Category: world music

“St. Nicholas Sky” is some odd offering from the cast of ‘Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark.’ (That show where a guy died and it never opened.) So the whole look at Santa go thing is kinda creepy. Dramatic rock, though.

Grunge parody will help! Alpha Test Pilot grumbles and groans through “Smells Like Mince Pies.” Not a put down, so much as grated praise.

Beastie Boys parody next, please! “Santa Claus!” from Brian Downton is just the right amount of shouting.

Another parody! ManiacClown & Kruxy sell “The Sack” with poor equipment but possible energy. You Are Santa.

The Rubettes (feat. Alan Williams) play it straight this time for “Santa Claus” (a speech impediment), a reverent cheer.

“Reggae Xmas Song” begins with concerns. But Robert Boog brings this island gentleness to positivity, as reggae can do. It’ll be alright.

Naughty? Nice? “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter” all will be made clear. Tex Ritter and his Six Shooters cowboy the soft pop to explain it to you.

Buck Owens and his Buckaroos plug in more electric country to further the edification with “Tomorrow is Christmas Morning.” Swinging.

Lee Harris & the Sour Note Singers takes us by the boogie woogie “Way Up North.” Guess who’s waiting up there?

Nancy Hanson unravels sprightly bluegrass for her “Santa is Coming.” Sounds like down home.

The Surfers’ “Hawaiian Santa” is even cooler with his accoutrement (and his penchant for surfing!). The Surfers make a hula of this praise.

ESL Games brings us a silly way to teach adjectives to any child. But “Santa’s Beard” uses kidsong to create fluffy clouds of animal shapes on Father Xmas’s face, and now i’m scarred for life.

Floff play the nonsense word ploy for their light indie blue grass “Santa’s Beard’s Gone Grey.” Boom dicka adjicka. That’s good face fluff.

Willis ‘Daddy Wings’ Pinney & Reginald ‘Ras Regg’ Martin stomp the parang with their “Santa’s Beard.” It’s not only iconic, it’s itchy.

House fires are more common around the holidays due to the advanced stupidity that coddles the rabid consumer. That and the decline of Western Civilization.

Eye Suck industrializes garage rock for a visit to a “Bad Christmas.” We’re all suffering, my dudes.

It’s just the tree for Destroying Something Beautiful in the whispery indie “The Worst Christmas We Ever Had.” Family dysfunction!

Simpler parody from Dave Williams. “O Schadenfreude” takes on the Fox News conspiracy that their public spectacle of a (fake) tree was torched as a hate crime in 2021.

Zydeco fun from Dave & Jeanine advising you NOT to forget to “Put Out the Ol’ Yule Log.” Consequences of such a lapse include inferno.

Property damage can be a felony if motivated by some of that racism stuff i was just trying to get beyond. So only break windows of people you don’t know anything about, kids!

It’s pretty rotten when it happens to you! Elfie of Christmas Workshop Band shares the pain when the “Dog Ate My Christmas Toy.” Experimental pop heavy on the electronics and amateurism.

The “Vandalizing Reindeer” in Flooded Cellar’s folk ballad go after the narrator’s car–with him in it! But it’s parked in the snow, and results only in a three-day standoff. Not so much vehicular damage here.

“Tippin’ Over the Christmas Tree” is fine sing-along blues from Beatnik Turtle. Seems negligent rather than malevolent. Sax solo!

JINGLE JERKS punk grunge their “Christmastime Unholy Fruitcake Massacre” as a purge night license to unleash holy hell. Some persons may get injured, but i’m more worried about Mr. Cantmeier’s front yard inflatable camo Santas.

Piedmont Songbag fingers Mr. Feldenstein as hiring the kids to go about Christmas week “Popping the Inflatables” for money. So felonious conspiracy to a lovely Germanic backbeat (and Klezmer finish!).

“Worst Time of the Year” as mumbled by Andor frets over loneliness and… other stuff. Man, they harshed my buzz.

Poverty contributes to “Mr German Luiz Manzanos Worst Christmas Ever II.” Kristian Noel Pedersen tinkles some ivories into blues. For Christmas!

“Worst Time of the Year” from Shaprece w/House of Breaking Glass returns, allowing how great Xmas is, except when we’re broken up, you see. Jazzy R+B.

“The Worst Time of the Year” for Brathair is a homesick Christmas. The USA just isn’t Ireland. Not in December anyways.

A trip to South Wales reveals a tradition lost to time in which a horse’s head (skull) was set on a pole and followed house to house with singing for food and drink (wassailing). The translation for this community fete seems to be ‘gray mare’ or it could ‘blessed Mary’ bc of the wintry times it’s enacted. I’m betting on the former.

For local flavor let’s sample a Celtic verse: “Mari Lwyd” by Carreg Lafar. Huh? (Take it from me, the songs about this oddness are mostly NOT English.)

Eglish Acoustic Collective seem to codeswitch in their “Mari Lwyd.” Might be a manger in there.

“Wassailing With The Mari Lwyd” by Sloar+Mordor gives a prog rock side to the hand out beggary.

S.J. Tucker sings to “Welcome Mari Lwyd” with New Age picking and thumping. Open that door, man!

House Made of Dawn is more threatening in the give and take of their “Mari Lwyd.” Stale bread!

A Silly Little Time takes the time to warn all outsiders of the “Mari Lwyd.” Scary stuff, but old folk Celtic so also pretty.

Ross Mayhew stands and delivers (somewhat effetely) “A Pirate’s Christmas Eve.” He’s hoping for plunder under his tree, but seems to be part of the hard-partying crew. Still, this jolly ditty is just off enough to arouse the blog.

The Jolly Rogers roust up some gee-dee fine pirate shanties if that be t’yer liken. But their One holiday number, “Loose Cannons” (AKA ‘Christmas in Carrick’)’ is all about the feasting and drinking and carrying on… and drinking. Cheers.

Pirates drink grog, right?

We’re glanced at Jimmy Buffett’s “Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum” before. Overorchestrated pop that wants to be smooth calypso when it grows up, it’s a Santa escape tale. (As well as the superior–in humor and talent–punk take by The Cucumbers. Santa be nasty here.)

Less piratey is Taco and De Mofos dealing with fam and other relationships in the bouncy house of rap from “Ho, Ho, Ho & a Bottle of Rum.” See, he’s gonna have his fun… drinking all the pain away… like a thief on the open seas. (?)

Cobbled together out of Treasure Island and sung by Craig Toungate, “Yo, Ho, Ho, and a Bottle of Rum!!” is a fine shanty of offensively inoffensive pop Celtic music. It is not quite holiday-centric, but fun. The Roger Wagner Chorale makes a meal of it. Had to lean into pirates celebrating, darkly as they do.