Twelve Months of Christmas

Message to my readers

2010-12-14T19:42:00.002-06:00

OK, it's nearly the middle of the Christmas season now and no doubt many of you came here hoping to find new tunes.

After much consideration I decided to stop posting songs on here. I loved doing it in the past and will very likely continue to post Christmas music in the future. I'd like to post annual compilations but am not sure if they will be on here or perhaps at another Christmas related website. I am sorry to say I don't think I will have time to put together a compilation this year.

As many of you probably read on here previously, there was a computer crash that caused me to lose a lot. And then working two jobs and some other personal stuff that came up this past year really made it difficult for me to regain footing (including moving, which wasn't a far move for me but still...uprooting everything and planting down in another place takes a lot.) Shoot, I still don't even have a new computer yet! I am still working with the faulty one that crashed (and has crashed so many times on me since! I plan on getting a new computer before too much longer, but that's just one thing I refuse to buy on credit, so it's pretty much using the computer for the bare basics right now.)

As a result I allowed my Box.com account (which hosted my MP3 files) to close. It was just an expense I didn't need since I wasn't posting new music on here. So when I get ready to post music again or share it elsewhere I will have to find a new MP3 hosting site.

There has been ONE order for the Wayside Waifs CD that came in and I apologize to the person who ordered it for not seeing the order sooner. I promise I received your order and it is on it's way.

So for the time being anyway, this blog is going to remain inactive. I have my sights on new Christmas music all the time and this year is no exception. I haven't had the time to sit down and look for all the fun freebies that are out there this year, but hope to soon before they are all gone after Christmas. I appreciate SO MUCH all of you reading my blog in the past. I am not going anywhere...I am not giving up on Christmas music, or even the Wayside Waifs CD. So if anybody else out there wants to order it please do so. I haven't raised as much as I'd hope, but there's a fair amount in a Pay Pal account yet and I'd like to add more to that before getting a cashiers check to the shelter! I hope to see you here again in the future!

The "Tone King!"

That was the worst Christmas EVER!

2009-12-28T20:13:00.003-06:00

That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

Worst Christmas EVER. Those are three words I don't commonly use, nor lightly. And I am sure people have had far worse Christmases. Nobody died, nothing burned down, I am still alive and well. But three things made this past Christmas the worst Christmas ever to me:

1 The weather. This year the winter storm that hit the Midwest really ruined any plans I had to do what I wanted to do. The best I can say is I survived the storm in one piece, with my car still up and running, but that’s about the only best I can say. I could go into a lengthy diatribe into what went wrong for my Christmas this year but I am sure many of you have your own tale to tell and nobody came here to hear that so I will leave all that alone. (In short, it dealt with going to work on both Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day and having to go out in that horrible weather and dealing just about all day with that. I know, I know, things could always be worse. And they could always be better!) Best to just get past this and get ready for next year!

2 This year I just couldn’t get the time to find and buy and download the Christmas music I usually do. I was sick (I already told you all about that) then this weather system hit and so much more... I had no time to search for music on sites like My Space. I found a few songs, but not like I did in past years. And you have no idea how hard that is on a collector…it makes me wonder what music I missed out on! Not to mention the lack of time to check out other Christmas music sites to see what the offered this year and other things. This Christmas was not a good Christmas overall for me.

3 The apparent death of the physical CD. It's one thing that my Christmas was taken from me due to circumstances beyond my control, but the lack of great CD compilations this year really was disheartening.

I knew last year that they said there would be fewer Christmas compilation releases this year and they kept that promise, much to my chagrin. More and more Christmas music I find to buy is available in digital downloads only. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (oh, wait…there is…read on.)

I am just as modern as the next guy…I enjoy MP3s for their portability and apparent universal ease of use. However, there’s something about that physical CD, even if the first thing I do when I get it is rip the songs to MP3. There’s something to be said for having a product to hold…it gives me the sense of accomplishment that my hard earned money went to get me something and I have something to show for it. It’s far more impressive to show people the CDs I have in my collection than to open a digital folder and show them the files I have and tell them, “I downloaded these.” Oh, sure...I could burn those MP3s I paid for to a CD-R. Yeah, CD-Rs don't quite cut it either.

You tell people you downloaded all your music and it cheapens the product you paid good money to get. I don’t know if it’s just the assumption that downloaded=stole...uh, I mean "received" music for free in the minds of many or what but I never get the same response in telling somebody I have digital files that I get when I show them the cool and rare CDs I have. Even the average person knows there's just something about the physical CD that a digital download can NEVER replace.

