SurfRockMusic.com may imply a genre specific website, but such is not the case. We welcome most genres.

We invite you to use SRM for promoting your band, posting your photographs, listing your website, finding information about your gear.

We publish full page splashes, including graphics, for interesting and informative websites and people.

We don't like to practice censorship. Some content may contain adult material. Parental guidance is strongly suggested.

Question: Will you review our music?

Question: Will you publish my review, article, or interview?

Question: Why don't I see any negative music reviews or articles?

Guidelines for Music Submissions

We've had a few issues in the past that caused otherwise wonderful submissions to be rejected. For that reason, it's important that your music arrives at Surf Rock Music ready to be sent to our reviewers. With each submission, please be sure you've included the following for that recording:

• Send physical copies (CD or vinyl) instead of links to digital downloads
• If applicable, send lyric sheets
• Include band information
• Send composer/lyricist information
• Provide contact information
• Give us current links to your web presence
• PLEASE include all copyright information

There are some things we don't review, so please:

• Nothing prurient
• Nothing gratuitously violent
• No political or religious agendas
• No downloads - we need a physical copy, including the cover it will have when it's released
• No re-releases of recordings we've covered before
• Nothing that is available to download free off the Internet

Guidelines for News, Promos and Events

If you have news, a promo or an event, please let us know at least five days in advance of the date it needs to be published. With each submission, please be sure you've included the following:

• Send complete news, promo or event information
• Send links so we can access graphics/photos
• Provide contact information
• Give us current links to your web presence
• PLEASE include all copyright information

Reviews At Surf Rock Music

We are writers, not critics. Give us your best and we'll move mountains to give our readers the best review of your work we can generate. Please peruse Surf Rock Music before sending requests so you won't be surprised by our writers. They are different and, if you expect or want a traditional review, you might find we're not the best match for you.

Once we publish, we don't make changes. If we get a link wrong, spell your name wrong, or say you're from Mars when you're really from Venus - that we will fix. Unfortunately, now and then a performer will ask us to take out a line like, "the lead singer has a rich, throaty quality" and replace it with "the super star lead singer is better than Jagger, smarter than Einstein and so handsome the entire world wants to eat his thong underwear." If we didn't put it in, that doesn't mean it isn't true ... it means we aren't going to put it in. Please don't ask us to. Our job isn't to say what you want us to say, but to write what our readers enjoy reading. Making a lot of changes cuts into our beer, chips and 'trying to find a decent late night movie on TV' time, which is very sad. Worse, it makes our readers very sad. We love our readers and don't want them with frowny faces.

SRM listens to part of a song in order to assign the most appropriate writer for each review. However, if the assigned writer doesn't choose to write the review for a legitimate reason, SRM reserves the right to turn down the review request. The most common reasons this happens is that the writer can't understand the lyrics or the mix prevents a positive commentary. SRM doesn't write critiques. If our writer believes there is something about the music that should be mentioned, but talking about it will result in a negative review, the writer rejects the request. This does not mean that having your music rejected equates to a writer finding something "wrong" with it. The best example of something that was rejected is a CD that had seven great songs and one song that was, more or less, a burping contest set to drum riffs. If one song is burp-heavy, we would have to mention it and, since we don't cover burping, the entire CD would be turned down.

Review requests are turned down for a variety of reasons. The most common of these include

• the writer can't understand the lyrics
• the mix prevents a positive commentary
• the music doesn't fit the magazine
• the submitting party didn't include all of the information we need
• we already have as many requests as time or space considerations allow
• the lyrics have an overt political or religious agenda
• the band, or their song titles, have an offensive name

We don't mind if you want to call your band The Swinging Dicks or The Nazi Lovers. We just don't choose to include that in our magazine. The truth is that we, collectively, have more than two hundred years of music listening and playing under our belts and have listened to countless songs. We live for the truly creative minds we find out there in music land. Swinging Dicks isn't creative, it's juvenile. Nazi Lovers isn't shocking, it's offensive. Our decision has nothing to do with being uptight and everything to do with great musicians who respect their audience.

We are open to almost every genre. That said, our readers don't generally listen to opera, classical, religious or exceptionally traditional music. Ergo, we don't cover Christmas and other holiday music, religious music praising a specific doctrine, opera or classical performed in that style. For example, we have covered Bumble Boogie (which is a rock version of Rachmaninoff's Flight of the Bumble Bee), but didn't write a review of a classical string quartet. We have covered performers who have a folk-like foundation, but not a washtub band. We limit our coverage to performers and music styles we feel fit our intended audience.

So, it isn't personal when someone is turned down, it's a matter of the magazine's format. That said, one thing will always get a rejection: If you write and tell us you're going to do us and our readers a big favor by allowing SRM to review your music or do an interview, expect to be turned down. We do this for our readers. They will let you know if you're doing them a big favor. It doesn't work the other way around. Why? Because if you have that kind of attitude, you might start believing it and cancel shows, make lousy music, call your fans names, or worse.

We love music. We love musicians. Our readers buy CDs, go to concerts, buy band products and talk - a lot! - about who they love. We're thrilled to meet new performers and cover them, just as we're thrilled when an old musical friend shows up in our inbox. and we'll get back as quickly as possible with an answer to any requests you may have. In the meantime, keep on rockin'!


The Staff at Surf Rock Music