Off the beaten path stuff and NEWS!

Not quite in time for Easter, but I came across this when listening to my Christmas tracks recently:

The Paincakes-I Believe in Santa

Surprisingly, there aren't very many Easter Christmas songs out there!

I couldn't let a month go without touching base with my dear readers...not in the Twelve Months of Christmas! So this post is just for a few updates in what I've been up to and have planned for the coming year.

First off, after going through about a good 8 gigabytes of Christmas music (which I listened to at work on a flash drive and I listened to it everyday for more than a month!) I have to say that I have a few good compilations coming up soon. I also had to take a BREAK from Christmas music! Well, we all need just a little time away, right? So after getting through all the Christmas music I got in the last year (and then some) I loaded up all the radio shows I recorded on my computer over the last year (not Christmas related, I am afraid) and have been listening to those. It's always interesting to listen to just regular music and you'd be surprised on the odd tidbits you find when you listen to regular music. Take any random band/artist name you can think of and type their name in Google followed by the word "Christmas." You know, that's how I honestly find quite a bit of my off the beaten path stuff?

Here is one of my recent off the beaten path favorite finds for you:

Robyn Hitchcock-Have a Holiday, Baby

That was recorded live on Studio 360 way back in December 2006, so I am sure more than a few of you Christmas music faithful have heard that track before, but it's always new to somebody (and was new to me fairly recently!) and VERY much a welcome addition to my collection. I always liked Robyn Hitchcock's music and I looked on his CDs for proper Christmas music and on compilations and always came up empty handed. But this is the kind of stuff you can find when you search for an artist's/band's name on Google coupled with the word Christmas! Just a tip...

I digress...needless to say that even when I listen to regular ol' music I am thinking, "Hey, I like these guys...I wonder what kind of Christmas music they could make?" Does that make me a fanatic?

In my downtime over the past couple months when NOT listening to Christmas music (I know, hard to imagine, right?) I watched Lost episodes back to back from season one to current. Good times, good times. And those radio programs I mentioned? Well, it so turns out that I contacted the DJs for two local NPR shows that air exclusively in Kansas City and offered music from my own personal collection for their Christmas episodes next year and they are going to play tracks I pick! Certainly not everything I come up with, but it's something! One show in particular plays the same set of Christmas tracks year after year after year...the EXACT SAME! AAAAGGGHHH!!! I had to do something to rectify that. So in addition to creating comps for this blog, I will also be creating custom made compilations for my DJ friends and perhaps will share some of the chosen tracks here as well. Some really, really interesting stuff...

And in other personal Christmas music related news, I have a NEW BONUS DISC in the works for a Christmas 2009 release that will be sold as a bonus disc with the Wayside Waifs CD. Now, I realize that a good number of you already purchased the CD and bonus disc last year, so I will offer the bonus disc to you at a good price. Just know that I hate double dipping myself and would never ask you to double dip to get a few new Christmas songs (though if you want to buy a copy of the Wayside Waifs CD to give as a Christmas present when purchasing your bonus disc, that would be cool too!!!)

The new BONUS DISC will be ALL NEW songs, not just outtakes from the first disc, like the first bonus disc. It will be in a simple cardboard jacket with my designed cover art as well, and more than likely a CD-R burned on my personal computer to keep costs down. The bonus disc will be a VOLUME 2 to the Wayside Waifs CD. However, it won't be sold separately UNLESS you purchased the CD and bonus disc last year. It's going to be an EP and I am not planing to make Vol. 2 a full length CD. I already have four tracks for the disc, and will soon have six once Ken Clinger turns in his contributions and quite possibly eight tracks if a contributor from last year decides to do the two songs I asked them to do (and it's looking like they WILL!) All I can say is I am VERY excited about Volume 2 of the Wayside Waifs Charity CD and I will always keep you posted as I know more.

And if you know any artists or bands who would like to contribute a song, send them my way! While the new disc is going to be an EP, if it turns out to be an 80 minute EP chock full of songs, then SO BE IT!

Til next, thank you for reading and listening. I will be back soon...