I’ll do an extensive write-up in the next Continental, but I thought I’d share some initial thoughts on the highlight of the weekend, Deke’s Guitar Geek Fest:

As cool as the outdoor show with Duane Eddy and the Ventures was, it was Deke’s Guitar Geek fest that was absolutely mindblowing. Slacktone turned a couple of thousand rockabilly fans into surf fans withtheir 3 song miniset, and although they played Misirlou, it was probablythe only version that needs to exist other than Dick Dale’s. Deke apparently just bought his first Fender Strat (with gold plating, cuz hillbilly’s like gold he said) and played a 3 song surf set, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Russian Roulette and The Victor. Then Sandy Nelson came on, talked for a bit, then played “Let There Be Drums” – got astanding O for that. Eddie Angel played a three song set, including “Pacifica”. Nokie Edwards did a couple of songs (one of which was a soloversion of “Tears In Heaven”, which was played well, but really sounded out of place). Then it all finished with Duane Eddy playing his biggest hits. He had sound problems during the outdoor show, but inside the showroom the sound was crystal clear. While all these minisets happened the players switched around, so for some songs it’d be Deke and Eddie Angel, or Nokie and Duane Eddy, etc.

There will be a full write-up in Continental Magazine #15, include a report from the outdoor car show, the pre-VLV show and all the rockabilly bands I saw, as well as more (and better) photos.

Add to that a pre-Viva show at the Orleans featuring Blind Rage & Violence (a Link Wray tribute), Deke Dickerson and other rockabilly acts, it’s going to be a fun-filled weekend (heck, a fun-filled WEEK).

I’d love to meet up with any other surf fans that are going to the fest. My plan is to fly in on Wednesday, go to the Bachelor Pad Magazine meet-n-greet at Frankie’s Tiki Bar that night, then go to the pre-Viva show afterwards. That’s Wednesday. Then either Thursday or Friday I want to get out of town for a bit and visit the Valley of Fire State Park. I have a rental car, so I could take 3 other people that are interested in going. The rest of the weekend I’m free, other than obviously being at the Orleans for all of the shows. If you are going to be in Vegas, send me an e-mail at: records@dblcrown.com.

I will also be on Twitter while there, and will post photos and updates while there – you can follow me at: http://twitter.com/dblcrown

For more details, check out their Facebook page, or you can follow this thread on the SG101 message board.

When I hit college I discovered surf rock, Estrus Records, lounge/exotica, and early rock n’ roll, so I then started to hit thrift stores and used vinyl shops, picking up all sorts of LP’s (some just for the covers – some of those easy listening and exotica LP’s from the 50′s and 60′s have amazing cover art). I was still buying CD’s from a variety of genres, as well as new LP’s, primarily surf and rockabilly compilations.

Now we’re in the digital download era, and although I still purchase a fair number of CD’s, most of my purchases now are digital downloads, through Amazon, iTunes and Emusic. For me to buy a CD, instead of a digital download, the release has to have cool cover art or packaging, bonus tracks, or be cheaper than the digital version. A growing factor though, is that my physical music collection of LP’s, CD’s, 7″s, cassettes and 8-tracks (yes, I have a few 8-tracks) is taking up way too much space. I’d love to regain some of that space, but it’s hard. Just about everything I want to keep – I’ve already sold off the stuff I don’t think I’ll listen to.

However, most of the listening I do now is either on the computer, my iPod, or in the car. I really don’t listen to my CD’s and LP’s that much any more. Having said that, most of the music that I listen to digitally I ripped from the CD’s and LP’s in my collection. I still believe that the CD is the best format we have today – it’s something physical that you can hold in your hand, and it’s got cover art and a booklet. Yet, if you want to listen to it on a computer or digital device, you can easy rip it, then keep the CD as a back up.

As far as my label, Double Crown Records goes, CD’s sales are definitely down from where they were 10 years ago. We still have a loyal customer base (thanks!!!), and our higher profile releases still sell fairly well. We still make enough from each CD to cover costs, so as long as that happens we’ll still continue to put out CD’s. But buying habits are definitely changing. Income from digital distribution is growing (slowly), but it’s far from making up the gap from lost CD sales. If they had been released 10 years ago, our Brave New Surf or Madeira “Tribal Fires” CD’s would have easily sold 2000-2500 copies. Now they’ll struggle to hit the 1000 copies sold mark. We’ll still break even, and eventually make a little off these releases, but it’s disappointing to have such great releases get out to a limited market.

Anyway, I’d love to know what you all think – if you have a few seconds, please fill out the following survey. It’ll help us decide where to go from this point on. We’ve still got lots of great releases in the works, so there’s no immediate danger of us quitting, but it’ll help us decide if we need to focus more effort on the promotion of digital releases, or maybe cut back our CD production runs to 500 or 750 CD’s per release.

(By the way, after much thought, I ended up buying the Smile reissue shown as a digital download. As much as I wanted all of the packaging and liner notes, I thought mostly about the space it was going to take up in my home office. Ultimately, the most important thing to me with this particular release was the music.)

The Madeira – Tribal Fires CD – DCCD46 – $12.75 (Order From Double Crown)

Join the Double Crown Music Club – 4 consecutive CD releases, starting with the Madeira – Tribal Fires CD – MUSICCLUB – $35.00 (Order From Double Crown)

Tracks: Tribal Fury – Cities of Gold – Twilight – Fire Sacrifice – The Expedition – Witch Doctor – Jungle Drums – Arcadian Voyage – Mar Vista – Giant – Pre-Ritual – The Ritual – Zanzibar

You can get a taste of what this CD sounds like with these free MP3 downloads:

• Cities of Gold (3.9 MB)
• Tribal Fury (3.5 MB)
• Twilight (3.2 MB)

Find out more about the band, including upcoming shows, on the Madeira website.

Continental Magazine – Three Issue Subscription (Issues #19, #20, #21) – CTSUB – $18.00 (Order From Double Crown)

The Continental Magazine – Issue #19 w/CD – CT019 – $6.95 (Order From Double Crown)

CD Tracks – Issue #19:

1. Thunderbird 101 – The Razorblades
2. Twilight Surfer – Martin Cilia
3. The Martyr – The Secret Samurai
4. Las Vegas – The Tremolo Beer Gut
5. Pumpin’ At The Pines – The Volcaniks
6. Moon Probe – The Dangermen
7. Mana Pacifica – The Tikiyaki Orchestra
8. A Blade From Damascus – Dirty Fuse
9. The Glass Man – The Mystery Men
10. You’ll Never Take Me Alive – The Man From Ravcon
11. Go Go Golem – Meshugga Beach Party
12. Dead Man Talkin’ -  The Vision
13. Schiesserei am Dawsons Creek – Die Kosmonauten
14. Rats & Gassers Theme – D.A. Sebasstian & The Inner Demons
15. Dusty Sand Sahara – Shockwave
16. Beer Run – The Surfdusters
17. Surf-n-Turf – SPF-4
18. Love Theme For A Twisted Mind – Kill, Baby… Kill!
19. You Can’t Teach a Caveman Bout Romance – The 99ers
20. Fez Inferno – The Twang-o-Matics
21. Autostrada – HJ
22. The Matador – Trabants
23. Western Satellite – King Pelican
24. Swimming with the Sharks – Speedball Jr.
25. Maximum Bumble – The Ugly Beats