If you go on bandcamp and sort by the "surf" tag, you may not recognize what you find. A bunch of garage bands, most of them with vocals. Meanwhile, a lot of modern instrumental bands cringe a bit when their music is compared to the product of a 60's cultural explosion in California. But there are some groups that are proud torch-bearers of that time. Not looking to reinvent the wheel, but rather recapture a lost art. These are the groups that did it best this year.

Every year the Gremmy Awards gather up and sort out the best of all the surf/instro releases. This prestigious award (a .png file for you to right-click-save-as) is only given to one band (or entity) per category, though there can be any number of Honorable Mentions. There's no real criteria except my own personal nitpicks, biases, and whims -- no voting committee. However, towards the end we'll have a few Guest Gremmys.

Here are the categories.

As I get ready to sum up my favorite surf and instro releases of 2016, it's helpful and fun to make a big ol' list of them, good and bad. Inevitably I've missed a few, so feel free to point them out so I can add them. They're in no order whatsoever

LPs (over 6 songs)

As far as I know, the Gremmys are the only surf/instro awards out there, which puts a lot of weight on my whim. Too much.

So I reached out to a few respectable folks that I know are on top of this music to try to bring a few more opinions into the mix.

Everybody has been given carte blanche as to how they want to present this. No "rad", "trad", "modern", "way-out" here.

While I'm busy cooking up these other awards, I find a few more things I want to recognize. So here are a bunch of smaller awards. No honorable mentions, only one runner-up if that.

Best Record Label

There's still the miscellaneous Gremmy awards to be awarded, but the big ones are out of the way. I figture we ought to listen to them!

In addition to those, I've got a few latecomers and a few notables that didn't get a nod. There's still a TON of excellent 2015 releases that didn't make the cut here... I'm considering doing one more 2015 show after the New Years and sweeping up the ones that aren't in this one - there's enough that it would still be a great show!

What constitutes trad surf? After all, a lot of the bands on here won't often be mistaken for 60's recordings, there's definitely kind of a modern trad sound.  Without getting too deep into it, these bands love that surf sound. Some bands would rather be called instro, not something as limiting as surf. Not a problem for these guys. I think of it this way: You, trad surf artist, walk up to the lunch lady wearing your baby blue suit:

We're kicking off the 2015 Gremmy Awards with the least musical award, but one that I love. Despite my love of Bo Diddley, I DO judge a book by looking at its cover, at least initially. Perhaps instro gets a little too wrapped up with the aesthetics and tropes that have been used since the 60's, but there are absolutely plenty of bands using art that's fresh and alluring. Enough that I had to make some hard decisions about who NOT to include.

2015 is drawing to a close which means it's time for the second annual Gremmy Awards, where I espouse my very personal opinions on all the surf/instro music I've heard this year. There's issues with doing something like this: I've listened to a TON, but I haven't listened to all of it, and I have probably listened to each one less than a normal person would listen to any album they've purchased.

The end of 2014 means we're about 50 years after when the surf craze fizzled out. Yet here we are, pumping out more surf music with no signs of slowing down. We've gone in all sorts of different directions since then, but some bands stay true to the cause and play by the rules. This sections is for those groups that are keeping the torch lit.