Month: January 2021

Life After X-please

Some lunatics out there admit that they look forward to the after-times from Xmas. What–? How–? Hoo boy….

Woebegone of folksy tune, John Caroll has mostly glad feelings now that “Christmas is Over.” There’ll be another one…. for those who even care.

Cardboard Box Thieves jig about with bluegrass pop confessing how little they like Christmas. “After Christmas” is preferred. ‘Strue.

Karen Jacobsen also complains about the hair-tearing-out pace of the holiday, so with a showtune turn she exalts “The Day After Christmas.” She even calls it Boxing Day, like that’s a thing.

But, to keep you off balance, Kermit & Dylan (impressionist Thomas Valenti) harmonize about how “I’m So Glad Christmas is Over” and it’s all back to normal. Music hall enunciated comedy.

Life After X-meh

Is the day after Christmas just another notch on the calendar?

Joanne Mackell is just watching traffic “The Day After. Christmas.” Jugband style honky tonk pop peps up the ennui.

Slower, but still bangin’ the folk-blues, James Hersch samples the neighborhood on that “Day After Christmas Day.” He concludes: it’s all right. Okay then. Next.

The Sixth Great Lake puts a fine point to it with hand-clapping ’70s pop. “Always After Christmas, Boring.” You heard it here.

Life After X-muckin’ out the manger

Believe it or don’t some folks care to clean up their after-Xmas mess.

Agenda alert! Annemarie E. Witkamp has raved together an electronic “Christmas Clean Up Dance” song inviting all of us not to be alone but to pick up the ocean (it’s full of plastic). Yowza.

Civilian Jam Patrol raps out dance moves for “The Christmas Clean Up.” Break it down, hey! For Jesus.

Rodeo Gypsy does a quick tidy-up, but with slurring honkytonk gusto soon realizes “You Can’t Hide Christmas.” Hah to your turning the page!

But, Canned Hamm and Friends trot out the real message: no toys until “You Clean Up This Mess!” Possibly kidsong, but mostly odd. I dig it.

Life After X-oops

Perhaps the first thing you see the next morning post-X is the big mess.

Homer & Jethro tee off the humor of chaos from 1968 with “The Night After Christmas.” Rollicking redneck fun crashin’ ’round the cottage.

Violence erupted all over Entre-Knobs (feat. Rob Boyd)’s homefront in “Christmas is Over.” Guns may have been involved in this ska-pop dance number.

Swedish Formula One driver Slim Borgudd can’t seem to find you in the tangle of gifts, leftovers, or decorations. “Talking After Christmas Blues” builds in a non-Scandinavian moroseness that may unnerve you. Jangly jazz blues.

Talky blues-lite from Dashboard Hula Girls observes the mess detachedly in “The Day After Christmas.” Not much more to it than that.

Only a gently strewn floor sets the scene of “The Day After Christmas” by John Pollard. Whimsical folk nostalgia for two days before.

Throwing out turkey bones, beer bottles, and faraway friends Bill Lloyd uses “The Day After Christmas” as a time for renewal. One man’s trash is another man’s garbage. Hard strummin’ folk.

Life After X-not so loud

Now that the subject’s broached, let’s linger on that hammering headache you woke up with after Xmas celebrations.

Twangy country from Ron Bell drawls out a portrait of family failings in “The Day After Christmas.” Lots of broken, missing, hurting with a lively backbeat.

Rangy grunge from The Held retches out unfortunate life choices in “Thank God (Christmas is Over).” And, for good measure, BLUE ALERT.

Kent Goodson and Michael Panasuk look up from the mess of “The Day After Christmas Blues” and swear off bad habits, like conspicuous consumption in all its forms. Piano lounge blues.

Authentic music arrives in the form of “The Day After Christmas Blues,” country-funnin’ betwixt sharp guitar licks from JS Lawrence. This is more hangover regret iced with feeble promises.

Life After X-taking the cure

Another standard to observe after December’s festivities is the weight loss program.

The Christmas Pranksters use a barely recognizable ‘Santa’s Coming to Town’ tune to proclaim how tough it is to stop overeating in “‘Twas the Diet Before Christmas.” Wrong preposition, right sentiment. And clever.

Another advance call, this time with stronger parodic tones, “I’m Gonna Have to Diet After Christmas” posted by jsbarber1 features a talented diva claiming that a hippopotamus won’t do it either.

Spoken word parody (‘Night Before’) from Martha Taylor Lacroix begins our blues segment. “‘Twas the Day after Christmas” is a seductive selection of succulent proscriptions.

Life After X-return to vendor

One tradition we hold dear when the unwrapping is through, the returning’s begun.

Tim Markel uses metal to bitch (BLUE ALERT) the list of all the pointless pantomiming that’s through. First and foremost in “Christmas is Over” is returning the crap you gave him. It gets louder.

Shorty Garrett retries the rock’n’roll but leaves us with warm pop in “Shopping Shopping Shopping.” It’s largely about the mess before Xmas, but recommends snatching bargains after the masses ‘repeal’ their gifts 12/26.

Harmonica-rich country pop heralds “The Day After Christmas” from Jon Covert. Hyperbole about mad consumers mumbled over a jazzy ‘Jingle Bells’ rhythm machine beat is as funny as we can get here.

P.S. Didn’t know where else to shelve this maudlin poverty-stricken easy listening trembler… In “The Day After the Day After Christmas” Rick Paul recounts his ol’ dad’s sweet deals on trees and decorations when the season had ended and the money had long before run out. Holy moly.

Life After X–inconceivable

Can we begin to fathom the world when Christmas has left us? Poets and troubadours take this challenge.

January Zero can’t find the way back home “After Christmas.” This cacophony of coffeehouse pop waves its metaphors proudly to capture this (lack of) spirit.

Annie Lin is sorry she didn’t pick you up ate the airport in time in “The Day After Christmas,” a bangin’, unplugged rocker of a poetic traipse over mood swings and urban expectations.

Gar Cox goes Celtic folk epic with the drinking and head scratching all over “Too Late for Christmas.” This synesthesia of images and smells and despair needs a Joycean college class to explicate. I like that.

Life After X–okay Santa

Maybe Santa’s on his extended weekend after Xmas. Maybe it’s all boatdrinks and hula girls. Celebrate, come on!

(Quick detour into criminality first: GreenPoint Blue try the (cheesy electronic piano) pop humor route with “Santa’s Late for Christmas” because of a run-in with the law. Presents only while on parole. Devolves into an agenda.)

Florida Keys require partying by law. “‘Twas the Night After Christmas” by John Jay Martyn is the calypso about unwinding that you’d expect. (And yet… reindeer games, and–Hemingway sighting!)

Horace Peterkin & Friends bring the actual parang with “After Christmas” asking Whatchoo gwinna doo after Christmas? Scolding again, for the privileged. Santa may have spoiled us, but now that it’s done let’s all love one another. And dance!

Santa’s Helpers take us another route with “The Day After Christmas.” In this ’70s inspired pop doodler, Santa finds a letter he overlooked and dives down the rabbit-hole of what life means.

Life After X–hey Santa

How’s the jolly one doing right after the Big Show? ‘Sgotta be a relief, hey?

Little Fish grinds out some blues POV the fat man with “Day After Christmas Blues.” He suffers for your gains, children. Feel it.

“The Day After Christmas” begins with an elf kegger then gets worse. Then even worse. Barbershop a cappella juices the horror a la The Chromatics.

“Santa Claus. December 26” brought to you by Tony Thaxton (feat. Matt Taylor) details the symptoms of overwork the Saint suffers the day after. Groovy beach rock (though i’m having trouble with Brad here, too).