This was my third year missing out on booking a room directly at the Golden Sails Hotel. It takes a while for me to get my calendar in order. The previous two years I had gone for whatever cheap motel I could find on Hwy 1. I gotta say though, it's a pretty boring area. Trust me, I walked like 3 miles from my motel to the Golden Sails one year. So this time I thought I'd nestle myself a little more into Long Beach, and stayed at the Beach Inn, which was within walking distance of the Beach and the Queen Mary. It was about 4 miles away from the Golden Sails, still not a huge distance. I could either check out the town or head to the Golden Sails because this year they had breakfast and music from 9:30 to 11am at the pool.

One of the coolest things about the Surfguitar101 Festival is the burst of new releases occurring in advance of a band's appearance.

I think album art is important. It can not only grab your eye and coax you into listening to a record, but it can inform the listening experience. Surf has developed a strong library of iconography over the years, not to mention a stable of excellent go-to artists. I always enjoy taking a moment to look into who these artists are and recognize them for giving a little more life to this music.

I remember when Northwest surf guardian Thom Head said I needed to listen to this local Seattle band The Delstroyers, and made sure I got a copy of their first EP. I remember hearing it and thinking he wasn't kidding. Since then it's been a lot of fun watching them go on to do bigger things. They released a blast of a debut LP, put out a cool 7" on Hi-Tide, and I've seen them play on two US coasts -- my then-unborn son even started kicking along to a pre-SG101 show, the first time he'd done that to music!

We're getting near the final picks of the top records of the decade as voted upon by surf fans around the world, and this partincular chunk has a lot of the heavyweights of today's modern surf scene. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how many newcomers on the scene found their way in! You can see the rest here. 

The final stop of my 2019 tour of surf music festivals brought me to Asbury Park New Jersey for the newly named Hi-Tide Summer Holiday. The previous Asbury Park surf festivals boasted excellent lineups, and Magdalena and Vincent have done a fantastic job of building not only a label, but a brand that seems to be widening the appeal of surf music and culture. I was really excited to finally get a chance to see it for myself.

It's time to take that yearly trip over to the west coast for the premiere Surf festival in the US: The Surfguitar101 Convention. After a nice day on the El Segundo Beach, a nice meet & greet, and a warm-up at The Purple Orchid on Friday, I woke up Saturday ready for a day immersed in surf music.

I learned from past experience that I should have cash in-hand and show up at least an hour early. I took a half-second to behold the strange and wonderful sight of the Alpine Lodge, and proceeded inside where I paid my admission to familiar friendly faces.

After their promising 2016 EP "Here Come the Delstroyers" these Seattleites have thrown together a longplayer for us. And it's a lot of fun.

This is the debut EP from Seattle's Delstroyers. The play kick-em-in-the-teeth surf with a little bit of a horror edge to it. The winner of the 4-pack is "Take me to the Hell-Hop" with a some great guitar interplay, and moments of the guitars really cutting loose then cutting back. It's all good, fun, stuff that I could imagine being pretty fun live.

All four tracks are available for free download on their Reverbnation page. Looking foward to hearing what's next from them.