I don't think The Rumtones are out here trying to rewrite what Surf is. They're here to play loud, put on a good show, provide some music that will make you feel amped. It works, and if everybody tried to do things differently in surf, there wouldn't be enough of this stuff to enjoy. So I forgive them for the questionable move of having a self-titled record in 2024 when they already had one in 2022. I don't mind that there's a few songs on both records. They're rerecorded and sound better on this one. The old one sounded a little more scummy punk distortion-ey, this one is more clean but with a nice serrated edge to the guitar sound. And it's mastered better and sounds much louder.

It's December, I'm very busy working on the Gremmy Awards, but I have to squeeze in a review because this was sent to me months ago before the aire was frigid. And I would guess that Chad and Cherry won't be reviewing it, so somebody has to!

Summer Begins is a tight package of 9 lighthearted trad surf originals with a sunny beach attitude. From as best I can tell this is his first surf record, but that's not evident from a listen as he switches deftly from guitar tone change to the next, always sounding good. All of these are fun and center around strong, memorable riffs.

While beach party stompers like "Summer Begins" and "Nonstop" are the meat of the album, there's a great venturing into exotica on "Bewitched", and it wraps up with a nice Sleepwalkin' closer, plainly named "Surf Ballad".

Firewalkers has had a long road. The original plan was to have it released at the 2017 SurfGuitar101, and The Mystery Men? even played the album in its entirety, essentially treating it as an album release. However, it missed that date and instead they released a preview EP called Embers with some choice cuts from the album. So naturally it felt like it was just around the corner. A year later, they released a GoFundMe revealing that they had been robbed and needed some help to see the light of day. And again, there were preview clips of this record, a few more crumbs.

That GoFundMe hasn’t been a roaring success (hint, hint) but Firewalkers is real. I have heard it. And it’s kind of wonderful that it will make its true debut, CD copies on-hand, at Southern Surf Stompfest, essentially their own event on their home turf.

In New Orleans today is Lundi Gras. Can't tell you much about how that's going, because I'm way off in Tbilisi, Georgia slowly overcoming jet lag. It's an absolutely beautiful city, full of color, amazing landscapes, and a wild mix of new and old architecture. They're very in touch with their native culture, and they've got a lot of really cool old cars. I've tried to find any shred of instro music that might have come out of here and my research has been completely fruitless. Guess Dick Dale wasn't a hit in the Soviet Union.

This debut EP from Gemini 13 starts out unassumingly with a pretty traditional surf instro "Tijuana Spygame". But then it gets a little more showy with "Mumtosh" and gets MUCH more interesting with "Tiglath Pileser". There's some really interesting stuff here: great division of duties between lead and rhythm guitar. I hope they might rerecord some of these tracks in a subsequent release, as I don't feel like the production is allowing the oomph some of these tracks deserve. Still an eye-opener! Or ear-opener I guess.

Holy misdirection Batman!

Vacations hail from the ever-musical Athens, Georgia. Nightmare Beach appears to be their debut EP and it's got 4 quick-picked, adrenaline fueled instros on it for you to sink your teeth into.