Not to mention I can often tell stories how I came across the rare and hard to find CDs and what it took to acquire them into my collection but digital downloads? “Oh, I found this at a website and bought it.” Oh, that’s interesting. There are some CDs I own that once I pick the case up and see the cover art I have instant memories of how I came across the CD. Sometimes it’s not just as simple of driving to Best Buy and buying it. Sometimes there’s more involved and I have to say my memory gets fuzzy with the digital downloads. Where did I find that MP3? Shoot if I can remember. Online somewhere, who cares? Cheapened product...

It goes beyond that for me. Having suffered a hard drive crash twice in the past year there is something to be said for having the physical copy. It’s like insurance that you have a back up of those songs. If I lose MP3s I ripped from CDs I own, I rip the MP3s again and get on with my life. If I lose MP3s of digital albums I paid for online, for the most part I am screwed.

In the past decade we saw the apparent death of the CD, and predictors of trends to come predict that it will just get worse in the next decade. I am optimistic. OK, maybe CDs will die but I don’t think it’s just going to be hard drives and Ipods either. I believe that MP3s are like the 45s of the 50’s. Just as 45 records gave birth to high fidelity vinyl records and improved sound quality that, to this day, remains unravialed with digital media (which is why we are seeing a renewed interest in vinyl) I think the sound quality of MP3s will no longer be acceptable in the next decade and will perhaps give birth to a new way to listen to music and still enjoy conveience and portability.

MP3s compress the sound and if you have a high enough quality MP3 you don’t really notice the loss in quality, but if you get a chance to hear uncompressed music you notice the improved quality. With Blu-Rays replacing DVDs we have discs with uncompressed sound replacing discs with compressed MP3s. Would I notice the lack of sound quality on a DVD by itself? No…DVD sounds great and served its purpose of superior home entertainment for more than a decade for a reason. Until you put the Blu-Ray in the player and hear the difference then suddenly it’s crystal clear which is superior.

A part of me hopes for the death of MP3s in the next decade. While they will still have a place and won’t go away, with improved storage capabilities in our digital media we can have room for uncompressed music files. And with the renewed interest in vinyl and people hearing uncompressed sound on Blu-Ray disc I think it's only a matter of time before people realize these digital albums they are downloading sound like crap and they are NOT getting their money's worth. And perhaps…just perhaps…a new format will come around that will showcase this “new” uncompressed digital sound for music like Blu-Ray did for movies and we will enjoy a resurgence in physical copies and in enjoying uncompressed music.

At least I can always hope.

For now, digital albums do not give me the opportunity to listen to that music uncompressed and there is a greater chance if I lose the files I lost the music for good. Even backing it up can be unreliable. I know somebody who had all their MP3s backed up on an external hard drive, they were moving, they dropped the external drive in the process, the drive broke and all that music was lost for good. Like I said previously, with my CDs even if my backed up MP3s get corrupted or lost, I still have the original discs. It makes me reluctant to throw my hard earned money at these so-called Christmas albums available only for download because I am not getting the full audio experience I would from a physical copy. Even if I choose to rip the songs from that physical copy to MP3 at least I can still enjoy the full audio fidelity of those songs when I want to.

(Is it ironic that I would be commenting on the lack of sound quality in MP3s on a MP3 blog? Perhaps so…but my hope is that my MP3s inspire you to go out and purchase the music featured here and listen to it uncompressed!)

I am honored and humbled to see some new numbers on my followers list. I promise to be back soon with more Christmas music. I know I said that before, but this time I mean it. Now I got all this out of my system, it's time to get back to the music.

And I hope what I have to say about digital downloads hits home with some of you. I know there are people who read this blog who prefer the physical copy of music. And for those of you who don't...well, I hope I gave you some food for thought.

Wayside Waifs CD and NEW Bonus CD

2009-12-17T21:00:00.006-06:00

The CD is still available. There have been a few orders (and thank you so much for those of you patient with the delay in getting the orders out while I fought my sickness!) but there are still copies left. This edition is LIMITED TO 500 copies! The suggested donation for this item is ONLY $10.00. That would be cheap at twice the price!

For those looking for the file to download... To keep an E-Junkie account for free to use for charity purposes, I am unable to host the download file on their site. Sorry, I tried everything I could think of.

Also, this year there is a NEW bonus EP available to those of you who wish to donate an extra $5.00. When you order the CD you can change the donation amount to include for the EP.

