Year-round Yuletide oddities
Professor Gall has a Tom Waits ol’ time with “Whiskey Was the Medicine (To Get Me Through Another Christmas Eve Night).”
FuMP delivers unto us Pony Death Ride’s “(It’s a) Tom Waits Christmas.” Just what I wanted!
Porn Orchard does a fun routine honoring these dolorous genre-breakers with “Christmas Sucks.” Some sites argue over whether these are impersonations. Come on.
UPDATE:
I need to shoehorn in something cool i stumbled across:
Pearl Jam frontman Edward Louis Severson III has his own style, here honored by Entorwellian from a truly unique album in the form of: “Garbling Like Eddie Vedder Christmas.” Enjoy!
Perhaps the less said about the J.K. Rowling series the better. It’s unoriginal, plodding, and mean-spirited. But it is the best selling literary series in the history of forever, and she is the only author made billionaire strictly from her creation.
The cottage industry of pop songs dedicated to the fan base is also a bit dull-witted.
The obvious is “Voldemort is Coming to Town.” Bella Luna Wrock has an adorable version of this. Several others recorded their own to a set of venal lyrics that went viral several years ago.
Draco and the Malfoys have a talky bit of comedy song in: “A Very Voldemort Christmas.” The young Tom Riddle here has a stand off with Santa… sorry, fell asleep there a bit. They make up for that one a bit with “All I Want for Christmas” in which Draco himself dictates a holiday wish list to Lord He-who-shall-not-be-named naming names and spells.
For my money the best pop song tribute to Harry Potter is the pop song tribute to Harry Potter fans: Joel Kopischke’s “Have Yourself a Very Harry Potter Christmas.” Take that, fans! (I also wish your parents don’t get killed.)
The original ‘Die Hard’ was set during a holiday office party and as such has become a guy Christmas thing. The protagonist, John McClane, according to our friendly neighborhood Wikipediea, was originally based on the fictional character Detective Joe Leland from Roderick Thorp’s bestselling novel, Nothing Lasts Forever. As portrayed by Bruce Willis, he’s a whiny yet unapologetic, self sabotaging yet unstoppable romantic narcissist. Role model!
Insane Ian & Bonecage retell the tale with the Bing-Bowie ‘Drummer Boy’ backgrounding in “Die Hard Christmas.” Be patient, or be a big fan.
Mike Karschti paints and sings “Merry Christmas, John McClane” with such winning talent that I forgive him his excuse making via vlog after the song.
Lynette Alice Fromme was a casualty of the ’60s from hallucinogenic drug use and excessive counterculture deprogramming. She had been a cutsie California entertainer but was exploited by Charlie Manson to help out with his murder spree to ignite the inevitable apocalyptic race war. Her big headline grab after Charlie was sidelined was shooting at President Gerald Ford (the least likely target of assassination ever), resulting in 34 years of incarceration.
Reverend Glen Armstrong takes a turn at psychoanalyzing this pop culture footnote, concluding that “Even Squeaky Fromme Loves Christmas.” It’s worth your while to peer into his bouncy pop lyrics and judge his own stability.
Here in the mysterious world of novelty music awkward fusions and joke bands are a rare and wonderful thing. No one usually gets them and they die a cover death at airport lounges. But Jack Black has nurtured his Tenacious D duo ‘mock rock’ with Kyle Glass for decades. He loves the metal music as much as the tongue in the cheek. So his funny musical career works.
La Parola Persa is an Italian group of no little energy who has devoted webspace to ‘begging Jack’ to musically notice them. Their holiday tribute “Merry Christmas, Jack Black” goes off the rails early, however, and hyperactively salutes more than a hundred stars (of the movie/music type). What a masked ride! (Caveat: The second half of the video is encore.)
Robert Zimmerman is a Grammy, Pulitzer, Nobel prize winner with more awards than hit songs. He has a pass for everything he’s tried and failed at since 1972 (DO NOT attempt to listen to his Christmas album) because he was cool once upon a time and captured the spirit of disenfranchisement of the Boomers.
Shaun McCrindle sings the true story of a holiday sighting with “Bob Dylan’s in a Joke Shop” with laconic folk rocking. Appropriate.
Adam J Taylor honors Bob Dylan with “Sexy Bob Dylan Christmas,” conjuring a feeling for this time of year that is important, activist, and sexy. Well, that’s what he says. I find the song earnest and odd in equal measures.
Ellas Otha Bates created a signature ‘hambone’ rhythm that was more than blues and generations wailed on it until rock and roll was born. Bob Diddley today might refer to that five-accent infectious dance syncopation.
As it does when The Tractors go to town with “Bo Diddley Santa Claus.” I see you toe tapping under your desk.
We’ve passed through the gateway of weed. I reckon it’s time for some hard stuff. Generically at first.
I’ve previously offered “Santa Doesn’t Cop out on Dope” but only in the Martin Mull original. Sonic Youth has a wacky turn at it. Greg Hawkes‘s live version allows the irony to shine through more blindingly.
Defiant Bear rollick “Santa’s Dope” with a chimney cleaning back beat. That helps the horrible violence go down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTe7zg0bK5A
What’s left? Wait, i got it right here. What was i doing? Oh yeah, Xmas pot songs:
Chief Greenbud croons sweetly “Let’s get Blazed for the Holidaze.” It’s light rock, sweet pop, weird. Brian Ashley Jones does it a touch better.
Green Outlaws has a good ol’ country time with wishing for “A Bag of Pot for Christmas.” Yee haw, bubba.
“Do You Want to Smoke a Bowl, Man” from Dan Zimberg shows talent. (A touch BLUE.) Tread carefully on children’s parodies.
Skye Taylor dresses up like Dr. John and growls out ’70s honky tonk rock with “Roll Me a Big Ass Joint for Christmas.” It’s a serious effort for such an itty bit joke. So i definitely like it. (Except for overlong intro and postscript comedy.)