Tame Impala sweep WA Music Awards with four wins

Tame Impala proved themselves to be the reigning kings of Western Australian music, taking out four major wins at the 20th Western Australia Music Awards.

The awards were held over two nights. The public, industry and expert-voted awards were announced on Friday at the Astor Theatre. The WAM Craft Awards continued the celebrations the next night at the Northbridge Piazza.

Tame Impala, who rounded off a US tour a few days before, took out Group of the Year from a pool of nominees featruing Emperors, The Growl, Karnivool, Pond and San Cisco. The psychedelia rock merchants also took Single of the Year for Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, Album of the Year for Lonerism and Music Video of the Year for Elephant.

The Love Junkies, who formed in late 2009 by two high school friends, releasing their debut album Maybelene in June, won the Breakthrough and Rock categories. Lewis Walsh was also awarded Drummer of the Year.

Karnivool won Heavy Rock while Ian Kenny shared Male Vocalist of the Year with The Growl’s Cam Avery. Abbe May went home with the Female Vocalist and Solo Artist of the Year trophies.

Other genre winners were Rainy Day Women (Pop), Kucka (Experimental), Gina Williams (Indigenous), Chainsaw Hookers (Punk), Mathas (Urban), Ruby Boots (Country) Graham Wood (Jazz), Diger Rokwell (Electronic), Grace Barbe (World) while Mama Kin and Timothy Nelson & The Infidels shared the Folk category.  Players who won recognition were Luke Dux (Guitarist of the Year), Ryan Dux (Bassist), Jack Doepal (Synth/Keyboardist) and Todd Pickett (Multi-instrumentalist).

The coveted Golden WAMi went to Andrew Ryan, lauded for his contribution to the WA music scene as a venue manager (Mojo’s), promoter (Cool Perth Nights) and a musician (Long Lost Brothers, Fall Electric, Adam Said Galore).

In WA-based Record Label of the Year, Walking Horse Music trumped over Spinning Top Music, The Community Records and Heartless Robot.

Other industry winners over the two nights were Luke Rinaldi (Manager), Astor Theatre (Music Venue), St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival (Music Event), 78 Records (Record Store), Adam Trainer of RTR FM (Media Individual), Dave Parkin (Recording Engineer), To-Ku (Electronic Producer) and TheMusic (website). Luke Gray and Adam Round tied for Live Sound Engineer of the Year.

As reported by TMN last week, long time punk promoter and venue manager Ken ‘Squasha’ Knight was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Among those performing at the Astor Theatre event, hosted by triple j’s Dom Alessio and Lewi McKirdy, were San Cisco frontman Jordi Davieson, The Love Junkies, Mama Kin, and a team-up of MC/ producer Mathas, Abbe May and Diger Rokwell.