This Friday at 12th & Porter, Anna Haas will debut her monthly Women Who Rock showcase series. Highlighting four female-fronted bands (three local, one touring), Haas is creating a new platform for female musicians in the Nashville music circuit. "Upon moving back to Nashville from New York, I noticed that there were a lot of showcases around town primarily focusing on roots and Americana-- which is great! And the couple of chick singer nights that I hopped onto tended to be primarily country. I wanted to provide a showcase for female-centric bands who are trying something a little more progressive, and may feel frustrated at times that what they're going isn't 'very Nashville,'" says the singer-songwriter and Nashville native.

With writer's nights filled to the brim with sad girls with guitars singing songs about ex-boyfriends, Haas saw a space to create something different for female songwriters in Music City. "It's been a journey, trying to figure out where my sound fits in this scene. I get a lot of people trying to fit my band in a box, and it's difficult. I figure, instead of resisting that, I'm excited about being a part of this cultural and artistic shift that's beginning to take over the city." So she contacted some of her favorite local female musicians and started to put together the lineup for her first Women Who Rock showcase.

In addition to featuring female voices that are confident and unique, Anna Haas wants to create an environment where women don't feel the need to compete against one another to get ahead in an industry already known for being typically cutthroat. "I was talking to Caitlin from The Broadcast about how discouraging it can be when other bands or women put off this competitive energy. It's important to be strong women, but we don't need to be competing. There's plenty of room for all of us, and I want this showcase to help bring women in the industry together to help, support, and encourage each other."

Though the showcase debuts on Friday, Haas has some bad ass lineups in store. This Friday, 12th & Porter's stage will feature Frances & the Foundation, Hot Mess Loves You, Asheville's The Broadcast, and Anna Haas, along with her band, the Effect. "I'll go out and see a bill and a rock venue typically, and if there's a female-fronted band in the mix, a lot of the time there's this feeling of 'Whoa! A chick singer! Yes!' I just want a whole night of that. I think it will be really exciting."

The night kicks off at 12th & Porter @ 8 pm on May 24th. For tickets and more information, click here. –Brianne Turner

LA Readers,

The Deli Nashville's Best of 2012 Readers and Fans' Poll for local emerging artists is over, thanks to all those who cast their vote in support of the emerging local bands and artists in our list of nominees. Congrats to singer songwriter Anna Haas (pictured + video below) for being The Deli Readers' Best Nashville Artist of 2012!

Kudos also to roots rockers Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes, who followed very closely in second placed with a ton of votes, and funk and soun devotees Alanna Royale. 

Here's this poll's top 10 chart, full results can be found here.

ARTIST VOTES   1 Anna Haas 1855 2 Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes 1726 3 Alanna Royale 260 4 Diarrhea Planet 247 5 Linear Downfall 170 6 Adam Burrows 139 7 The Young International 84 8 Blackfoot Gypsies 82 9 The Gills 75 10 Kelly Ruth 65

Stay tuned for the composite chart, to be released soon, which will include the point nominees accumulated from the jurors and Deli writers' votes, and will crown The Deli's Best Emerging Nashville Artist of 2012.

The Deli's Staff

The results are in from the Open Submissions stage for our Nashville Year End Poll for Emerging Artists. All of the submissions were ranked by Deli Editors from other scenes and the list of acts that have advanced to our Readers’/Fans’ Poll phase are below. We will also be releasing the list of nominees chosen by our local "scene expert" jurors very soon. 

Anna Haas is one of the rare natives of the local music scene. After growing up in Nashville and following a career in dance to Boston and then to NYC, Haas found her place in the music industry as a singer/songwriter. Armed with years of stage training and a razor-sharp wit that bleeds through to her lyrics, Anna Haas draws inspiration from various sources, each of them creating a new layer to her textured career.

You know when you're the subject of one of Anna Haas's songs, you've done something right. From the suffering children, Marilyn, or 'The Real New York' off latest record 'Crazy Is,' the singer-songwriter always responds to her muses with a unique understanding of life's complex realities.

Hailing from Nashville, Anna absorbs the Country croons of Gillian Welch along with Regina Spektor's tender intimacy, and mashes it all around to an effective hook and chart-busting melody. All that, and she's also (according to Lucky Mag) one of the most stylish music women out there today. Need more proof? Check out how she deals with men (and some creepy puppets) in the album's first single 'Maypole' - streaming below.

View the video here, see her live at The Living Room on November 1st (she'll be premiering a new video that night), and check her site as she'll be announcing national tour dates later this month. - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)