Best Hope for NYC Hip-Hop Writing's Future - "The Arrogant Voice of Musical Truth"
The late ego trip, subtitled "The Arrogant Voice of Musical Truth," was the best, funniest hip-hop zine ever - its editors and writers knew everything about the history of rap, and loved it enough to make fun of it. The good news is that they're planning to relaunch the magazine next year, and this November will see a compilation of rare '80s underground hip-hop and ego trip's Book of Rap Lists: Mia X's favorite recipes, Kool Keith's top places to pleasure himself in public, that kind of thing.      -Douglas Wolk

Manhattan

Best All-Around Concert Experience Bowery Ballroom

Best All-Night Jazz Venue Smalls

Best Archive To Get Lost in for Weeks at a Time Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers

Best Bartender, Musical Division Dreiky

Best Ceiling To Swing From Tramps

Best Cellar Village Vanguard

Best Club Rapport With Scalpers Irving Plaza

Best Drummer Susie Ibarra

Best European Jazz Club on This Side of the Atlantic Sweet Basil

Best Guitar Repair Dan's Chelsea Guitars Inc.

Best Irish Music Bar Paddy Reilly's

Best Jazz Store Tower Records

Best Jukebox on Which To Play 'Runnin' With the Devil' While You Stare at Ceiling Graffiti That Says 'WERE NOT COOL BUT WERE DRUNK' Siberia

Best Jukebox To Accompany an Early Evening Garage-Rock/Hard-Country/Old-Soul-Music Drunk Lakeside Lounge

Best Jukebox Where the Bartender Is Always Drunker Than You Holiday

Best Jukebox, Period Mona's

Best Jukeboxes in Neighboring Ukrainian Bars Blue & Gold / Bar 81

Best Ladies' Room in a Rock Club Fez

Best Last-Minute Guitar Rental Mojo Guitar Shop

Best Light Show Charleston

Best Location for Clandestine Rock Shows The Happy Birthday Hideout

Best Music Club To Entertain a Friend From Out of Town Tonic

Best Music Retailer With No Roof Gary Balaban

Best Music To Dine By Benny's Burritos

Best Newish Local Record Label Desco

Best Pirate Radio Free 103.9

Best Place for Post Rock 'n' Roll Tour STD Check Bellevue Hospital

Best Place To Feel Guilty for Feeling Miserable When the Music Is So Good Knitting Factory

Best Place To Mix Music With Politics Wetlands

Best Place To Trade in Your Pink Floyd Collection at Four in the Morning Accidental Records

Best Post-Rock 'n' Roll Nite Chow Around the Clock

Best Reason for Civic Pride, Musical Division Central Park Summerstage

Best Repertory Group Sideshow

Best Rock 'n' Roll Hair Salon Mudhoney's Michael Matula's Salon

Best Soundperson at a Rock 'n' Roll Club The Continental's Noel Ford

Best Soundtrack for Impending Armageddon Ozone Entertainment

Best Subway Pandhandling Song I Believe I Can Fly

Best Subway Performance Act Antara del Barrio

Best Unaffordable Nightclub You Can't Afford Not To Visit at Least Once or Twice a Year The Blue Note

Best Use for a Deserted Barber Shop Good World

Best Venue for Being Harassed by Bully Bouncers Hammerstein Ballroom

Best Way To Wind Up a Saturday Night Club Crawl Manhattan Samba @ S.O.B.'s

Best Yahoo Bar Red Rock West Saloon

Easiest Place To Drop 100 Bucks in One Shot on Music J&R;

Fastest and Most Reliable Place To Have Tube Amps Repaired Tubesville

Most Charismatic Store Clerk at a Used Record Store Bleecker Bob

Most Comprehensive Rock 'n' Roll Bookstore See Hear

Most Exciting Dance Club To Get Rejected From Because You Look Like a Low-Rent Piece of Shit The Jet Lounge

Most Popular Subway Panhandling Song Lean on Me

Most Sympathetic Club to Baby Bands Central Booking Agency

Store That Has the Cheesiest Rock Gear Sam Ash