Winners Revealed For Dirtbag Awards 2016

The winners of the 3rd Annual Dirtbag Awards were revealed at a suitably low-brow event at Whammy Bar in Auckland on Friday night. This year the awards attracted more than 1200 online voters, who together decided the winners across around 20 categories. The evening saw Street Chant take the highly coveted prize for Best Album/EP Release for their third album Hauora, and on top of that they picked up the Robin Williams Fallen Angel Award, which is given to a band that separated during the year.

In some kind of Christmas miracle the votes were evenly divided to see garage-punk duo Dad Jokes pick up Best Live Act alongside their buddies sere. And the evening also saw the mysterious Tape Man, aka Stink Magnetic Records founder Dylan Herkes recognised with the Andrew Tolley Legacy Award, which is chosen by Andrew Tolley himself. Here is Herkes' acceptance speech, which was played at the award ceremony...

And here is the full list of winners, in roughly the order they were given out...

Best Cassette: Roy Irwin - S.O.D.A.
Best Pop/Folk/Experimental Act: Queen Neptune
Best Bartender: Joe from Whammy, who gave his award to Hariet Ellis
Radio 1 Dunedin Artist of the Year: Astro Children
Best Newcomer: Peach Milk
Best Visual Artist: Ahnand Unka
Radio Active Wellington Artist of the Year: Transistor
Best Hip Hop / Bass: Tourettes
Radio Control Palmerston North Artist of the Year: SODA Boys
Best Promoter of the Year: Worn Out
Best Engineer: Madison Eve
Andrew Tolley Legacy Award: Dylan Herkes (Tape Man / Stink Magnetic Records)
Best Electronic Act: SoccerPractise
Best Metal Act: Slavedriver
RDU Christchurch Artist of the Year: The Dance Asthmatics
Best All Ages: Yukon Era
Best Vinyl: Sere
Karyn Cullington Memorial Award For Service to the Community: Karyn Cullington (accepted by Markdown)
Robin Williams Fallen Angel Award: Street Chant
Best Album/EP Release: Street Chant - Hauora
Best Live Act: Dad Jokes / Sere
Dirtbag's Choice Award: Bebe-Ray Gains