What's Up! Magazine

Flying under the musical radar in Bellingham is surf label Double Crown Records, and the Continental Magazine, a surf and garage zine that is known throughout the world, yet unknown in its own backyard. As owner Sean Berry celebrates its 10-year anniversary of the label, Bellingham is finally going to discover Double Crown Records and The Continental.
For Sean, it began back in the early ’90′s when he was a student at WWU and an avid music fan. “I used to hit the Newstand once a week to pick up the latest music mags, especially Brit rags like NME and Melody Maker. All of a sudden, I began finding cool little photocopied zines at the front entrance, covering music, literature, pop culture and many other topics. My favorite soon became local zine, Throwrug, put together by Karl Freske (co-owner of Film is Truth) and his gang.”
Figuring putting a zine together looked like fun and probably wouldn’t cost much, Sean started up Hmmm…. While running the zine, he intereviewed the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, The Chamleons, and Los Straitjackets, just to name a few. As the zine matured and began to create a niche for itself in the surf/garage/exotic music genres, Sean changed the name to a one that better suited the vibe of the zine – The Continental.
“To kick things off I interviewed Dave Crider at the 3B Tavern for the first issue. I was a big fan of Estrus Records (still am!) and the Man or Astroman?, Mono Men and Mummies records they were releasing played a huge part in the direction of the fanzine,” Sean said. “It wasn’t just the music—it was also the amazing cover art and the awesome catalog, the Sir Estrus Quarterly, that greatly influenced the magazine.”
After changing the name to The Continental, Sean began receiving a lot of surf music for review, all of which came from small labels. Once again, taking the “if they can do it, I can too” approach, Sean started up Continental Records, an off-shoot of the magazine.
“I contacted bands that were in the studio recording albums and asked if they had a few extra tracks that they’d be willing to send for a 7″ release on my new label. The first band I worked with was The Penetrators and we did a 7″ called Hit The Jet Stream. It was a cool 7″ EP with four songs, dialogue between each of the tracks describing a secret spy mission to Russia that had the band acting as secret agents, and cool cover art by their guitarist Rip Thrillby.”
The Continental then released a 7″ by Seattle’s Boss Martians with the cover art done by Shag, an internationally renowned tiki artist. After his first CD release, by Arizona’s Del Vamps, Sean realized there were other Continental Records out there and a name change was in order. Thanks to his wife Lynette, who had a haircutting book from the ’20s, the name was changed to Double Crown Records.
Over the years, both the record label and the zine have continued to grow, with the label putting out 4-5 releases a year and 1 or 2 issues of the zine coming out (each zine now has a full color glossy cover and includes a CD full of surf and garage tracks). To date, there have been 25 releases on the label, including The Footstompin’ Trio and Chris Con Carne.
As far as the zine goes, Sean gets the greatest pleasure from some of the musicians he’s gotten to interview. “It has been a huge thrill to interview some of my favorite bands. I think the best interviews have been with Trent of The Mummies, Deke Dickerson/Untamed Youth and the one I did with Joel and Jill Trueblood, a brother and sister that, at the time, were drummers in The Boss Martians, Untamed Youth and Neko Case’s backing band (Joel) and The Valentine Killers (Jill). Oh, and the interview I did with the Trashmen was a huge thrill. Another big one was interviewing Will Sergeant of Echo & The Bunnymen for my first zine, Hmmm…. We talked for almost two hours about the band and music in general.”
While the zine always has a place in his heart, Sean’s focus is on the record label, which allows him to work with bands from all over the world. “Rat Holic is in Japan, The Kilaueas are in Germany, Dr. Frankenstein is in Portugal, Bonney & Buzz are a U.S./Canadian duo and The Krontjong Devils are in Holland. All of the other bands are in the U.S., but scattered around in places like Indiana, California, Alabama and Massachusetts.”
Although surf music isn’t at the top of the charts, the following is loyal, which Sean hopes will keep him afloat as the music business continues to take a hit. “I can’t say that the surf music genre is very popular, but there aren’t that many labels putting out surf music on a regular basis, so as long as production of each release is kept low (about 1,000 copies/release), it’s not impossible to find 1,000 people throughout the world willing to buy each release,” Sean said.
A few of his bands have received attention on a larger scale with some music by The Penetrators ending up on a Playstation game and several bands being featured on MTV’s The Real World in San Diego.
But Sean’s goals are modest for the label. “The goal all along has been for each release to bring in enough money for me to have the cash to put out the next release. Money’s never been the goal. I simply want to keep releasing music that I like and work with people I like to work with,” he said.