Ever since Jockrock’s Golden Clefts award hung up its tartan plinth there’s been no real recognition of Scottish indie music, at least not via a public vote (the very worthy Tartan Clefs is more aimed at mainstream artists, and the myriad end-of-year lists by websites, bloggers and magazines to tend to have votes cast by a subset of the music community – no matter how hard they try to engage a large cross-section of the public).

The Scottish Music Awards say that they hope to change that – describing itself as “a fully transparent organisation”, they would, “rather than pick some names out of a hat, or give out awards to a few of our buddies”, they are “are putting the nominations into your hands.”

If you visit their site you can download a form which will allow you to nominate those organisations and people in the music industry that you feel are worthy to receive a Scottish Music Award.

NB: You have until January 31st to file your nominations. This means that if you’re going to nominate anyone you should probably do so NOW.

The five most common submitted entries for each category will become the 5 nominees up for the award.

You can read more and get the nomination form at the Scottish Music Awards site.