Heavy Petting

Go to hell, Grammys.

What are you looking at, Oscars?

Make way for the Heavies. Or is it the Freques?

Either way, the Heavy Frequency Awards made their auspicious debut this past weekend to reward the region’s purveyors of hard and heavy rock with kind words, fancy trophies and an excuse to binge drink on a Sunday afternoon.

The verdict?

Roger Ebert gave it two enthusiastic devil-horns up. Gene Siskel gave it two … oh, damn. He’s dead? Whoops. Well, what Gene might have said, assuming that (a) he had a pulse and (b) he gave two shits about Kansas City hard rock, is that the master of puppets working the strings behind Heavy Frequency put on a surprisingly credible affair.

That would be editor in chief Heather Frequency … er … Heather Bashaw, working with the staff of the fledgling online magazine. It was almost inevitable that these ardent scene-supporters would eventually throw Slash‘s top hat into the thirty-ring circus of music awards.

And there they were. There everybody was. Some 200 people packed into a conference room at Kauffman Stadium just above where dapper sky-box types sip cocktails and shout batting tips to Carlos Beltran.

It was a curious venue for such a gathering, but the blue-blooded stomping grounds did lend an air of formality and validity to the proceedings that might not have been found at Chuck E. Cheese, America’s Pub or the local Planned Parenthood clinic.

Indeed, the attendees were regaled in Sunday finery. The goatee guys with the kind of piercings normally seen only in National Geographic wore just their best lip rings. The dolls with dyed-black hair wore slinky dresses and low-cut shirts to display the tribal tattoos etched above their butt cracks. It was that rare society event where some of the men were wearing more black eyeliner than their dates.

Yet the show started with more of a whisper than a bang. The organizers decided to throw a sacrificial lamb to the pagan masses before the crowd was liver-deep in Bud Light. Thus, Ryan Red Corn began the event with an acoustic set.

Somebody say acoustic?

Hell, yeah. But the mild-mannered metalheads refrained from tearing Ryan the Red to ribbons. Instead, they sat politely as he did his Dashboard Confessional thing. Singing and strumming about sunrises and sunsets, willows and widows, shedding tears and, you know, feelings and shit.

What followed was both typical and unpredictable. There was lame presentation patter. There were stammering I-don’t-deserve-this speeches. There was shouting, cursing, devil horns thrust in the sky and the occasional logistical snafu, but nothing that would twist anyone’s knickers. These award winners swaggered to the podium carrying their drinks and offering Mad Libs-style acceptance speeches in which cool was the only adjective and rules! the only verb. They thanked parents, friends, God and Bret Saberhagen when they weren’t thanking “the dark lord Satan,” and “all the bros that party!” or shouting, “I’m Rick James, bitch!”

Audio Kombat Arsenal and the Stillborn put in solid live performances, but a gal named Chloe was the belle of the ball in that department.

Chloe Bridges sounds like a coffeehouse princess, a granola-munching, Nietszche-quoting songstress who slays Algerian sweatshops with her acoustic guitar. In reality, it’s a hardcore quintet dressed like something the Hives shat out.

They seemed like nice young boys. And then … tick, tick, tick … boom.

Look out, Gladys. These lads were suddenly caught in a feverish panic attack. Lead singer Justin Ellison was doing scissor kicks, slamming into bandmates and alternating between the bloodcurdling scream of a 13-year-old girl and the guttural bark of a distempered chain smoker. The band’s thunderous stop-and-go dynamic eventually shook loose the Heavy Frequency banner nailed to the wall behind them.

It was beside the point to conjecture about whether Ellison was singing about mass murder or knitting quilts or even to determine if the bands nominated for these awards were the “most” deserving.

Was the voting airtight? No. Was the nominating process free from conflicts of interest? Of course not. Was offering another Best Whatever in Kansas City awards show even necessary? Maybe not.

But the awards weren’t entirely the point. Neither was the fact that Intent, Given With Honor and Moiré took home eight of the thirteen prizes. The point, as the Stillborn’s Pat Doyle opined, was about crumbling the “bullshit cliques” that have ruled the subculture for years. After all, as Doyle said before the Stillborn began the ceremony’s sweaty finale, “That’s what music is about — coming together.”

Ahhhhh. Somebody cue Ryan Red Corn.