Thank you for supporting Double Crown Records and The Continental Magazine this year. As you all know, time’s aren’t the greatest in the music biz, but because of all of you, we’ve made it through another year in good shape and are excited to welcome in the new year with the promise of lots of great new surf and instrumental rock releases.
Also, we really appreciate the support we received through the Kickstarter campaign we ran to help support our Brave New Surf CD release. The funds received will allow us …

I was listening to a Gary Numan CD on the way to work this morning and it reminded me of the very first album I ever purchased with my own money – it was a K-Tel hits collection called “Rock ’80″. Despite the bad rep K-Tel got back in the day, just look at the track listing – it’s hard not to admit that this was a mighty album.
Side One
Cars – Gary Numan
Brass In Pocket – The Pretenders
Driver’s Seat – Sniff & The Tears
Cruel To Be Kind – Nick Lowe
Is …

Double Crown is proud to be a co-sponsor of the upcoming Rollin’ Outta Here: A Big Lebowski Burlesque series of performances taking place at the Greenhouse Theater in Chicago Fridays and Saturdays all throughout the month of September. This is sure to be an exciting show, and if you’re lucky, you may even win some Double Crown swag at one of the performances. These shows sold out last year, so act quick and get your tickets right away!

I spend a lot of my time these days tracking down blogs that post our stuff for free online. Yeah, yeah, they all say it’s “good exposure” for the bands and labels, and that if people like what they download for free, they’ll end up buying it. It’s all BS though – I’ve seen sites offer our Penetrators and Kilaueas CD’s for free download, and right there on the Rapidshare download page it shows that these discs have been downloaded over 1,000 times! I usually only make 1,000 CD’s at …

If you are a collector of obscure holiday music, you probably already recognize the name of Andy Cirzan. He is an avid collector of Christmas and holiday music, and each year he puts together an unbeatable compilation of obscure holiday tunes that it’d probably take you or I years to put together (even in the internet age). His 2009 compilation is now available online, and as an added bonus, you can hear him on the current Sound Opinions podcast.

I’ve been sucked into this great blog, Classic Television Showbiz, that collects lots of great videos from YouTube and other streaming video sites. If you grew up in the 50′s – 80′s, this site is packed with all the shows you remember from your childhood. This month they’ve been featuring tons of holiday specials, Christmas episodes of various TV shows, and musical performances. Faves so far include the Thunderbirds Christmas episode, Judy Garland’s trippy appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, the Christmas episode from C.H.i.P.s, and the Garry Moore show …

How sad, my childhood heroes, who not-so-long ago battled against evil and injustice, are now doing crappy infomercials for hearing aids and mattresses.

I’m a huge fan of vintage books, including Ian Fleming’s James Bond books, classics from Jack Kerouac, crime and trash, and sci-fi. When I pick up vintage books, in shops or online, I always pick the version with the coolest cover, since there are usually a bunch of options to choose from with classics. The i09 website has a look at 16 classic sci-fi book’s covers, most pretty cool, some hideous, and some ridiculous (I’m lookin’ at you, War Of The Worlds with the Star Trek USS Enterprise on the …

I just stumbled upon a cool album cover site called LP Cover Lover – because collecting vinyl is just as much about the cover art as the music (in my opinion). The site has loads of cool covers from all eras and all genres of music – it’s well worth checking out! Of special interest to most of us is their surf music section.