What a fitting way for one of Portland’s most-successful bands to bow out. In a category they have dominated the entirety of their six years of existence, 6gig, just a month removed from telling the world they’ve about had enough for one band, destroyed the competition to take home one last Bimpy to add to their collection. With 11 victories to their credit, they remain the winningest band in the history of the Best Music Poll, despite Paranoid Social Club’s five wins this year. They also, this year, became the first band ever to amass more than 1000 votes in one category. That’s huge.

They have always been the classiest of acts, too, and their deferential acceptance speech at the Awards Show was no exception. Thanking everyone and anyone, it was clear that 6gig are ready for another heavy band to get a victory; that they were a little embarrassed to be standing up on that stage once again. Just as you could always tell these guys felt honored to play with the other talent in Portland, even as they were jetting off to LA to record with a titan of the rock game in producer Matt Wallace (who just got done turning knobs for As Fast As, actually).

Like a few other Portland bands I could mention, 6gig always seemed to get the short end of the stick from the music world at large. Their singles never got the airplay they deserved, their label never promoted them they way they should have, promoters never put them in front of the big crowds they could have wowed. But you never heard 6gig complain about it — they just put more music up on their Web site for fans to have for free, wrote more and better music, demanded copies of their disc from their label so they could sell the damn things themselves.

You’ll be hearing from Walt Craven, Steve Marquis, Weave, and Jason Stewart again very soon, and, yes, you’ll like what you hear.

Runners up: Eldemur Krimm, Ogre