Category: altrock

A Month of Love: The Rescues

More TV music.

The Rescues have rescued several musicians from other not so successful bands, and put them in honorable mention status. If you watch teen-twenty teevee you’ve probably heard them.

“All I Want for Christmas (Is to Give My Love Away)” is from Private Practice or something like that that i never watch….

A Month of Love: Big People

Some songs earworm you into submission.

I can’t tell you much about the alt rock band Big People. I know this song appears on a great collection entitled Yuletunes: A Collection of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs (love it). Oddly it also appears on Trailer Trash Christmas, and Redneck Christmas Party (say whu–?)

I can tell you it’s about wanting more than peace on Earth, more than a new bike, more than a mistletoe mwah… but this sadly earnest complaint (“Piece on Earth“) bypasses the creep factor (barely) with its catchy whininess (and the dogs acting out the bits from Lulu’s Christmas Pudding).

A Month of Love: Jars of Clay

Jars of Clay is a TN alt rock from a while ago. Not a follower, but gotta give them props for an early hit (“Rudolph Smells Like Teen Spirit“). It’s the old carol, y’see… but it’s sung to a goth rock… It made my nice list.

They also reinterpret the 1885 “Love Came Down at Christmas” which has been a minor holiday sensation, not yet a classic. Theirs is only one of the tunes the holy poem has been set to over the centuries. (For a classic version of the song, check out the Choir of King’s College at Cambridge.)

A Month of Love: ProjectHappiMusic

Love makes us goofy.

When we exhibit goofy in love a bit too much, we probably need a deprogrammer.

Projecthappimusic seems to be run by Loren Lemon dedicated to bringing all human beings together into one big fat hug. Their Christmas song “I Love You! It’s Christmas Time!” endeavors to teach you to say the L-word in many languages. Yuletide’s in there, too, i guess. Maybe you should be sitting down for this one.

The Future: Aliens! (3)

Kids love aliens of all kinds, even big scary ones. So, some novelty Christmas songs are for the children.

Sometimes all we need to do is retell a Christmas carol with the occasional gloss for SF alien terms in place of the traditional holiday words. Bill Michaels tells us ‘The Night Before Christmas’ as “Alien Christmas.” Creepy. Get the guy a lozenge.

Professor Steve believes the funniest sounds to make for kids are from the Road Runner and Batman’s Penguin. His “Alien Christmas” is appropriately annoying and approachable. Nanu nanu.

About the best kid-lovin’ alien/Xmas song around is by Fountains of Wayne. Known for ‘Stacy’s Mom,’ this is one of those emo-rock groups continually featured behind emotional TV series moments to set the mood. In other words, successful whether or not you buy their stuff.

Here is “I Want an Alien for Christmas” off their album Out of State Plates. (Some dope animation, illustration, and skitting out there for this song, but i dig the lyrics verzh ’cause i keep mishearing them.) It’s so cute and ET and crap.

