The Klammies Go Uptown

Staff Writer Shawn Edwards, who served double duty as the evening's backstage announcer, continued the scripted speech before stumbling over a couple of phrases and condensing the entire spiel into five words: "Yo, Jacki is the shit."

Even though Becker was working the Klammies in the role of stage manager, the award came as a complete surprise to her. "Wow, I had no idea at all," she said, leaving her place behind the scenes for her moment in the spotlight. "I'm so proud of the Lawrence and Kansas City scene. For the 10 years I've been here it's been amazing, and everything is coming around again. You guys are all wonderful. I don't know what I'm supposed to say."

That could have been because Becker didn't realize she was even up for an award (no nominations are announced to the public) until Mosiman told her to pay attention to what was going on out front. "You can't hear anything backstage," she later revealed. "I just suddenly heard my name and I thought it was from my walkie-talkie." As great as it was to win, Becker sarcastically mentioned that it would happen this year of all those possible. "The one year my boyfriend's not here and the one year I don't bring my camera." Still, Becker got to relive the honor when two friends who were sequestered in the box office all evening found out about it after the show.

Best New Band recipients Cross Country Felons also didn't have much in the way of friends, family, or even band members in the crowd, though Timmy the Wrench, the only Felon who could make it, offered a tragic explanation of why. "I regret that tonight Horatio Ignatz and Rod Ramrod can't be here," he started. "We got some bad news Wednesday. They had a friend down in Connecticut that they grew up with that was in a bad motorcycle incident. They had to go back and deal with that, help his family, and they're in Connecticut now, but they wish they could be here. This award is for Corey Cerrone, their friend who died."

At least Ignatz and Ramrod had good reasons for not showing up. Scheduled next on the bill was Kansas City native-gone-national and the only performer with her own dressing room, Solé, but she was nowhere to be found. After all was said and done, Event Coordinator Jason Dockery still wasn't sure what had transpired. "We were supposed to pick her up at 8:30 p.m. from the Hyatt, and she wasn't there. We sent a cab, and the cab acted like we hadn't called so we sent another one," he said of the first-ever performer to no-show at the Klammies. "I sent two different cars to go get her and they went to her room. They had a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, but they knocked on the door, banged on the door, and then we got security to bang on the door. We called her over and over and she didn't call any of us."

Edwards heard a different version of the story. "According to reports, Solé broke a nail while she was in her hotel room and wouldn't come out," he joked.

Tragedy almost struck again when local comedian David Naster attempted to present the award for Song of the Year and found himself the subject of heckling. "Oh, you're busting my balls, Coolio, is that what you're doing?" he queried the unseen verbal assailant. "What's that? Get a toupee? No, it's mine. You've got to get a better heckle line than that," the balding Naster continued before lifting his fist in the air and adding, "Stay in school." Naster's adversary, later identified as S-Wheeler, came downstairs before climbing on stage. Rather than rumble, though, S-Wheeler accepted Naster's invitation to announce the winner, Ultimate Fakebook's "Tell Me What You Want (I'll Be Anything)," a song that the band, ironically, had not played during its blistering set right before intermission.

Upon saying his thank-yous, bass player Nick Colby kidded, "I'm also glad that the Klammies put two Get Up Kids songs (in the category) to split the vote so we had even a chance." Unlike The Get Up Kids, on tour in Australia, Ultimate Fakebook had actually canceled some East Coast shows from an albeit closer location to fly back for the Klammies.

The next award, Album of the Year, also went to Ultimate Fakebook for This Will Be Laughing Week. Frontman Bill McShane acknowledged that even in just getting the nomination, Ultimate Fakebook still faced strong competition. "It's awesome, but there's so many other bands that don't get nominated, and this one is for everybody, because a lot of people say the same bands get nominated. But whatever, man. We're just here to have fun -- and say stupid things like this."

Almost as soon as the speech was over, drummer Eric Melin inadvertently invoked Tech N9ne's latest catchphrase upon realizing he had omitted some of the most important people from his list of thanks. "Jesus, we didn't even thank the fans," he said to his bandmates. Curiously, the Klammy-winning disc will be re-released nationwide by Epic/550 later this year, bringing about questions of some technicalities in the Klammies rulebook. Of a suggested repeat trip, McShane declared without hesitation, "I'd have to call bunk on that."