Scooped | October 25, 2006

Both Fine Line Live and Texas Gigs report today that albums by Red Monroe and John Dufilho have been placed in the nomination pool for the 2007 Grammys "Best Alternative Album" category. However, Internet searches do not reveal any trace of this nomination ballot (a pool of over 40 bands, which will be narrowed down to a final five for the Grammys broadcast next year). So is the report true?


Eric Steele (photo: Kate Mackley)

"It's 100% legit," Red Monroe lead singer Eric Steele says. "Man, honestly, on Monday, we got this e-mail from somebody with the ballot, that PDF, and our reaction was like, 'What the fuck?', you know?"

Yes, we know. When asked how two local albums--neither with labels or blog buzz, and his having not even been in stores for three months--could land on a list of indie heavies like Destroyer, TV On The Radio and Gnarls Barkley, Steele hasn't a clue. Unless he's hiding an incredibly clever payola scheme--and really, money could be better spent than a spot on a ballot that he admits "Oh God, no, there's no way we'll get nominated"--Steele assumes the CD just got into the right hands after being mailed all over the country by its producer, Chris Bell, and strong sales at Good Records ("that's one of those stores people watch") might not hurt, either. But he's certainly not sweating it; "This is something we'll be laughing about, I'm sure."

Coincidentally, we're working on a Red Monroe CD review, so expect that soon...or go to Hailey's on Saturday to see what might be the best live band in Dallas at the moment. Does Red Monroe's self-titled CD live up to such kudos? We'll answer that before too long. -SM