State Fifty: Hawaii

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
The Aloha State is technically Americans who are foreigners. (Aren’t we all?) They have their own Christmas song–in their own foreign language. I am not gonna bother with “Mele Kalikimaka” in any version (not even Don Ho) nor even any ‘funny’ version (not even the appropriately polka version by Reel Big Fish on the 1997 KROQ Christmas album). But i might mention an illuminating Tom Scott linguistic breakdown of the exact translation of that phrase. Moving on…
“Christmas in the Rainbow State” by Stasia Estep is exactly what we’d hope for. It’s vaguely authentic and mentions all the highlights of holiday-ing in Hawaii. But it veers into pop-country and got used on the modern Hawaii Five-O TV show. Too bourgeoisie allasudden.
Sam Sims has also been included in that TV soundtrack with his “Hawaiian Christmas.” It’s a bit too much uke, slack key, and mele kalikimaka. I’ve got way too many Island versions of the trads to get excited here.
Red Peters’s “Have a Wonderful Hawaiian Christmas” gets so ethnically racist i’m not sure the ‘kamon ai wanna lei ya’ nonsense is nostalgic for horrible strip comics from the ‘Fifties, or just intolerantly insensitive. Naw, it’s hate.
OFFICIAL BLUE ALERT While we’re down and dirty, consider The Jackofficers (a side project of a couple of the Butthole Surfers) techno-sampling for “An Hawaiian Christmas.” Nothing naughty, but nothing fun. Ahh, the ’90s!
Just as messed up is Dan Barletta Jr. and his “Hawaiian Christmas Song” which adds feedback to reverb to electric guitar versions of surf music versions of carols (and Hawaii Five-O‘s intro).
Joey Mackee gets all cheesy lounge nightclub with his “Christmas in Hawaii.” That’s one way to do it.
Strange electronic bleating sets the beat for Motogawa Music’s “Christmas in the Islands.” There’s a pretty song in there somewhere, but it seems put together by commitee.
Patrick Landza goes gently comic with “Hula Girl for Christmas.” It’s all harmonious innocence and regional ha-cha-cha. Cute wish list, kid.
These Polyneisan pagans are converts though. And you can hear the angelic church messages in Roddy Lopez’s “Hawaiian Christmas.” It is a medley (gah!) but it’s too pretty not to consider.
Too many 12 Days for here, but “Numbah One Day of Christmas” (by every sweet-voice singer out HI way) seems more authentic than travesty.
Dana Spencer’s “Mahalo Santa Claus” gets us down to the children’s level and makes us sit in a circle with percussive sticks and sing along. Sweet and sincere (and from that great set Christmas Across America).
Hawaiian kids are the best singers, guys! “My Hawaiian Christmas” from some odd compilation decades ago (Hawaii’s Favorite Christmas Songs) tugs at the heartstrings (although that graceless pianer plinking is offputting).
“The Merriest Hawaiian Christmas” as sung by Honolulu Boy Choir, is more cherubim Christmas, marred by orchestration. (They also have a “Christmas in Hawaii.” It’s soporific!) (Don’t forget “Makahiki, the Christmas Mehune” a more arcanely culturally transposed version of white Santa. I love those.)
A couple ol’ gals in their dining room wail on their ukuleles and sing “Taro Patch Christmas.” Lei’ohu and Maydeen cast a spell on the season with their chuckling and hard harmonies. You can hear it better on Lei’ohu’s album, but i likes the comraderie of the home-made version here. Mahalo, women.
The sad white version of hey–it’s just us singing is done by The Chestnuts (Geri Grayson and Greg Blunt), “Hawaiian Christmas Song” sounds like old Canadian mounties competitively singing falsettos to their lady loves.
My favorite parody is a homespun Canadian group The Yule Be Sorrys singing “Away in Hawaii” (taking off of ‘Away in a Manger’)
revealing why we have so many ho hum Hawaiian Christmas songs: us cold boring mainlander Americans go there then and they gots to entertain us with some provincial localism.
Time for sunny fun! Odd Polynesian gods laugh down on scared natives in Na Leo’s “Santa Island.” It’s condescending pidgin AND funny. Laughing with… i guess. Oh probably just racist, like Jar Jar Binks.
Now if Santa can be mamboing he can certainly be hulaing. Californians Punama and Graden Island Blend put together “The Santa Hula Song” for gifts and giggles.
Uncle Benny Kai hit us with “Hawaiian Santa,” another so so offering, fun to dance to and reminiscent of Islanders, but come on… that da-dooda da-dooda is just musical warming up.
Patrick Canning has a haunting holiday hymn, “Hawaiian Christmas.” It’s barely holding on harmony and dreamlike alt-World music edge transports me like i’m drifting on the tide… the yuletide, natch! This Newfoundlandian folk singer writes a Christmas song every year and makes his own horrible video to accompany it. They skirt taste deliciously. Check him out.

well, gang, that’s fifty… so far. Okay fiddy-tree since i threw in D.C., Virgin Islands, and Lakota Nation. After the actual holidays which are nearing i’ll get back to PR, Samoa, Guam, N. Mariana (but probably not the little islands nor atolls: Wake, Midway, Palmyra, Johnston).

