Category Archives: bluegrass

TreeMendous Holiday Fun: A Copse of Conifer Corpses

The only good Christmas tree is a dead Christmas tree! This wholesale slaughter has already been celebrated in my bloggy way with fetching jazz drumline gusto by Screaming Headless Torsos and also, best of all, by Celtic Elvis‘s Gregorian chanting.

BUT ALSO– Paul Garding sits us down in a circle for the folk styled “Kill a Tree for Christmas.” Give him a minute, he’ll soften the blows.

RuddOsophy gets more novelty comical with his caroling country “Let’s Go Kill Us a Christmas Tree” complete with forest animal sidekick singing foil. It’s a 7.5 on the ha-ha richter scale.

Let’s admit it, the eco-freaks are twaddle-minded hippies who’d rather have verdant stands than homes filled with desiccating cheer. Let them sing along with Dr BLT’s bluegrass anthem: “Christmas Tree Hugger.” Watch out for those spikes they sabotage ’em with!

Tripping Bells: Bongwater

After the end, the baggie’s turned inside out, the ashtray’s been licked, the stems and seeds have been roasted… you’re out, bro.

Je Suis France champions the drought with “Baby, Please Don’t Get Stoned (It’s Xmas).” Jangly experimental rock with vocals dropped to the bottom track don’t engender a drug-free home.

Paul Stewart amuses himself with a terrible family reunion but “No Weed for Christmas.” Give it a minute and you’ll be rewarded with some raging mandolin.

Quite Gone for the High Holidays

More than a couple Christmas rehab songs feature the big man, St. Nicholas. It’s time to deal with a stinko Santa y’all.

Wasi flavors their girl rock with Celtic punk giggling out that every Christmas morning Santa checks into “Christmas Rehab.” I’m not sensing sympathy for the red man.

Also ridiculing our favorite present-er, David Gray sneaks in a smidge of Calypso singing “Christmas in Rehab” in his front room. There’s barf, a small swear word, and a Kanye reference. How could it not be funny?

Mike Mullen mocks Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ with his “Christmas Rehab.” It’s silly and beats the drunk Santa joke with a bag of toys.

Much more playfully Adam’s House Cat tells us “Santa’s Out of Rehab by Christmas.” It’s a jug band family affair (except for Daddy) with some gleeful musicality.

Drink N.B. Merry: punch

The punch bowl may be the place to start the holiday party, then work up to all the booze we’ve lately consumed. But everyone finds their way back here eventually. This is where you say your goodbyes. So goodbye month of Christmas drinking!

No better place to put that holiday reminder toast: drink to get through these days, but keep count. From our a cappella boys Straight No Chaser, “To Christmas! (The Drinking Song).” (A grand reprise of this category, but does it sound like a sea chanty to anyone else?)

Hee haw styling informs Cledus T. Judd’s country comedy with knee-slapping and sides-holding and eye-rolling in place of line dancing. “Hazel’s Homemade Hallelujah Punch” is a merry tradition purportedly without alcohol, but with the favor of the Lord.

Ancient Order of the Killer Owl mix pop with psychedelia for overwsweet punch with blurring after effects in “The Christmas Punch Song.” It’s far out.

Straight outta witness protection Daniel Brouse also stirs up mind-melting electronica with a bubblegum beat in “Holiday Punch (Christmas Song).” It’s a jeremiad about over drinking, which we’ll explore next month. Guy thinks he’s in outer space (except for the evidence of gravity at the end of the video), i reckon.

Carbon Leaf brings us to a close with “Red Punch/Green Punch.” It’s a bluegrassy family home movie with sweet Old World reflection and a hardy refrain that celebrates all our lives.

Drink N.B. Merry: wine, mulled

Grown ups of refinement prefer wine to beer, at least as an ostentation. (Wine drinkers say things like: oaky, fruity, earthy; beer drinkers say things like: burp!)

The holiday process of boiling said libation with spices goes back centuries and continents. Glühwein is a favey-fave amongst the Deutshe. So I must include at least a couple not-so-much-mitt-du-English songs like Die Blauen Jung’s happy drunk parody of ‘Jingle Bells’ “Der Glühwein Song,” Thomas Dotterweich’s swinging parody of ‘Rocking Around’ “Der Glühwein Song,” punchxmas’s burbling melancholic “Oh du schöne Weihnachtszeit,” Kalk Stein’s oddly talky children’ rock “Glühwein,” and Sternschuppe’s rad pop “Komm zu mir auf einen Glühwein.” But let’s finish for the language challenged in English: John Stapleton folk rocks “It’s Christmas (Glühwein for the Ladies)” in his rocking chair in his front room (wait, that’s a nervous tic). I do believe he’s judging the alcohol intake here, not like those cheery Germans.

Okay, one more. Miss Behavin’ believes that western music is that stuff from musicals as she celebrates “Glühwein.” It’s a barn dancing promise of more fun.

Back to British. ‘Blurred Lines’ has been mocked with “Mulled Lines,” here by Greg and Chris Smith. Well Robin thick mayn’t be Brit, but he’s classy in that repressed way. An honorable parody.