This is an 8 song EP featuring new tracks -some by artists who were unable to get me their tracks by the time the CD went into production last year and some songs recorded for this collection- with bonus/hidden tracks as well.

The new songs include:
Jim Abel-Let Christmas Start Here
Ken Clinger-Ho, Ho, Ho and A Ride on Santa's Sleigh
Franky Four Eyes-Just Like Christmas
Shufflin' Noah-Comin' Home For Christmas
No Fun-No Fun at Christmas
Mexican Kids at Home-Wholesale Xmas Bore is Over
We Know, Plato!-A Christmas Sort of Dream

This EP is limited to 100 numbered copies.

And, because I do NOT like double dipping, for those of you who ordered the bonus CD last year you can order this bonus CD by itself. Otherwise, this bonus CD is only available with the purchase of the full length CD for $10.00 plus an additional donation of $5.00.

If you want to order just the EP (and you ordered the CD last year with the bonus disc) you can either just Pay Pal the money to me at my email address or click to buy the CD and change the donation amount to the price of the EP and put a note you are just ordering the Ep.

Update and a New Compilation

2009-12-16T20:13:00.004-06:00

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated (wait...there were rumors of what??)

On December 5th I attended the Christmas Open House at Wayside Waifs and on December 6th I developed a bit of a runny nose and a small cough that I chalked up to an allergy reaction of some sort. On the 7th I woke up with a full blown cold/flu/whatever it is that made me the sickest I've been in...oh...at least the past 15-16 years. No joke. So that's why you haven't seen much of me or heard much from me. And for that I truly apologize. I am still recovering but at least I feel a bit better every day. This is some kind of insidious cold that refuses to improve with rest and liquids and medication. It's a tenacious sort that gets a hold of your body and forces you to suffer until it's done ravaging you. Suffice to say, it's not just this blog that has suffered. I missed time from work and, shoot, I haven't even been able to buy any Christmas music this year, let alone down load any new tracks. Shoot.

But I would like to share with you a collection of some of my favorite songs that I've compiled over the past year. I intended to post more than this, of course, but this is really the first time I could make it on here in a while. I tried Monday (I really did!) and I could barely stay awake I was so sick.

01-August Darnell-Christmas on Riverside Drive

A nice upbeat tune to start things off! This is from the ZE Christmas Record.

02-Triffids-Save What You Can

From the album Calenture. The Triffids were always a favorite of mine, and this was the first album I heard from them. And, while not exactly the most overtly Christmas song of the bunch (though it does mention Christmas cheer!), it does lead quite well into the next track...

03-Prefab Sprout-Earth, the Story So Far

Prefab Sprout rose to fame around the same time as the Triffids did. This track comes from their 2009 release, "Let's Change the World."

04-Super Fuffy Animals-Gift that Keeps Giving

From Hey Venus!

05-Adam and Darcie-With Wondering Awe

Found online last year at the Village Ten Collective.

06-April March-Last Train to Christmas

I liked the sound of track 5 and it seemed to compliment well the sound of this track. April March's music is often a bit of a challenge to find at reasonable prices, but always worth it if you do your digging at the right time. This comes from April March and Los Cincos.

07-Milagro Saints & The Sounds of Creation Choir & Band - Child of Peace

And this comes from the first Have a Holly Raleigh Christmas compilation.

08-Breanne Düren-Heart in My Hands

From My Space...still going in the same style of music, for the most part. Found online last year.

09-Betty & The Cavaleros-Hey I'm Your Gift Today

Also found online last year, a free gift to web surfers at www.cafesuperstar.com

10-The Birthday Girl Vs AFH-Hey Santa

Another online find...this time the Filthy Little Angels Christmas compilation.

11-The Cartridge Family - Frosty The Freemason

Online as well...

12-Glam Chops-Countdown To Christmas

And yet another My Space track I found last year.

13-Billy Ruffian-It's A Long Lonely Christmas Without Jimmy Greenhoff

From A Very Cherry Christmas 3

14-Departure Lounge - Christmas Downer

This comes from It's a Cool, Cool Christmas.

15-Camden Flatwood-Christmas Has A Way

From A Very Balthrop Christmas, an online compilation available last year.

16-Richard Thompson-Mary and Joseph

A little something different...another not so exactly a traditional Christmas song. From Henry the Human Fly.

17-The Leopards-Dancing In The Snow

From a Christmas 45 record.

18-The Walkabouts-Christmas Valley

Another favorite off the beaten path track I found... From Devil's Road.

