Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Christmas Nuggets Found in Classic Christmas Tunes

From NPR...

by Cory Turner
December 22, 2006 · Have you ever stopped to listen to the lyrics of your favorite classic Christmas tunes? You might be surprised by what's there if you take the time to listen carefully.

Listen Here

Friday, January 11, 2008

David Hakan-Christmas Day live

A live performance of a song I posted on Dec. 23rd.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Pac Man Christmas Tree

If this just isn't the coolest freaking thing I've seen all season...I want one! I'd keep it up ALL YEAR LONG!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Last Christmas Record For Children


First off, I apologize for not posting yesterday. I meant to, I honestly did. But then I got a package from amazon.com and a CD I ordered came..."First Christmas Record for Children." (Why is it amazon.com's prices on Christmas CDs go UP after Christmas? Shouldn't it be the opposite???) A decent collection. Nothing to earth shatteringly rare or unusual on there...just an enjoyable CD, but nothing I'd really go out of my way to share on here.

But that cover really got my creative juices flowing. If this was the first Christmas record for children, what would the LAST Christmas record for children be? And instead of waiting around until death for that question to be answered, I figured why the heck fire not answer it myself.

So that's why there was no post yesterday...I was working on this. And I hope it was worth the wait, and this is my LAST post for this Christmas season, as it is the last day of Christmas. I promise to continue posting through out the year...this site isn't called the Twelve MONTHS of Christmas for grins and giggles...but don't count on it daily for 11 more months. In fact, I plan on taking some well deserved time off from here until February, when I have some ideas in mind for songs to post.

Until then, let this tide you over. It's a special compilation, and as with the My Space comp there are a few songs I already shared here but most of them will be new (to this site at least...you Christmas music aficionados may have already heard a lot of them!)

The Last Christmas Record for Children


And, again, thanks for reading and listening.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Servotron


There is no Santa Clause, kids! Yup, that's right...it's SERVOTRON you all honor during the festive season!

Digging a bit deeper into my collection, I found this record I acquired last year. I forget exactly where I got it (it was online somewhere and it was during Christmas last year so no doubt it was in a mad spree!) And I have to confess I haven't listened to these tracks too many times since I got them...maybe a couple times. That aside, these tracks have always been personal favorites, and I have never been brave enough to put any of these songs on my take-to-work compilations (as I think even this stuff might freak out my co-workers and customers!) but maybe I will next year....we will see.

Until then, I decided to share it with you, my fellow readers determined to celebrate these twelve days of Christmas with me!

  • Efficient Side:
  1. "Christmas Day of the Robot"
  • Insensitive Side:
  1. "Servotron Sonic Evaluation of the Christmas Season"
  2. "Death of the Sugarplum Fairy"

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Some more non-compilation Christmas songs

Today I'd like to share with you three Christmas songs from non-Christmas records and, as far as I know, these have never been collected on a Christmas compilation (and if they have, I'd like to know because that could be one cool compilation!)

First up is a legendary artist that I am excited to see a Christmas song from. Ry Cooder has contributed tremendously to music and his 2007 CD "My Name Is Buddy" features a Christmas track. It's a great album at any time of the year...certainly check it out.

Ry Cooder-Christmas In Southgate

Second I have a track by Lyle Lovett from The Road to Ensenada.

Lyle Lovett-Christmas Morning

Finally, I have a track from Bruce Cockburn, whose Christmas CD should be required listening in any library. (From the looks of it, it is out of print and commands some good money...pick it up if you don't have it if you find it for a fair price. It's well worth it.) But my choice from Bruce isn't from his legendary Christmas CD but a single track from Nothing But A Burning Light. "Cry of a Tiny Babe" has been covered by various artists since the release of this CD and it is indeed a great song. It is missed from Bruce's Christmas CD, and it should not be missed if you simply have his Christmas CD but over looked his other CDs.

Bruce Cockburn-Cry of a Tiny Babe

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

A Mouse Family Christmas

As I sit down to type this, I am drinking my last cup of Silk Pumpkin Spice (a delightfully delicious beverage, by the way. Even if you don't drink Silk on a regular basis, you HAVE to try this stuff next season when it is available. Don't settle for the pumpkin flavored milk with all the artificial colorings and flavors...get the REAL STUFF!) and sadly the grocery stores don't carry it anymore. They rush Christmas products off their shelf to hastily replace them with Valentine's Day goods, much in the same way I am sure most of the people who have come across this blog are hastily rushing back into their post holiday lives.

So my confession is that I am getting a little burned out. I have to be honest. And to avoid that I have to dig deeper into my reserves to find some good stuff to share, and I hope I meet the challenge. It still is the Holiday Season. We are still in the Twelve Days of Christmas, regardless of what is going up on the shelves at the grocery store or what is coming down, regardless of how we feel.

And for those of you still coming by here, I wanted to dig a little deeper in my collection for something I hope most of you haven't heard. And if you have heard it from the original source, then you are a friend of this site indeed. It is "A Mouse Family Christmas," originally released in 1988 by Terry Scott Taylor (who I talked about briefly in my Gene Eugene post). Terry is a genius in music, and the lack of attention he gets for his work will always be maddening to me, but I digress... (though I will point out that he also had a project from about the same time period called "Fruits of the Spirit" that predates the Veggie Tales considerably. I always thought Veggie Tales owes a GREAT debt to Terry Taylor and it's another example of how somebody came up with a great idea first but somebody else got rich off of it.)

I'd like to share with you the COMPLETE "Mouse Family Christmas."

"A Mouse Family Christmas" was written and produced by Terry, with voices and music by Greg Flesch, Ed McTaggert, Jerry Chamberlain (who are in Daniel Amos with Terry) and also Steve Hindalong (and others, according to the Daniel Amos discography.) This was reissued on CD-R in 2002 and given away free to customers of the Daniel Amos online store at Christmas time if they ordered $50.00 or more worth of merchandise.

Well, guess what I did.

So here is the COMPLETE program.

Part One

Part Two

Thanks for listening and enjoy.



EDIT/DISCLAIMER...I just noticed my New Years Day post posted under the 31st. I am wondering why, but I did start writing the post on New Year's Eve because I was going to be busy New Year's Day, but I didn't publish the post until New Years Day. I suppose it is a glitch in the Blogspot program or I did something wrong....but I don't want people to think I skipped out on yesterday's post!