And now for something completely different. The “Simplee Mulled Wine Mix Song” is advertisement for a product you problee never heard of. But it’s catchy bluegrass carousing.

Drink N.B. Merry: cocoa 2

Cocoa is such a tradition it’s shorthand allusively to aw dear skwooshy squishy emo. Alisha Merrick is a nice sing-maker, but first and foremost she’s a missus and a mommy. Get treacly romantic with her “Cocoa and Kisses.” Works for me: I’d make all my friends listen to it, if i were the guy (if i had friends).

“Hot Chocolate” gets some play from that ‘Polar Express’ movie. Everything about it horrifies me. A nice calypso turn from Janess Sifers  creates a “Hot Chocolate” that would better fit into a big biz show musical. Me, i’m more into edumusical pounding like you find in Brian Kinder’s “Hot Chocolate.” Earnest but questionable talent sells these maudlin values.

For the verisimilitude you’ve been yearning for, Tami Trisoliere blue grasses her “Cocoa Christmas” with a violin that feels like slippers, guitar like a fireplace, and a her own contralto like a fluffy plush robe. Ahhhhh.

 

Consume-mas Quantities: bless the bacon

Pigs is pigs, but bacon is a meal unto itself. And not six degrees off course, but whole platters of course!

[MARIAH CAREY PARODY ALERT] Farmer Derek admits all he wants for Christmas is bacon in his song “All I Want for Christmas is Bacon” which is not the worst thing i’ve ever heard despite the source material.

Mikey Mason also plays punny with carols in his “O Bacon Tree.” Not much bacon there.

Jevon ‘The Acoustic Hobo’ gets more personal with his “Makin’ Bacon for Christmas.” It’s a dad’s reverie about the perfect holiday. Here he strums!

Fitness Dan goes shirtless with his elctropop “Bacon Bourbon Brownies.” While this is technically a confectionary and should have been dealt with last month, this beefcake sells the meat with his elegant song stylings.

Jonah Knight crosses up my categories as well with “Bacon and Beer” (imbibables next month, fans). But what a fine tribute to overindulgence 12/25 (or anytime)!

Sweet Christmas! fruitcake 5

One repetitive gag for the good ol’ fruitcake song is the receptive concept of regifting this puppy. Spoiler alert: you give it away forever! You might get it back! It’s in the postal system for eternity! Heangh-hrrou!

Plank Road Publishing has an entry here.”Everlasting Fruitcake” is a bit more fast paced than their usual careful constipation for dumb little kids. I could dance to this one.

Pat Boone is so old by now we can’t tell if he’s phoning it in, or if he’s being puppeteered by greedy descendants when he sings (makes up) “The Fruitcake.” Give the geezer credit, with this ratatat listing of everyone who regifts, he’s going for stroke.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir whoop it up with “Recycle the Fruitcake.” The pageant is the thing wherein we’ll lampoon every queer stereotype with a winkity-wink in-on-it we can flounce it and you’ll never really get it costume excess-roy. Hoo boy.

Duck Logic Comedy overplays the joke with “The Fruitcake (I Hate Fruitcake).” And it takes half the song to get to the revolving part of the joke. But more musical talent than humor wins out here.

Jesus Christ! pickin and grinnin

The Light of the World was born in the country, and country folk do appreciate him. So  many of the massive church numbers began as simple folk-grass.

The Staples Singers bicycle through “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day,” keeping the spiritual simple, showing their Xmas roots from when the power came from the words, not the orchestration and 3000 voices strong.

One of my favorite down-in-the-dirt folk albums is by some of the Seegers entitled American Folk Songs. Please to get your holy lowly from Colum MacColl’s own “Wasn’t That a Mighty Day” and Mike Seeger with “Sing a Lamb.” Well, garsh.

You can still hear traces of the heavenly choir in the harmonious Trail Band’s “New Baby King.” It’s a barn burner/praise raiser, without the tabernacle.

Jesus Christ! happy danceable bluegrass

The Reason for the Season is the appeasin’ of the diocese ‘n’ stuff like that. Don’t you go forgetting the J. Bae now. King of kings Joshua C. Carpenter got born out of Godhead and–c’mon–dead people finally get to go to Heaven. Hip hip… hosanna.

Most classic (old hat) Christmas carols praise the baby. Heck, the first songs sung for the high holy day were just hallelujah hymns, but louder. Not until about the 19th Century did we start singing about sleigh bells and trees and rooftops and santas. Let’s not hear those AGAIN.

And, by the way, every tin-roofed two-bit steeple has got ‘talented’ people attending who make up reverential songs every year hoping to amuse the mass. A guitar/piano noodling, calling Christ a ‘dude’ does not a noticeable novelty noel make unto thou. So let’s tread carefully through the minefield of modern manger music and find some GOOD STUFF.

Being in a mixed mood all month (March, y’know: lambs v. lions), I’ll alternate something classy/cool on odd numbered days with something kooky/comic on even numbered days.

Tonight’s first offering comes from Shiloh Worship Music (free music on their website, dude). I’m sure this bluegrass group are a fine looking bunch, but they hide under a bushel of stock New Testy footage for their “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Still, the jouncy, bouncy banjo beat makes you rejoice, don’t it? I do!