19-Trapper Zukie-Archie, The Rednosed Reindeer

From Man Ah Warrior. You can never go wrong with music like this!

20-Ting Tings-Shut Up & Let It Snow

One day I hope to hear a full studio recording of this song...but for now we have the radio recording to tide us over.

More to come soon... Including LONG over due news about a NEW bonus CD for the Wayside Waifs compilation. News I wanted to get out earlier...but you know...all what I said earlier and all. The sickness was really horrible timing.

It's Christmas time again...you BETTER be GOOD!

2009-10-31T14:51:00.003-05:00

If there is one thing that is more frightening than Halloween it has to be Christmas. Strangers all around dressed in Santa costumes wanting to talk to your children and have them sit on their laps...any other time of the year the thought of this kind of thing going on would be the cause for Amber Alerts and stranger danger reports. Not to mention Santa knowing all your movements...he knows if your kids have been good or naughty. I think they put people like that on trial and put them behind bars. Or make them live in tents outside the city, at the very least.

So on this day of costumed people prowling the streets and stories of stranger danger on the news and Amber Alerts and all that festive stuff that comes with this time of year, I present to you yet another selection of Christmas tunes that seem to be perfect for the Halloween season.

Sorry, no podcast this year!

Robin Gibb-Come Some Christmas Eve or Halloween

OOOOOHHHHH, that was a SPOOOOOOOOOKY one, little boys and girls! I will give you a few minutes if you need to go change your pants before opening the next file! SCARY STUFF!

Coffin Caddies-Halloween on Xmas

Granted, this is about Halloween on December 25, not the other way around. But this is certainly a good, fun tune. From last year's new release Psychobilly Christmas.

Harley Poe-It's Christmas Time Again

The spookiest time of year for little boys and girls! A little bit of Tim Burton feeling here, to me anyway. This nice ditty comes from A Very Standard Christmas.

Hot Buttered Elves-Better Be Good

Keeping with the theme. From A Very Lo-Fi Christmas.

Wendyhouse-The Evil Santa Klaus

Now this is what I'm talking about. From a CD I imported from New Zealand. Available at smokecds.com.

James White-Christmas With Satan

Decent enough, but somehow I don't think the music really fits the concept of the song. This comes from the ZE Christmas Record.

Regina Hexaphone-Christmas Moon

Starting off about as scary as we started. OK, so these aren't exactly the sounds you are used to hearing around Halloween time. But this song about celebrating Christmas under the moon with vampires is really quite a unique song, and what better time of year to share it than now? This comes from Have a Holly Raleigh Christmas Vol. 3.

And if you haven't heard it already, be sure to check out last year's podcast. Fun stuff.

Cyprus Avenue Christmas II

2009-10-27T22:46:00.011-05:00

No, folks, I have not given up on this blog. I sincerely apologize for not living up to this blog's name this year. You'd think at least one post a month would be easy enough. For various reasons that I won't bore you with, I just wasn't able to. My second job has taken up so much more time this year than it did last year. Which is a good thing...extra money is always good. It seems in today's economy you either are out of work or you are working more for the same or less pay. Yeah, it's been a while since a raise for me, but at least I am still working and able to work more hours. But, as a result, this blog has suffered. "I will post next week," I'd say. Next week suddenly bleeds over into next month and the month after that and I sit there looking at the calendar dismayed at where the time goes.

Where does the time go? Well, not in reading excuses of a blogger, that's for sure. You didn't come here for that. I will attempt to post more here...I am coming into some down time now as hours are cut at my second job but I suspect once the holidays kick in I will be working more. It should make things a bit hard keeping up on here, but I will do my best.

So onward and upward with the music. Now that's what you came here for.

Last year I mentioned I had contacted some local DJs about playing Christmas music on their programs. Two of the DJs agreed to let me submit music to them and are open to new stuff. One of those DJs is Bill Shapiro of KCUR. He hosts a weekly radio program called Cyprus Avenue and the show started out as an intelligent look at rock and roll music, but he plays a wide variety of music. Mainly older stuff, but sometimes some new stuff sneaks it's way in there.

As a Christmas music fan, I highly anticipated his annual Christmas show. The first year I heard it it was OK. Nothing too out of the ordinary...nothing too far off the beaten path. And his show certainly digs up some great songs that are off the beaten path on a regular basis. So next year I tuned in...and it was the exact same play list. I looked at the archives of his play lists online and, sure enough, he's been repeating the same Christmas show for quite a while now.

