6gig, Mind Over Mind: Best Album
6gig: Best Heavy Rock

6gig, the most-decorated band in the history of the Portland Phoenix Best Music Poll, have delivered yet another great year. They are, with their two awards this year, the first band to hit double figures; 10 awards in five years shows they've got length and strength, baby. It's not hard to see why.

6gig combine all the qualities that make for a great, modern-day rock band. They have a sound that's original and interesting, with distinctive guitar tone and Walt Craven's gripping delivery of alternately screamed and supple vocals. They're prolific songwriters--after what Craven says was a short-lived bout of writer's block, they're now eager to release a second full-length album in less than a year's time.

Plus, they pay attention to, and care about, their fans. Mind Over Mind is now freely available on the band's website for download because Craven says they're more interested in spreading their music and growing their fanbase than trying to sell a few more thousand copies of this album. After all, they'll just record more albums, write more songs, and improve on their sound and its execution.

Most importantly, however, they have an idea of themselves as a band. They have a vision. I wrote this in September and I believe it now more than ever:

6gig are what a fully realized band looks like. That sounds a bit like a hypothesis, and it fits them — a scientific method for their scientific musical creation. And, finally, the proof is readily available now that you can say the same about their sophomore full-length release, Mind over Mind (how’s that for emphasizing the cerebral?). There’s heart there, too, of course — beating through the layers of steel and cable that have been erected to protect it.
And this aesthetic pervades everything the band does. The packaging for the new album is brilliant, reds and blues mirroring grays and metallics, meshing Craven's technical (CAD training?) designs with Bob Smyth’s organic forms, the schematics just abstract enough to suggest living organisms. Every lyric is there, and there are notations above and beyond the standard to let the reader (cover band?) know just which verse repeats when, and which codas are extended or reprised. Plus, look at the thank yous: they’re all-encompassing, equally full of family, friends, and industry types who have helped them along the way — but they’re in alphabetical order!

6gig, too, shoulder the burden of being Portland's big-time rockers. They provide road journals to just about anyone who ask (the Phoenix back in 2001, the new IT magazine this month), they play just about any benefit show that asks, and they even breed talent--erstwhile roadie Adam Flaherty won this year's Best Singer/Songwriter Award.

Of course, this is endemic of what make the Portland scene so great; you won't find very many big egos around here. Do 6gig wish that Mind Over Mind had become the national phenomenon it easily could have been with major-label money pushing it's promotion? No doubt. Who wouldn't want to sell a million records? But the band certainly didn't compromise their sound or their vision for the sake of popularity and who knows how things might have broken for them if their album hadn't been held up for almost a year by Ultimatum?

Unfortunately, it was hard for them to capitalize on the national-stage popularity of 'Hit The Ground' (Ray Lewis's psych-up tune), but I still hear 6gig songs in the background of Real World episodes. That counts for something.

As the band contiues to mature and refine themselves, there's little doubt that 6gig will again be a band to be reckoned with in the next year's poll. (as evidence of their dominance, they took the Heavy Rock category by more than 500 votes!) But with these kings of the hill, noone wants to knock them off their thrones.

-Sam Pfeifle

Best Music Poll history: Winners of Best New Act and Best Extreme Act in 2000; Winners of Best Song, Best Album, Best Male Vocalist for Walt Craven, and Best Heavy Rock Act, and nominated for Best Act in 2001; Winners of Best Heavy Rock Act, and nominated for Best Act in 2002; Winners of Best Heavy Rock Act, and nominated for Best Act in 2003. Also nominated this year for Best Act and Best Male Vocalist for Walt Craven.