"Surf Music is just the Sound of the Waves played on a Guitar, that Wet, Splashy Sound." — Dick Dale
🌊🎸 #DickDale / #SurfMusic / #Fender / #Bassman / #music / #RockMusic <https://youtube.com/watch?v=zjpL8sqCpFM>
"Surf Music is just the Sound of the Waves played on a Guitar, that Wet, Splashy Sound." — Dick Dale
🌊🎸 #DickDale / #SurfMusic / #Fender / #Bassman / #music / #RockMusic <https://youtube.com/watch?v=zjpL8sqCpFM>
My favorite surf records that weren't really surf records of 2025
https://www.stormsurgeofreverb.com/content/gremmy-awards-2025-best-mad-instro-record

The point of having so many Gremmy Awards categories to something that most people just think of as "surf" is to best compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. And so what we have here is the wildberries at the bottom of the basket. Unidentifiable, unique, possibly poisonous. Some of them play with our idea of surf music, some of them ultimately are just recommendations to surf fans. It's funny how things have changed over the course of doing the Gremmys. I once had a small band called Khruangbin win this category, now I feel like bands that sound like Khruangbin are kind of their own genre, and I'm hesitant to include them here. Bands like Chicha Libre and Sonido Gallo Negro that pushed cumbia and chicha felt like cousins to surf music, and while sometimes that still feels like the case, cumbia has experienced such a vibrant revival in a manner that often feels very separate from surf. And I think that's amazing. Even if it doesn't seem to have paid dividends for surf music, I love that we're living in a world that seems more open to instrumentals in general. Maybe this will mean fewer people yelling "SING SOMETHING" at shows. But the most important thing that I'm saying here is that if you took any of my Gremmy categories seriously, please take this one less seriously. Think of this only as things that I, a fan of surf music, might think other fans of surf music would find enjoyable.
People listen to me because I have a lot of surf records!
4-6pm CST
My picks for the best aggressive surf records of 2025.
https://stormsurgeofreverb.com/content/gremmy-awards-2025-best-rad-instro-record

The reason that I subdivide the Gremmy Awards into so many different categories is because reverbed instrumental guitar music can be and always has been so many different things. "Latin'ia" has a different appeal to it than "Bombora". I often refer to this category as the music with more of a punk and metal influence "added into it", but isn't that circular? You're not going to find much music with the same dark intensity as "Misirlou" before it, and if you ask me you won't find a whole lot of that intensity for a while after! This is not some sort of infusion to weaponize surf music, it's following surf music further down a path that it started.
Surf music is gonna have a huge revival really soon, so long as a few million people listen to this show
4-6pm CST
https://www.wtul.fm
My favorite modern instrumental surf records of 2025! Lots of variety here.
https://stormsurgeofreverb.com/content/gremmy-awards-2025-best-modern-surf-record

Modern surf is always a large category because most of us by default are modern people doing modern things, creating modern works. So it's always going to be a big category. And its not really something you can define: it's not traditional surf, it's not too aggressive, but it's still surf, and that amorphousness also means that there's a lot of things that you could call "modern surf". So what I'm getting at here is hoo boy, do I have a lot of things on here. And when I have this many things you might think "well did anything not make the cut? Absolutely, there were a lot of good and even great surf records not on this list, a few that felt like snubs, and the crazy thing is I wanted to cut more. But the thing is, I couldn't! I felt like nearly all of these in their own way had a claim for the top spot. And especially interesting, they all brough something unique to the table, not even an opportunity for one to "cancel another out". And I guess that's a good problem to have. So here are TWELVE very interesting and excellently crafted surf records, and one that after a LOT of thought, I decided I liked the most. In no specific order except for the last one.
HANGIN TEN ON BROKEN WATER MAINS
Oh, by the way, we're back to the GREMMY AWARDS. For the whole second hour!
4-6pm CST
https://www.wtul.fm
MARATHON SHOWDOWNWILL HEROES SAVE US? OR WILL IT TAKE AN ALIEN INVASION TO SET THINGS RIGHT?
YOU DECIDE.
Make a donation to WTUL during STORM SURGE OF REVERB.
Call (504) 865 5885 and tell me whether your vote was for HEROES or ALIENS
And I'll either play HEROIC SURF MUSIC or SCI-FI ALIEN SURF MUSIC
4-6pm CST
https://www.wtul.fm
SONGS SHOT WITH A SURF TRANSMOGRIFIER
Make a donation to WTUL, Choose one from a list. Details here:
https://www.stormsurgeofreverb.com/content/todays-show-covers-wtul
4-6pm CST
https://www.wtul.fm
This documentary about #surfmusic that took forever to make (the director died before he completed it) is now up for free on Youtube! It's a nice run-down.