Needless to say, I had to rectify that. KCUR is a public radio station, so perhaps not a lot of money is flying around to buy music to play one day out of the year. I understand. So I decided to intervene and offer my services and choices from my personal collection. I made a custom CD (complete with jewel case and full color cover) for him and another CD of off the beaten path Christmas songs that he may or may not play and sent them to him. He emailed me back and was very grateful to receive the music. He said the producers of his show were wanting him to do a full two hour special this year. So I thought I would send him a second collection. First, the cover art:

I tried to select songs that would fit in his format. The first collection I sent him mainly focused on artists I knew he liked and would be likely to play. For this collection, I decided to be a bit more adventurous and offer him songs by artists he never played before but would fit in well with his format.

01_Harley Fine-Same Old Christmas Song

This first song I chose because of the message and I felt it really spoke of what is to come on this collection: These are NOT the same old Christmas songs! I don't know if he'd play this song...it's a bit off from the style of music he normally plays, if that's possible to say on a show where I've heard everything from the Pogues to Tom Waits to African music and everything else in between. But like I said...it sets the theme of the collection.

02_The Fireman-Dance 'Til We're High

This song was a real nice surprise for me. I discovered this album earlier in the year and did a double take when this song came up on my MP3 player. They may not use the word Christmas, but this is a Christmas song if I ever heard it. The Fireman, if you don't know, is perhaps the best band Paul McCartney has been involved with since Wings (and since 1993.) Arguably a MUCH better song than "Wonderful Christmastime." I am sure there will be those who disagree with me (what? Really???) but I am so glad we got a new Christmas song out of Paul after all this time, and a great song at that.

03_The Spirit of Christmas-Christmas Is My Time of Year
04_The Spirit of Christmas-Will You Still Believe in Me

True 1960's Christmas rock/pop classics that rarely get heard, let alone on the radio. I really hope that Mr. Shapiro chooses to play one or both of these songs. I know I shared them on this blog before, but they are always worth bringing out again.

05_The Neighborhood Kids-The Christmas Party of the Eight Reindeer

This is from a Christmas 45 that I got early in the year and one of the first songs I put in my 2009 folder. I never heard of the band before and really don't know much about them (and Google doesn't dig up too much) but the sound of the song really reminded me of the Spirit of Christmas tracks in a way. And it's a nice, fun obscure song that needed to be heard again by more people. It may be a bit kiddified for Cyprus Avenue, but you never know what kind of mood Mr. Shapiro will be in when he's trying to fill those two hours.

06_Sugar Minott - Christmas Jamboree

Bill likes to play reggae and Jamaican music and I wish I had more to share with him. I do have a handful of songs, but this was the best among the bunch in my book. (I am still trying to locate my Trojan box set of Reggae Christmas music I bought a few years back. You know I haven't been able to find that for a couple years now? I wonder where it could be!)

07_The Cadillacs-Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
08_Brook Benton-You're All I Want For Christmas
09_The Miracles-Christmas Everyday
10_Ella Fitzgerald-Frosty the Snowman
11_Carla Thomas-Gee Whiz, It's Christmas
12_Charles Brown-Christmas in Heaven
13_Bunny & Skully-White Christmas

I don't have much to say about the songs individually...I basically chose this group of songs for the collection because it struck me that this was the period of music Bill likes to play the most. I tried to pick a select few songs from that time period that don't seem to make it on the radio much these days, if at all. A few familiar ones were also tossed in, not just arbitrarily, however, but because I really felt the versions of these standards were actually quite good compared to the familiar versions we often hear at this time of year.

14_Binky Griptite-World of Love

When I was contemplating songs for this collection, I made a list at my day job and saved the email as a draft. Some of the songs in that list made the cut, some did not. Some were just a bit too obscure and there was some great new stuff that I really wanted to include on this collection. But there was one song that was just singular to me in it's sheer beauty and had such an impact on me when I heard it and it was this one. So much horrible stuff is going on in the world today...both in our own areas that never make the news and such horrific stuff on the news these days...stories like a little girl being found dead in a city landfill. Abuse of children and animals, people killing their own children... sometimes it's overwhelming. When I heard this song, my mind was already occupied with a couple horrible things that happened recently and I just wish more people would experience that world of love on more than just one day. It never really seems to last all year around and the children get let down. But I still hope for the world of love.

