Meant to mention this last week, but forgot, sorry. The nominations for the 2007 PLUG awards are out. These, as you all surely know, are the US based awards for independent music and music media. Anyone can vote this year (I'm pretty sure it used to be voted for by a committee of indie industry types) and the list of nominees is quite long so rather than publishing it here, why don't you go and check out the lists and vote yourself? See http://plugawards.com/general_vote.php
Among the artists up for the flagship Best Album award are Belle & Sebastian, Cat Power, Grizzly Bear and The Knife, while Arctic Monkeys, Cold War Kids, CSS, Spank Rock and Tapes N Tapes are all up for Best New Artist. In the Best Website Category UK based NME.com and Drowned In Sound compete with the big US indie music sites and the likes of MySpace and YouTube for the top prize. Voting will continue up until 26 Jan, with the awards presented at a ceremony in New York on 10 Feb.