NEXT TIME: CHANUKAH

State Thirty-Six: South Dakota

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
The Dakotas are easy to tell apart because one has Mt. Rushmore. I just don’t remember which one.
Gary Hunn’s “Christmas in South Dakota” connects the dots of holiday homelinenss town to town and who out-hospitalizes the other. He’s as sincere as throat cancer… erm, uh, try not to focus on his troubled vocalizations–look at the Marlboro Country backgrounds instead.
While we’re near the rez, let’s talk Manifest Destiny just a bit. Native Americans have learned (or been force fed) Christian customs since whites got here, so their take on Christmas singing is sadly the same: uncomfortable young people lined up to pretend-harmoinze lyrics the elders beam at in appreciation inside of community centers the grownups wouldn’t be caught dead in otherwise. Sing for the Lord, ya goddam ungrateful punks!

Okay, some of the Amerinds take pity on the genocide-curious and sing our trads in their language so we can have some kind of pity/guilt annunciation. Jana Sampson, a North Carolinian with a psych degree, has become a pop/R&B singer of some note. I’m not saying she cashed in on her Lumbee and Tascarora heritage to make an album entitled American Indian Christmas, but I am saying I don’t know how good her Cherokee (“What Child is This?“) or her Apache (“Joy to the World“) accents really are. But The Plains were once the land of Lakota, so you might consider “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” in that language. And consider Jana (now) Mashonee, too. She’s an absolute babe.

The Rockford Mules line up next with “Merry Christmas, South Dakota.” Finally “loud rock music with a dash of Gospel, Southern, and Stoner” (says their Facebook page). These are fine Minnesota boys with one album. But you can tell they’ve toured through the Coyote State (suffering, missing loved ones, barely tolerating the road and weather conditions: as depicted on their ‘tube view). (I can’t think of too many music videos that cure you of ever wanting to strap on a guitar, but this one–boy howdy what a drear existence!) Christmas is often depicted as depressing (not JUST because you’re in SD), which is why we try to cheer you up so much. Don’t worry, have candy!

State Twenty-Four: Michigan

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Day Twenty-Three: Michigan
It’s a dark place of failed American Dreams, it’s a lush land of scenic hunting and paranoid manor-holders… I don’t know what you are: Wolverine State of Great Lakes/Peninsulas.
And it took a while to find you some plum pudding plainsongs, but when i did… Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice!
The prettiest and most Chamber of Congress worthy is Brian d’Arcy James (that guy in all those musicals!) off his solo album From Christmas Eve to Christmas Morn (which is the longest night of the year). You can buy a download of “Christmas in Michigan” from his website, or see it because some big fan ‘tubed it. Holy holly, that guy’s got pipes!
Now, you can help me. Another posting by the Meijer Choral Group, “A Michigan Christmas Card,” is a dearly pleasant piece reeking of community and adult pop. But who/what is this? PR for some megalomaniacal corp? Quick cash for some kids with a recording studio? The lifelong dream of some tunesmith(s) (Robertson-Farnsworth)? I must know! For 1985 this is pleasingly inoffensive.
Paul Ritchie, who has written for Xmas in KY and KS, rhymes ‘Michigan’ with ‘wish again’ in “Christmas in Michigan.” You can sample a bit of it on Youtube or buy it i guess. The melody is a bit lazy but i do dig the turn of lyric.
Dan Adamini wants to get more narrowly regional with “Christmas in Upper Michigan,” but his cliche-carpeted walk in the woods makes me shiver. Setting your keyboard to Church Organ doesn’t festivate the tune, dude.
Dewey Longuski wins for most in-jokes with his “Christmas Time in Michigan is Here.” (Land of the Hand?!) But his twanging, children’s piano tinkling, nasaling funtimes is a discordant diorama for demograghics. Instead of a being a cutesy song for the very young, or an alt song for the recently young, or even an MOR for the Boomers, this seems to be a song for childlike adult news announcers to underplay their local news outros.
So, let’s go to Detroit (no one else is). Karen Newman sings “Christmas Eve on Woodward Avenue,” a real show stopper full of little cherubs backing up the talent. Adorably twee. But this gets a little too local for me; not so much referentially, as pathologically.
Lest you think these people have no sense of humor for the holidays (Hello, Da Yoopers!), lemme drop a “Christmas in Detroit” number on you. Genesis the Church has set up the most unlikely looking entourage of white hiphoppers gassing local lyrics to ‘Christmas in Hollis.’ Love the scenery, gaped at the gentirfication, and worried about the small mentions of “The D-E-T.” So, not it.
Finally, I’m going to double down on the dark. As I did with Ohio, I’m going unwashed after hours club music. “Christmas Day in Flint, Michigan” by Beth Cahill from Songs for Sarah is not christmas at all. And she’s Canadian. It’s a dark folk lullaby, a real woman’s song. I insist it’s listenable. Merry Mary.

