Ryan's Gig Guide - January 2019

the grass roots level of music with our awards. The bands and venues from across our region de- serve to be rewarded and recog- nised, hopefully this event will manage to do both. Our judges will be there as a guiding hand to whittle down the nominations to 3 in each category. They have been carefully chosen for their musical knowledge and expertise, yet in all likelihood, will not be in a position to be nominated them- selves. I am also super excited to see what the Faculty of Art stu- dents at Wolverhampton Univer- sity design as our actual award and feel proud to be able to raise some funds and awareness for our chosen charity - Compton Care.” - Shaun Ryan On the BCMA website you can find out more about the Black Country Music Awards and its aims as well as being able to cast a vote in many The Black Country Music Awards has been created by Shaun Ryan who, as founder and former editor & publisher of RGG, has 30 years of media experience including 23 years publishing, promoting and ad- vertising live music across Birmingham & The Black Country “I have seen a few award events take place over the years, and one thing that struck me was that some didn’t appear to be very open or transparent. I want the public to be the ones who nomi- nate in each category and also choose the winner in each cate- gory.We aim to get right down to  Saturday 21st June 2019 ICB Centre, Wolverhampton Black Country Music Awards music categories for your favourite bands, musicians, pro- moters, venues and events. MC for the event is the won- derful Doreen from Tipton. Doreen is a legend in her own lifetime.The first person in the United Kingdom to be diag- nosed with ‘Lazy Cow Syn- drome’, this awful disability hasn’t stopped Doreen from becoming an icon, first in her beloved Black Country, and now on the way to conquering the world. Tickets to purchase for this event will be limited to 500 on general release with a further 150 allocated to VIP’s and cat- egory finalists. The event will include Live Music, Local VIP's, many guest artists, stage enter- tainment, a 2 course ‘Desi Fu- sion’ dinner, and of course the awards themselves.  www.blackcountrymusicawards.com rgg Jan 2019 33 www.ryansgigguide.com