15_Meditation Singers-Spirit of Christmas

This was also on my short list of songs to include on this compilation but it almost was not included then I came across "World of Love." This seemed like a good follow up to the previous song and now this song had a place on the compilation. These two songs also fit into the time period of the block of songs that already came before.

16_Simon & Garfunkel-7 O'Clock News, Silent Night

Speaking of bad news...There's something just very stark and gripping about the reading of the news stories in this song. I was trying to come up with a cover version of this to do with Ken Clinger but it's hard to find news clips these days that doesn't have loud music and sounds played during it.

17_Sam Baker-Angel Hair

I mentioned a few obscure songs that didn't make the cut in lieu of some new music. This is one of the new songs that I just discovered last week that really struck me and left an impression. I know Sam Baker is an artist that Bill Shapiro has played before, so I hope he plays this one as well. This is a beautiful song that shows that Christmas music just doesn't have to be about Santa, reindeer or Jesus.

18_Felice Brothers-Murder By Mistletoe

I shouldn't have included this one, I really shouldn't have. I actually included it on the first compilation I sent Bill and I know I shared it before with you all. But, at the end of the day, this is one of my favorite off the beaten path Christmas songs I have found. I have listened to this one so many times since I first came across it and often listen to it two or three times in a row...the imagery in this song is just so well brought out and so beautiful to me. And Bill needs to just play more of the Felice Brothers!

19_Jim Croce-It Doesn't Have to Be That Way

Not a new song, but new to me. I suspect this song got some air play back in the day, but for some reason it's been cast off to the side. Here is hoping it gets played again.

20_Elvis-Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees

Elvis (and Paul McCartney, for that matter) isn't exactly an artist that needs exposure. But this isn't exactly one of his most played Christmas songs and this is up there to me with some of his more beautiful recordings, such as "In the Ghetto." It's not just a good Christmas song, it's a good song!

21_Bill Mallonee-Every Father Knows

Speaking of somebody who writes good songs (and somebody whom Bill should play more of on his show!) is this guy. Some of you may recall that I shared the Vigilantes of Love song "My Heart's Electric (On To Bethlehem)" early on in the beginning days of this blog. Bill has released a Christmas album on line and this is perhaps my most favorite Christmas song he recoded since "My Heart's Electric (On To Bethlehem)."

22_Bigton Gulch Town Orchestra-Santa's Coming

A little off the beaten path, a little bit more strange than most Christmas songs, but considering the strange stuff I have heard on the Cyprus Avenue radio program before, this seems to be ripe for playing!

23_C.W. Stoneking-On A Christmas Day

Another personal all time favorite and I never tire of hearing this song. I believe I shared this song on here before, but not positive. The sound C.W. brings recalls the early days of American music. It sounds like something straight out of the Depression era recordings, but it's neither from the Depression era or America. C.W. Stoneking is from Australia and was born in 1974. This is a new song, folks. C.W. certainly offers something to music today that nobody else is really offering, and that makes him a must play in my book.

24_The Neighborhood Kids-Christmas is for Everyone

The B-Side of the track I previously shared on track five. I thought it was a good way to close the collection out.

In closing, I just wanted to say that it wasn't just this blog that I neglected of late. I haven't checked my email in a long time either, and when I went to check it recently I see I have a back log of unread emails. I apologize to each and every one of you who emailed me and expected a reply. Needless to say, your email has been read or will be read and you will get a reply. There are quite a few requests out there for me to bring back some old stuff that I deleted. I very well may post a "back by popular request" posting in the near future.

Fingers crossed, I will be back with my Halloween post. No podcast this year (sorry...I really didn't have time for that!) but I have a handful of some interesting songs to share.

One last thing, I mentioned in one of my last posts before the long delay that my computer crashed. I am actually still trying to recover from that. Thankfully, I had just sent my mom a flash drive full of a lot of my Christmas music (16 GB worth!) and I had a lot of it backed up on an external drive, but there's still work to be done to recover some of the lost tracks. One thing I lost that I REALLY would appreciate somebody out there in helping me recover are the Andy Cirzan annual compilations. I believe I had them going back for the past decade or so. Losing tracks I recorded from LPs and 45s is one thing...when time allows I can make MP3s of those songs again. But I hated losing the Cirzan tracks. Let me know if you can help a brother out!

Thank you SO much for reading and listening.

Senator Bobby

2009-08-28T19:51:00.003-05:00

Given the recent news, I felt it was a good time to revisit this classic record. I see that my previous post of this record has been searched recently, and for good cause. I took down the files of the record a while back but it feels right to repost them.

