This was my third year missing out on booking a room directly at the Golden Sails Hotel. It takes a while for me to get my calendar in order. The previous two years I had gone for whatever cheap motel I could find on Hwy 1. I gotta say though, it's a pretty boring area. Trust me, I walked like 3 miles from my motel to the Golden Sails one year. So this time I thought I'd nestle myself a little more into Long Beach, and stayed at the Beach Inn, which was within walking distance of the Beach and the Queen Mary. It was about 4 miles away from the Golden Sails, still not a huge distance. I could either check out the town or head to the Golden Sails because this year they had breakfast and music from 9:30 to 11am at the pool.

Double Crown had been teasing a mystery EP in a few of their newsletters and I confess I had no clue. It turns out it was a new outfit with Sean Berry, Mr. Double Crown himself, in the lineup! He's joined by Jonny Browning of Jonny and the Shamen/MOAM and Hollis Pilling. It's a modest collection of songs, not terribly loud or aggressive, more quirky and creepy, but the MOAM lineage definitely comes through. Three of the tracks are originals, but I actually really like their take on the Ventures' VampCamp where they've sped it up to a less creepy tempo. Sounds like a new song!