2006 Best New Performer

17.18% All Nite Skate* 16.59% The Bee's Knees* 16.35% Action Jaxson* 13.63% I, Wombat* 11.02% Superhunk* 6.87% Sketch Machine* 4.62% SupaBadd 2.25% Ton-Up Boys 0.95% Bride and Groom, Pleasing Melani 0.83% P1/T2 0.71% North River Agents 0.59% Waking Abbott Others with Votes (more than one): Echo's Hill, Made to Change, Crouse & Brita, Huckleberry Blue, Between the Rooms, The Goddammits, LadyParts, Logikally Insane, Riverbottom Nitemare Band, Rock County, Stone Soup, Under the Wake Best New Performer 2005 Winner: Unlikely Alibi 2004 Winner: Plow 2003 Winner: Matt Sturm Band 2002 Winner: Troolee Dangerous Blues Revue 2001 Winner: homeless j 2000 Winner: Shelly Dixon Band 1999 Winner: NA 1998 Winner: NA 1997 Winner: NA Best New Solo Artist 2001 Winner: Matt Gates 2000 Winner: Matt Sturm 1999 Winner: NA 1998 Winner: NA 1997 Winner: NA * On the ballot

Perhaps the coolest aspect of the Best New Performer category is that it is not genre specific. All Nite Skate, formed at the beginning of 2005, could easily fit into a Best Instrumental Performer category, if that existed. Nonetheless, the band started creating a name for itself with the release of their self-titled 2005 EP. Back then the band included guitarists Omar Afzaal and Bob Haddad, multi-instrumentalist Darcey Flanagan, bassist Cole Strader, drummer Kay Gregg and Michelle Whitlock on violin. Whitlock left permanently for the West Coast after the EP was released.       Losing a member normally forces other line-up changes, but that wasn't the case for All Nite Skate. The remaining members began experimenting musically and began to develop their distinctive sound.       "We do not specifically confine ourselves to being a strictly ‘instrumental' band," said Afzaal. "So far all the pieces that we have written as a band sound complete without the accompaniment of voice. People have slowly stopped with the ‘why don't you sing?' comments. I believe the importance of instrumental music is coming full-circle, and people are starting