The Goldies: How a Radio Host's Idea Became the Golden Isles' Music Census
Every February, in a bar on St. Simons, the Golden Isles music scene does something small markets almost never manage: it takes attendance. The Golden Isles Music Awards — universally known as the "Goldies" — held its 4th annual ceremony on Feb. 23, 2026, at Ziggy's (210 Retreat Plaza, St. Simons), doors at 6, show at 7, free admission, dress code officially "Rock Star Red Carpet." It has quietly become the most important night of the year for how this scene sees itself.
The Goldies began as the brainchild of local music radio host Ashley Ember and is co-hosted by Anthony Stubelek, who has run a weekly open mic for the better part of two decades and operates Rockstudio Recording. The mechanics are more rigorous than you would expect from a beach-town awards show: roughly 60 anonymous judges, chosen by committee to avoid conflicts of interest, listen to every submission between January and mid-February across eight categories — Song of the Year, Best Music Video, Best Live Performance (the only category that permits cover songs) and a fan-voted People's Choice Venue of the Year among them. Originals only; AI-generated music is explicitly barred. "Every genre is accepted, as long as it is original," Stubelek told The Brunswick News. "The only exception is music created by artificial intelligence."
The trophies themselves are a local supply chain: glass rondels from Pane in the Glass, set on reclaimed-wood plinths Stubelek builds by hand, with lights and sound run by SoGlo Guitar Gallery owner and musician Crawford Perkins. The 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award went to longtime band director Mickey Wendel, who led the Glynn County Community Band and played in the Jekyll Island Big Band; the 2025 honor had gone to McIntosh County legend Vic Waters, who died last year at 81.
What makes the Goldies matter is not the hardware — it is the discovery. "Before the first one, I thought I knew all the musicians in town. Boy was I wrong," Perkins told the paper. "I learned about a lot of young, super creative artists and was blown away." That is the real function of an awards night in a scene this size: it forces the whole ecosystem — the pier-village cover bands, the Newcastle Street songwriters, the Woodbine kids making national-quality records — into the same room, where they discover one another exists.
Small scenes die of invisibility long before they die of talent. The Goldies are, functionally, an annual argument that the Golden Isles music community is bigger, younger and stranger than the beach bars suggest. On the evidence, the argument is winning.
Sources: Goldies return for 4th annual music awards ceremony | The Brunswick News