Astro Coast is a special album. I know, because I played it for my pickiest friends while I was bartending. One of them kept saying, “This next song is the best song,” and I kept saying, “You just said the last song was the best song,” and he would say, “I mean this next song has the best pop orchestra,” or something like that, and I would say, “No, it’s just another good song so chill out and shut up because I want to hear the song and not you talking about it.” Then he started to get all pissed and quiet and we could hear the music again, which was great because it made me happy and it allowed my friend and I to be friendly again and hug.

So therein lies the beauty of Surfer Blood. A very nice quarrel with your friends can go from serious to yelling to hugging to pillow fights, and then to a snack attack full of Reese’s Pieces and soda pop. I’m sort of joking on this one, but not really. Astro Coast should be heralded as one of the better releases to emerge from the cultural surf fringe, even if that fringe is one caused by a dislike for the surf culture in Surfer Blood’s Palm Beach, FL, stomping grounds. Pretty good self-fulfilling buckle-over, if you ask me. Everybody should have a chance to hate some other group of self-righteous punks and then demean them by producing music which somewhat honors them. Or wait — I don’t know what that even means.

What’s awesome is that Surfer Blood is too good. They’ve been compared to Weezer and that band’s epic eponymous Blue Album, so by using deductive reasoning one can assume that these young artists will have a problem with the following they attract. Expect Astro Coast or one of its follow-ups to be overwhelmingly popular with a fan base Surfer Blood can’t help but despise. Super-fame is a destructive blow, but in the time lapse between the present and the future, during Surfer Blood’s uncertain destiny, just quit with all the comparisons and enjoy their immense talent. By Will Tunstall

While crusty melodic punk may not be the biggest sell in the mainstream world, in certain pockets of the Southeast, the genre continues to thrive, with DIY ethics, grassroots buzz, and a true appreciation for the musician’s lifestyle making up for any lack of consumer popularity. Case in point is the tree-lined mini-metropolises of Gainesville and St. Augustine, FL, which boast several high-profile record labels (No Idea and Bakery Outlet), two of the best punk-centric festivals in the country (The Fest and Harvest Of Hope Fest), and a plethora of hard-working, fully committed bands.

North Florida quartet Tubers have released their third full-length, oddly titled Anachronous, which can mean “of or pertaining to a different historical time period.” If the time period they’re aiming for is the mid ‘90s, they’ve hit the jackpot — Anachronous is full of Fugazi-like guitar shards from Bakery Outlet head honcho Rich Diem and No Idea Records mail order bigwig Matt Sweeting, in addition to impassioned drumming and loping bass lines from Oldest City surf impresarios Jacob Hamilton and Jeff McNally, respectively. The band plays up their aquatic background on songs like “High Tide It’s Inside” and the melancholy “Pale Sunbather,” but prove they can thrash righteously on the heavy-hitting “Coconut Thunder” and “Cut The Grease,” as well as the schizophrenic “68.”

Tubers stretch out on languid instrumental “Unmutual” and the jazz-inflected “40 XI,” reflecting their intellectual depth (all four band members hold college degrees) and musical diversity. And the title track, which closes the album, is the tightest permutation of true ‘90s indie rock on the album, even if the vocals aren’t exactly in perfect key. But “These Quantum Leaps Are Killing Me” may be the best song on Anachronous, as gaunt guitar spasms drive the complex track to a shuddering climax. Even with full- and part-time jobs taking up most of their time, Tubers still manage to keep the flame of salt-encrusted Florida punk rock alive, one tight two-minute song at a time. By Nick McGregor   

Flip Skateboards is releasing their third skate film, Extremely Sorry, in conjunction with Volcom Entertainment and the highly valued insight of skater/artist Geoff Rowley. If this isn’t good enough, they’ve utilized UK DJ Baron, one of the most influential musical masterminds to touch percussion production, and hand-tailored the soundtrack to fit the styles of the skaters involved. A few years ago, I was given a misguided lesson on how to watch skate and surf videos — play my own soundtrack while the footage rolled and the sound on the television was off. 

My friends and I would sit around our terribly filthy A St. apartment in St. Augustine amidst Busch Light cans and old Ramen noodles watching DC or Emerica flicks, listening to something current while the mute signal flashed on the screen. Other friends would stroll in and out, and would inevitably ask what the video was and comment on how great the music sounded. One of us would usually muster up an agreement, and they would leave without anyone ever acknowledging the fact that it was one of our own CDs playing. Then the guy living in a tent in the backyard would stroll in the back door and take a shower.  

Back to the point — Baron, Rowley, and Flip have enlisted the help of real legends like Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead, Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, Black Mountain, Early Man, Snoop Dogg, and Warren G to prove my surf/skate video lesson wrong. Baron got Lemmy, the one guy who is cooler than anyone else alive, to play on the album. The only reason Lemmy started playing music was so he could get laid — that is an actual Lemmy fact. And, instead of my past procedure, I’ve been sitting around listening to the Extremely Sorry soundtrack while staring at a blank television screen. That’s quite a good experience in itself, but I can only imagine what the whole film/soundtrack package will bring. By Will Tunstall

After giving the world a taste of their globe-spanning raw funk ‘n’ soul on 2001 debut album In The Raw, the German-born Whitefield Brothers return with their second record of organic instrumentation. Earthology differs from past work by exploring territories further afield — as their press release says, “African polyrhythms now seem commonplace on a funk or psych album; Arabic rhythmical structures, African pentatonic scales, and Oriental modes do not.” In addition, Jan and Max Whitefield bring along modern left-field rappers like Edan, Mr. Lif, and Percee P, who add their own lyrical explorations into the mix.

Whitefield Brothers' unmistakably intoxicating raw soul rears its head on “Safari Strut,” which features stammering drums, eerie bass crawls, ragged horn tracks, and twinkling xylophones that transport you straight to mid 1970s Africa. “Reverse” is a whistling whirlwind with a twisting structure, perfect for the madcap rhymes of Percee P. And “Taisho” is built on what sounds like a medieval string instrument and a particularly grimy beat that any hip-hop producer worth his salt should immediately crib. “Sad Nile” is a snazzy mash-up full of bleating horns, a feat reproduced on “Breakin’ Through,” but percussion dominates on the jungly “NTU,” the faintly Persian “Pamukkale,” and the international grab-bag of “Alin.”

Another jazz-backed hip-hop guest spot comes on “The Gift,” while the weeping Hebrew lament “Sem Yelesh” takes the album back another century or two altogether. Whitefield Brothers return to the fertile grounds of African influence on “Lullaby For Lagos,” but the exceptional nature of Earthology lies in its ability to seamlessly blend disparate world music inspirations into one unrefined yet polished and listenable whole. When it comes to multicultural instrumental music with a passionate beating heart, I’m beginning to think Whitefield Brothers simply cannot be beat. -NM