A few months ago the folks at surfguitar101 were celebrating 15 years since the release of The Space Cossacks' Tsar Wars. It's an excellent album, an important surf album, but to me I just can't think of The Space Cossacks without my mind drifting on to guitarist Ivan Pongracic's later work, The Madeira's first album Sandstorm. Maybe it's because it came out back when I was really trying to dig in to surf, getting ready to do this radio show all those years ago.

Early this morning my car was parked in North Carolina, where I drank many interesting sodas and hiked some beautiful mountains for a weekend. After a long day driving back here, I found that North Carolinans the Monterreys had made their new album available to those of us that didn't get to catch them at the Instro Summit. One of these years.