I haven't done one of these for a while, but there have been a number of records I've wanted to make sure people heard lately, so now's a great time for a slew of mini-reviews! I'm going to try to limit myself to ~5 sentences per band, partially because I want to actually publish this on Bandcamp Friday, and also because I miss writing reviews in little nuggets like that.

SurfGuitar101 is back and, to embrace cliche, bigger than ever. This year organizer Jeff "BigTikiDude" Hanson partnered with a few other organizers, dropped the moniker of Convention, and moved to the 3-day weekender model, held at the Golden Sails hotel, where I failed to get a room before it filled up.

First time it’s a new thing, second time it’s getting official, third time it’s a ritual.

After years of "maybe next years", I finally got my ass in gear and bought myself a plane ticket to Los Angeles for the Surfguitar101 Convention, organized chiefly by Jeff "Bigtikidude" Hanson as a big ol' meetup for members of surfguitar101.com and, you know, surf nuts in general.

Let's just skip to the end real quick: it was an absolutely incredible time. It was a kinda special thing to me getting to see a scene that I've only been a part of from afar, and the music started good and managed to top itself with each act.