The Schizophonics Are Artists of the Year — and Nobody Who's Seen Them Is Surprised

On May 6, at a sold-out Humphreys by the Bay, the 35th annual San Diego Music Awards handed its top prize — Artist of the Year — to The Schizophonics, the garage-rock trio whose live show has long doubled as a public-safety hazard. If you've ever watched frontman Pat Beers throw himself around a stage like a man being electrocuted by his own guitar, you already filled out the ballot in your head.

They were in good company. Anthony Cullins took Album of the Year for Inside Out & Backwards; Ocean Beach jam-reggae kingpins Slightly Stoopid won Song of the Year for "Step Into The Sun"; Tigers In Cairo was named Best New Artist; and the great Steve Poltz received the Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award — a trophy named, fittingly, for one of the most gloriously unhinged performers this city ever produced.

The night carried its share of weight, too. Accepting Best Blues Album on behalf of the late Tim Lowman's Low Volts, Casbah owner Tim Mays remembered "a treasured friend and an amazing guitar player and just an amazing human." And pianist Sue Palmer, taking Best Local Recording, gave the evening its truest line: "It's nice to see all the people here. I don't know everybody's genre, but when I see it here, I want to go out and hear everybody."

That's the whole point of a night like this — not the hardware, but the reminder that a scene is a room full of people who show up for each other. The ceremony also cleared $86,465.20 for the Guitars for Schools program, pushing the awards' 35-year charitable total past $1 million.

The Schizophonics won't be resting on it. Their next tour kicks off September 17 in Santa Cruz and runs through October 22 — which gives you a few weeks to catch your breath before they knock it out of you again.

Sources: Slightly Stoopid, Schizophonics, Cullins score top honors at SDMA, Times of San Diego; San Diego Music News / July 2026 — The SceneSD