Rest in peace, Senator Ted Kennedy.

And, for those of you checking for updates...to you I profusely apologize. I still don't feel I am 100% after my computer crash, and there are files I lost that I fear I may have lost for good. Then, with work and other cares of life, it seemed it just kept on getting later and later in the summer. I do have some good stuff in store...keep checking back soon...and I promise you this blog won't end up like many other blogs you may find online that just sit idle for months upon months, years upon years and don't get updated anymore. More updates to come...stay "tuned." And I promise to not focus on what I lost but I will focus on the great stuff I still have!

(Though if anybody can supply me with the MP3 files of Andy Cirzan's compilations, I would be indebted. I lost them all, I'm afraid...not a single one backed up!)

Things just went from suck to blow

2009-07-29T19:39:00.002-05:00

Well, folks, that promised compilation of great music is going to have to wait just a little while longer. When I got home, my computer had crashed and after trying everything I could I had to restore the system. Bad news, I lost everything I hadn't backed up (and I haven't backed anything up for several months, including just about all my new Christmas music, among other things, of course) but the good news is when I went to visit my mom a couple weeks ago, I put two years worth of my Christmas MP3s on a flash drive for her, and she's now in possession of my backed up Christmas music files. So while I don't have the files on hand to share with you now, I did ask her to mail me the flash drive so I can pull the files I need off of it.

So just a bit more patience... Now that precious free time I have is going to be spent reinstalling old programs and the sort. It's not going to be fun.

You may have noticed...

2009-07-27T21:13:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed a couple things around here. One is I haven't been around too much. Shoot, last month I didn't even post at all, and I feel terrible about that! I felt I owed an explanation to those of you checking this blog for updates.

The main reason is lack of time. This year, compared to last year, my free time is really diminished due to an increase of hours to work at my part time job. Which I guess is good and bad. It's good because more hours means more money, means more I can save to do things I want/need to do in the future. It's bad because in a way it's a sign of the bad economy (people having to work more to prove themselves at jobs just to hang on to jobs they aren't getting raises at because of the bad economy) and it's bad because it really sucks up a lot of my free time. A LOT.

The other thing you may have noticed is a HUGE chunk of MP3 files just suddenly vanished from the site. OK, maybe you haven't noticed it yet, but if you are new here and trying to go back in the archives to find good old MP3s to download, I will save you the time...I deleted everything from 2007 and 2008. I three requests to remove Mp3s in the last month, and all of them were older files that I should have deleted long ago. I left them up because I wanted to be the friendly blogger and offer MP3s longer than any site out there. Well, I don't want to get in trouble either and rub anybody the wrong way. The worst case scenario is my file hosting site gets tired of the requests to remove MP3s and terminates my account so I have no where to post my files, and that is not something I want to see happen. So the life span of MP3s on this site is going to be shorter, much shorter, than they ever were before. I haven't decided exactly how long to leave them up. Perhaps six months would be fair?

As for more Christmas music to share, I have a ton, folks. Just hang tight. I think I will have time this week (later in the week, not today or tomorrow) to post my second annual Christmas in July compilation. Shoot, I gotta post it in July while I still can.

I just wanted to post a brief "whassup" to let you all know how things were going, and that I haven't forgotten about this place. I am not letting it go, and have more in plan for it than time allows me to do, but rest assured, I have more in plan for it. So stay tuned!

Christmas Coolville

2009-05-31T19:48:00.002-05:00

Neato Coolville is a blog I recently discovered and in addition to all the COOL stuff Mayor Todd brings his readers, he has PLENTY of Christmas Coolville goodies for us all to enjoy!

Stick around his site after checking out the Christmas goodness...there is a lot of stuff there to enjoy!

Santa's Land

2009-05-31T19:10:00.006-05:00

I know it's late in the month, so I want to give those of you who have been checking this blog for a new post this month something special. Call it a mid-seasonal Christmas gift!

One of my personal favorite finds this past Christmas was this rare record from Santa's Land in Cherokee, North Carolina. I am not sure the exact year this record was produced (what was it about a lot of vinyl not having any dates printed anywhere on the jacket or record label?) but from the look of the kids and the sound of the music, I'd place it circa early to mid 1970's.

