"The Captain Of Her Heart" Double (1985)

Listen

This song will save you $$$ in air conditioning costs. Just the sound of it drops the room temperature a few degrees and you swear you feel a soft, cool ocean breeze go by.

This song was a standard of the days of the "Lite" Adult Contemporary music on the 1980s radio dial. The kind of radio stations that played music and had imaging so light, you had to tether the office radio down to something secure to keep it from simply floating away.

Double (Pronounced DOO-Blay) was a Swiss pop duo of Kurt Maloo and Felix Haug. They formed originally as Ping Pong and in 1982, scored a minor hit in Europe on the German label Big Mouth with the catchy "Rhythm Walk".

The cover of Ping Pong's only LP

Ping Pong reformed as Double in 1983 and released a few European singles before recording their major label debut LP Blue which featured re-recordings of the earlier Double singles as well as "The Captain of Her Heart".

Double went on to release a second album in 1987 Dou3le. But aside from a critically well received single "Devil's Ball" there were no hits at all off this album. And Double called it a day.

Felix Haug sadly died of a heart attack in 2004. Kurt Maloo is still active.

A Gallery of North Korean Vinyl Records

Sample track from the above album: "Our Red Blood Means Victory" The Monsudae Art Troupe (1962) 

1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph

The 1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph was the hipster audio freak's must-have long before Bang & Olufsen. It played vertical cut discs of the Edison/Pathe variety. But could be modified to play lateral cut gramophone records with the use of an attachment to the tone arm.

And they're still very classy looking.

And in the days before electrical recording, vertical cut discs were sonically best for acoustic recording than conventional lateral cut gramophone records. A suddenly loud passage could cut through the wall of a lateral cut groove, so the singer had to stand back from the recording horn or the horn had to be muffled to protect the groove wall of the record being recorded. On a vertical cut groove, it only makes a deeper groove.

The teak horn inside was perfect for acoustically recorded records, Not brassy or tinnier than it had to be with conventional gramophone horns. Or boxy like Victrolas.  

They're extremely rare today.

Rickie Tickie Stickies

Rickie Tickie Stickies, in spite of their long association with hippies and flower power were actually a creation of ad man Don Kracke in 1967. These reusable plastic flower decals adorned many a Volkswagon and girls bedroom in the late 1960s/early '70s. By 1968, some 90 million had been sold.

They were expanded to include other designs in the '70s and even moms started adding them to windows and cupboards.

"The Devil Went To Jamaica" Travis Meyer (1998)

Lost stoner classic, often miscredited to David Allen Coe or "Weird Al" Yankovic. Happy 420!