Music Originally developed in the 1930′s as a cheap alternative for small churches that could not afford a pipe organ, the electric organ became a fixture in millions of suburban homes during the 1950′s and 60′s. Along the way this all purpose instrument produced the melancholy soundtrack for countless soap operas, kept the beat at roller rinks and eventually was dipped in ‘acid’ and mutated into the keyboards of rock n’ roll and soul. In the prosperous post war world, Lauren Hammond’s invention became the space-age equivalent of the piano in the parlor. Maybe the kids would put away that jungle music and gather with Mom and Pop around the Hammond for an old fashioned sing-a-long? ( continue reading... )

The Cocktail Nation - Queens Of Vintage

Episode 266    May 12th 2013

This week we talk to the publisher of an online magazine called Queens Of Vintage, her name is Lena Weber and recently she interviewed me in her kings of vintage portion of the website so I thought we should have her on to talk vintage culture and the English scene. Plus the best exotica and lounge music from across the globe.

Stores I found some more photos of my favorite shopping mall in southern Sweden – Väla Centrum. It was built in 1974 outside of Helsingborg and took its inspiration from American shopping malls at the time – meaning that it didn’t look very Scandinavian or traditional, which I really love. It even had a birdcage with live canaries up until the mid 1980s. For more information and photos of the shopping center, see my earlier post about it. ( continue reading... )


Stores Time again for another visit to some various Swedish shopping centers, as they looked back in the golden days of consuming. This time featuring Stockholm and Gothenburg. Do not forget to listen to “Retro Shopping” volume 1 or 2 while looking at the photos for the perfect mood setter. ( read more... )

Stores Väla Centrum is a shopping mall located in southern Sweden just outside of Helsingborg. Been planing on writing about it for a long time now but have not been able to find anything useful – until now. This is the mall I grew up with. Many many Friday evenings and Saturdays were spent here when I traveled there going shopping with my family as a ( read more... )

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Stores This is a cut from a educational promotion film that explains some aspects on why Täby Centrum was built. The film is in Swedish and narrated by the architect of the center who explains some particulars about it. If you look closely you will see the Domus sign in the background on the second floor of the mall. Domus was one of the typical anchor ( read more... )

Stores Time for another peek at the past shopping experiences. This time we are leaving Sweden to have a look at some photos from an American shopping center. Since most of the Swedish malls and shopping centers that was built in the 50s, 60s and 70s all took their inspiration from the American malls, I thought it would be a good idea to compare the design ( read more... )