Bandcamp Friday means Bandcamp doesn't take a cut of what they sell, so ALMOST all of your purchase will go to the band (almost because Paypal exists). Which is to say it's a great day to stock up on music. It's also become a time for me to go back and write something about some recent releases to help guide you.

So there were some notable surf releases in November, but overall it wasn't a big month. Meanwhile I'm trying to scoop things up to get my 2020 non-surf picks and of course the 2020 Gremmy Awards ready to go, so let's do a lazy one.

One interesting trend about 2020 that I've noticed is that there's been a LOT of small one-offs. Halloween had a ton of singles ready for my show, and Christmas is shaping up to be the same way. Here's some 2020 releases to get you in the mood. I won't write about all of them because, let's face it, it can be hard to write about how bands play the same well-known songs and write about them in a way that sounds unique. OK I'll be more honest: I'm not in any rush to listen to Christmas music until week of, so I've barely listened to any of these. Also, for the sake of being thorough, I'll include a few non-bandcamp releases.

The tough thing about making articles about what you should buy on Bandcamp Fridays is that things come out ON Bandcamp Friday. And it sucks waiting an entire month to highlight them, especially when these three are just as high profile as anything that was in yesterday's list. So here's a supplemental article.

It's another Bandcamp Friday which means 100% of your money goes to artists, none of it to poor ol' bandcamp, some of it to Paypal. This is probably going to be a shorter one because a) there were a lot of releases but a lot of them were Halloween singles, b) there weren't a whole of of LPs and c) I'm kind of behind on prepping for the finale of the top 100 surf records of the 2010s.

But anyway, here's some standouts

Another Bandcamp Friday where all of your money goes directly to the artists -- and I use it as a push to get me to write some stuff about new releases. This is by no means every release or even every good release, but they're the ones that stood out to me. Some oddballs in this group! Let's dig in

Another Bandcamp Friday where 100% of your purchase benefits the band. Admittedly this one snuck up on me, so forgive me if the reviews are a little hasty, but there's a good chunk of them! Here's some releases that I think warrant your attention. In no particular order.

It's another Bandcamp Friday, which means bandcamp isn't taking a cut of sales on their platform and 100% of your money goes to the artists. If you've got money burning a hole in your pocket, today is a good day to spend it, and I'm here to help you decide what to spend it on. This isn't all of the surf music released on bandcamp in the past month, and there were good releases in the past month that weren't on bandcamp (and therefore not on this list) but these are some of the standouts.

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".

Though they've been dropping a few nice singles here and there, it's been 15 years since we've had an LP from the Space Agency, and they remain as special as ever. Somewhere underneath layers of fuzz and pedals is a pretty trad surf group with great dead-simple melodies that honestly could sound more 1962 than many groups if they felt like it. Give a listen to the least dressed song on this record "Alpaca Boogie" to catch a glimpse.

In the past few years surf has finally being sneaking in nods to another nostalgic form of instrumentals: video game themes.