were generally more adept at playing in a range of styles. It seems like a lot of bands now start by playing their original material instead of learning a bunch of other stuff. And as such, I think their sound gets really limited.”

I expected the Sheepdogs to be gruff and intimidating – maybe that’s because of their huge beards and shoulder-length hair. But they were friendly, down-to-earth and funny. Like their concert, it was a nice surprise.

The Sheepdogs played at Faculty Hollow on Sept. 8 to close out Welcome Week.

The Dirty Nil, from nearby Dundas, were the first band up. They made me wish I was drunk, and I mean that in the best way. They sounded like ‘90s college rock and punk, and like a soundtrack to a drunken party with your best bros. In other words, they were a great band for a crowd of first-year students trying to get to know each other.

Dirty Nil’s reckless energy was infectious, and every chorus seemed to involve a top-of-the-lungs yell.

They played a solid Replacements cover, but their version of “Immigrant’s Song” got a bigger cheer. I watched a guy form his hands into a passionate and completely un-ironic pair of devil horns.

When singer Luke Bentham announced that the last song was called “Fuckin’ Up Young,” the crowd let out a big cheer. Maybe they just liked hearing someone say ‘fuck,’ or maybe they were fans of the song, but to me it sounded like a rallying cry that the students would not fuck up being young.

The Dirty Nil made being in a band with your friends seem like the most fun thing in the world. My only complaint is that the guitar could’ve been louder.

The second band was the Toronto-based Great Bloomers. Where the Dirty Nil jumped, these guys bopped. Their sound was folk-indie pop.

I didn’t notice they had a keyboard player until I tried to locate the source of a loud, distorted farting sound on the third song. But then the guitar player brought out a surprise trumpet and all the sound-problem sins were forgiven.

Later, the singer hilariously misheard the “you’re hot” cheer from the crowd as “you’re high,” and I can only imagine how weird it would’ve been to have a couple thousand first-year students calling you out for smoking marijuana. But the Great Bloomers loosened up by the end of the set, and current single “I Wanna Die Young” was a nice highlight.

Then came the Sheepdogs, all the way from Saskatoon. I was totally prepared not to like the Sheepdogs, but I’ll be damned if all the three-part vocal harmonies and harmonized guitar solos didn’t sound great.

I think years of listening to formulaic classic rock from my parents has made me dislike anything that sounds like it’s from Q107, but the ‘70s rock and blues of the Sheepdogs was too catchy for me to hate. They sounded and looked like a bunch of guys who have a nerdy love for the music and fashion of forty years ago and wanted to lovingly recreate it as accurately as they could.

The Sheepdogs’ music exploded with such good vibes that I even saw the hint of a crowd surf. It took two attempts and only lasted about half a second, but it was there.

Near the end of the set, the singer thanked everyone for coming out. Even though there was no drinking, the guitar player then ran to his red plastic beer cup and handed it to someone in the crowd, to which the singer responded, “Well, that’s going to be taken away.”

Even if the beer was taken away, I’m sure the person got a good story out of it. But even more unexpected than having a Sheepdog hand out beer was that this Welcome Week concert kind of made me miss being in first year. Make sure you’re not “Fuckin’ Up Young,” kids.