State Twenty-Two: Ohio

FIFTY DAYS OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, bitches!
Brandston altrocks “Christmas in Ohio” as a metaphor for how much you cheer me up, babe. Which is all poetical and slick, but not holiday.
Laura Elder has sent up “Christmas in Killarney” by singing about Ohio. She’s all home-canned sweet preserves, she is. Irish humor is the best, all dancing and laughing and hitting below the belt.
Chantilly Lace has got a startlingly sinister bit of nostalgia entitled “Christmas in Cleveland.” Something, so the song relates, went wrong with young love around the holidays way back when, and it sounds like like we’re about to suffer a snow-covered body count by some Santa-looking killer. Well, that’s my read on it.
Keeping up with that new sound the kids like in their rock and their roll (’90s-style), I’m gonna pop open my advent to The Raveonettes’ “Christmas in Cleveland” from their album Wishing You a Rave Christmas. These are, wait for it, Danish indie rockers (purportedly influenced by the Everly Bros). I like the garage post punk noise here. It reminds you that Christmas is about young people lost in the world… y’know like Jo-boy and Mary-baby looking for some friendly refuge for birthin’. Sune Rose and Sharin Foo are old school cool, despite their overmodulated indecipherable lyric-noise. Don’t join in and sing along!

State Seven: New York

FIFTY STATES OF ‘MERICA-MAS
Oy. There are not quite as many songs about New York Christmas as there are denizens of The City. Apart from one ditty I discovered about Christmastime in Syracuse, the rest of the state is hardly considered. Certainly boroughs get some due: I hope you’re familiar with Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis.” Classic. Kanye has a “Christmas in Harlem.” Master P’s is “Christmas in the Ghetto,” also by Gary Barner and O.F.T.B. Dnasty lays down some rhymes over the ‘Christmas in Hollis’ beat karaoke style with his “Christmas in Compton.” He tries but seems to run outta breath. Or–even better: “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto.” I’ve got that by Snoop Dogg, James Brown, and Mojo Nixon –plenty more cover that old chestnut! And hey, remember ol’ Bootsy Collins? “N-Yo-City” is mostly a seasonal party song (from Cincinnati). Trying to get upbeat and ’70s style pop is Jim Indell with “Christmas on Staten Island.” (He rhymes ‘smilin” with ‘Island!’ and ends with a ‘…yeahhhh!’)  Abigail Breslin and Rob Thomas have interesting, earnest entries on Gotham as well, if you want to feel lost and alone. NYC’s got an overstuffed cornucopia of Christmassing. One of the most overplayed big apple holiday haunters is alt rock The Pogues’ piece: “Fairytale in New York.” It’s so seminal I’ve got a couple covers on that, too. Listen to it, laugh and cry over it. It’s even got at least one parody (a Minecraft Parody, i’m sorry to say): “Fairytale of Spisco.” But the, you know, get over it.
Funnier caroling includes “Christmas in Brooklyn” by Erik Frandsen. It’s the usual fugeddabowdit kinda stuff.
My official offering is from a group called Marah, off an album entitled A Christmas Kind of Town, and later collected on Oh Santa! New & Used Christmas Classics from Yep Roc. The band has been alt-country-ing for 20 years and have a following which includes self appointed Pop of King, Steven King: “These guys are either the American U2 or close enough for government work.” This particular strummin’ bit of fun was inspired by and played on This American Life ’05.