This is the first set of albums included in this countdown. Though these may be lower on the list, being on the list at all is a great accomplishment, and if it were entirely up to me several of these would be much higher. That said, since these had fewer votes than higher on this list and there were more tie-breakers to decide, their position was a little less absolute and my thumb pressed on the scale a little bit more than it will in subsequent chunks.

For more details about how this list was decided upon, see this page.

Man or Astro-man led the charge of a new b-movie punk branch of instrumental surf. That reach extended globally but their crash-landing in Alabama left a radioactive fallout that spawned instro bands within a small radius for years to come. Kill Baby Kill (now The KBK) came along much later, but spilled out of the same crater and stuck around long enough to make an impact on many of us. When I spoke to Chad Shivers, organizer of Southern Surf Stomp, member of the Mystery Men? and currently bassist for The KBK, he told the main reason he joined the band is because it’s meaningful to him and he didn’t want it to go dormant. Kill Baby Kill played the first benefit I ever did for Storm Surge of Reverb and it was better than I could have imagined, so I totally get it.

After three SurfGuitar 101 Convention appearances I figured I was overdue in participating in the surf event representing my region: the Southern Surf StompFest. StompFest is the annual big event surrounding the smaller monthly Southern Surf Stomp events in Atlanta. It’s a full day of surf & instro groups from everywhere but with a little bit of bias towards groups closer to Atlanta. It’s a free event put on by Chad Shivers of bands like The Squares, Moonbase, The KBK and most importantly The Mystery Men?

2015 is done, and it was pretty damn good. But there's already some things looming on the horizon for 2016 to get really excited about.