If you're working press at the BMAs, they hand you the list of winners when you walk in. Which usually makes for a serious anticlimax. But we can't front: maybe it was just that a bunch of bands we actually like won shit or played or bought us drinks, but this was the best year of the Avalon-era music awards. We know, big whoop: That and an undisclosed sum of money might someday get this event to break even mean something.

Don't even bother going to their MySpace page because there ain't no music there yet. But trust us on this: bonkers shit on the way. The Properazzi crew -- Red Foxxxworthy and that dude Mike Mistaker -- are making dreams come true. This is how they did it last weekend. Central Square, get ready for an invasion.

DOWNLOAD: Isis, "Dulcinea" (mp3)

Unlike all previous iterations of art-metal doctrine, Isis’s prizes meditative, Slint-like brooding over Melvins-grade menace -- but clocks both while ghostriding the expressway to yr skull. As shown on their retrospective DVD Clearing the Eye, they began their journey as understudies in the Neurosis school of thermonuclear drone, but found their calling when they cut their engines and drifted off into the quieter, watery deep.

Our spies report that Guns N Roses will play the DCU Center (formerly the Centrum) in Worcester on November 8. Look for tickets to go on sale next weekend. As to why GNR isn't playing in Boston -- say, at the Garden -- the word is that no one in these parts has forgotten what happened the last time Axl came to town. You can't trust fan sites farther than you can throw them, but the kids over at newgnr report that this week's West Coast jumpoffs have been top-shelf.

From the Killswitch Engage homepage: the fans have spoken . . .

Varietae in Space

At least once a month, you can find that dude Vice V'Ersatile turning tricks over at the Midway Cafe. JP's answer Phil Donahue and Sammy Davis Jr, the Viceman brings what people on the Jersey boardwalk call "CLASS" to the variety-show format, which is why the V'ersatile-hosted talent showcase at the Midway is called "Varietae

It was that MidEast security guard’s worst nightmare. At midnight, right before “Boys, You Won’t,” Kevin Whelan passed out about 20 drum sticks to people in the crowd and invited them up on the stage while Mr. Beef-Guard scowled and shook and crossed his arms over his chest, probably wondering if he’d be fired before 2 am.

From the inbox:

The show that was originally scheduled for this Sunday at The Middle East Downstairs has been cancelled. The show has been re-scheduled for Wednesday, November 15th, 2006. Refunds available at point of purchase or tickets may be used for the rescheduled date.

Wednesday, November 15th

DOWNLOAD: The Hope Conspiracy, "Suicide Design" (mp3)

HopeCon fizzled out in 2004, but frontman Kevin Baker has never been far from the Deathwish offices in Salem: he got a job managing the silk-screen shop next door. Now he's re-convened the band to bring Hope to the Hope-less, nabbing members in between their tours with Bleeding Through, None More Black, and Suicide File.