The Gremmy Awards are bloated and complicated, and the stupidest part is that they don't even work. What I want is to sum up the year as best as I remember by focusing on the highlights, but there's always things that feel missing if we're really taking stock of the year. So this category is here to attempt to pick up all the scraps. There are sub-cateories within this category that come and go. For instance, I couldn't think of a Worst Album Art winner this year, but feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments. It's free-form. It's whatever.

In 2019 I had sort of a last-hurrah-before-fatherhood surf-con-mega-tour, attending Surfer Joe Summer Festival, Hi-Tide Summer Holiday and Surfguitar 101 convention. The idea was I might not find the time to do many more of these for a little while, so now was the time. What I didn't know at the time was that I wouldn't be missing out on much! Three years later I wind up back in Los Angeles for SG101 once more, and I didn't miss a single one in the meantime.

First symposium was an overview of surf music in Italy, hosted by White Seed. A topic so obviously relevant I was surprised it hadn’t been done yet! Furthermore, it was one that I felt shamefully unaware of. While I knew of several bands within the past 10 years or so, I knew of nearly zip in the 60’s. So we had a few choice examples, including some vocal surf pop from back in the day, through the 80’s (including a mention of Dome la Muerte from Friday).

This was my second year at SG101 and tell ya right off the bat: it's a ton of fun and if you've ever thought about going you should go.

Par Avion clearly love the surf sound, but don't let it get in the way when they have other ideas. "Unchained Melody" has a great Duane Eddy meets modern-surf twang to it and sets the tone well for the rest of the album. But then the song "Par Avion" has a less motivated, more post-punk melancholy to it. Then the next song features a cello, the next one has a great orchestral spaghetti western sound to it, but then there's a pretty straightforward cover of Misirlou.