Vote for Oakland artists, businesses, and more in the East Bay Express Best of the East Bay Awards

14 Jun

I’m a bit late on this, but voting is still open for the East Bay Express 2009 Best of the East Bay awards. Last year, I urged readers to vote for V Smoothe at A Better Oakland for best local blogger, and she won! This year, you can once again vote for your favorite Oakland blogger and can vote for your favorite Oakland businesses, artists, musicians, and more. There are 136 categories in all and you have to to vote for at least 26 categories, but this shouldn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes.

This year, I have a couple of recommendations. For best band, I enthusiastically voted for Damon and the Heathens, who I’ve written about here a couple times. They describe themselves as:

a six-piece punk soul band from Oakland, California. We combine the sounds of New Orleans brass bands with Detroit garage rock, blues, jazz, and funk to create a sound best described as horn-fueled Oakland grit. Known for a raucous live show and a tight sound, the only thing holding us back now is our bar tab.

They’re an incredibly fun ban to see live, and their lyrics often talk about life in Oakland, specifically Ghost Town.

For rising political figure, I voted for Sean Sullivan, who ran for Oakland City Council last year. Sean lost that race but that has not stopped his involvement in Oakland community and politics. He is co-chair of his NCPC and represents the 3rd district on the Community Action Partnership and Community Development Block Grant board. Sean recently wrote a guest post here about the need to think carefully about cuts to libraries, in order to protect libraries and services that are most needed by the community. He also helped with the fight to stop the surface parking lot in Uptown Oakland. Sean is dedicated to marriage equality and gave a moving speech about this movement at the Join the Impact rally last year, after the passage of Prop 8. Sean is already a prominent community leader in Oakland, and I look forward to the day that he further serves Oakland as a City Councilmember.