And, OH, what a sound it is! Simple songs, yet timeless and captivating in a way as well. From the enjoyable title track (the little girl asks some provoking questions but the woman answering doesn't really answer the questions...) to the final strains of the last track, this is the best 20 minutes I've spent devoted listening to any Christmas record in my days. Some songs come close to the best classics of the genre but never reached the status of the more familiar standards. "How Santa Claus Got His Name," for example, reminds me a lot of the classic "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S." Some of it is silly (the grown men speeding up their voices to sound like elves, for example!) to the sad and melancholy ("Dear Santa") but all of it is memorable and worthy of repeat listenings in my book. Add all that to the slightly awkward picture on the cover of the kids unsure of this old man they are being exposed to and the strange looking elf in the upper corner...

...What is up with that anyway? I don't want to say what I think in fear of little tykes reading this!

This was well worth the money it took to procure this into my collection! Everything about it adds so much to my enjoyment! The seller only asked that I share the treasure with others, so here you go. Enjoy!

Santa's Land01-What If?
Santa's Land02-Santa's Christmas Party
Santa's Land03-How Santa Claus Got His Name
Santa's Land04-Santa's Christmas Land
Santa's Land05-Christmas Dreaming
Santa's Land06-Hiding Behind the Christmas Tree
Santa's Land07-Dear Santa
Santa's Land08-Santa Claus' Band
Santa's Land09-Ho! Ho! Ho!
Santa's Land10-Old Time Christmas

Thank you for reading and listening!

Green Day

2009-04-22T21:22:00.002-05:00

With today being Earth Day, I decided to dig into my collection to pull out some Earth friendly Christmas songs to share with you, showing that not only can you celebrate Christmas all year long, but you can celebrate Earth Day all year long as well!

First up is Rev. Green (and friends) from a recent 45 record I picked up this past Christmas season. I thought this was the perfect song to kick off today's celebration of Earth Day...

Rev. Green ft. Anthony and Kria Brekkan-Be Good to the Earth This Season

Peter Alsop is an artist I discovered from my work on the Wayside Waifs Charity CD because he was on Ken Clinger's My Space page as one of his many friends. While I did discover Peter's work too late to ask him to contribute to the CD, I did find it in time to pick up his kid friendly but oh so fun Christmas CD in time for this past Christmas. There's a few good tracks on there celebrating our time on this fragile planet. First up...

Peter Alsop- G-Gee, It's Warm Out Here

Well, if it's so warm out, where is the snow? This is from a free download from Zang Productions. It looks like it's still available so scurry over there to get the other tracks they offer!

Joel Barrowclough the Custodian & Greybeard-Where Is All the Snow?

Time for another Peter Alsop song, my favorite Earth friendly song he has to offer on his Christmas CD...a real nice message here.

Peter Alsop-Earthsong

To close, here is a track that I found on the artists' My Space page during the 2007 Christmas season, and I understand it's currently available on her website (unconfirmed...I did not double check...I just saw that on her Wiki page.)

Nellie McKay-Christmas Dirge

Thank you for listening and reading!

Off the beaten path stuff and NEWS!

2009-04-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

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...

Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

2009-03-31T20:20:00.005-05:00

This may become a periodic feature on this blog: Songs with lyrics that are simply strange and/or misheard. I can’t promise that I will post many of these, as I tend to only notice these things upon repeat listenings of songs, and I simply haven’t had time to listen to all that I have several times over to really examine them that hard.

But one particular track has come to play for my ear drums more than a few times and I finally noticed it today…this songs contains a VERY strange line.

The Cricketone Chorus-The Snowflake Song

Now, you have to listen to it before proceeding...

The lyrics seem innocent enough:

Timble Tumble Little Snowflake High Up In The Sky
Drifting Dancing Slowly
Earthward Like A Cotton Butterfly

Whirling Swhirling Pretty Snowflake Landing In My Hand
How You Change The Whole World
In To Nature's Winter Wonderland

Every Snowflake Has A Shape That's All It's Own
There Are Never Two The Same
White As Day Up To The Sun A Silver Throne.

The lyrics seem innocent enough so far, but what is the next line???

The snow flakes put the Jews to shame????

Then something about Helter Skelter. Which could mean that the snow flakes are falling in hurried confusion or perhaps there is something more sinister at work here since the Jews were "displaced" in Germany and spent time in what are also known as "Helter Skelter" camps. Helter Skelter PURE WHITE SNOW FLAKE? What is this about a pure race of white snow flakes???

Trust me, I've listened to this SEVERAL TIMES, desperately trying to find another meaning in the lyrics. I had to have misheard them! So I did a trusty Google search...obviously, I am wrong, and the lyrics posted online will be RIGHT!

Allthelyrics.com has a different interpretation of that line… “the snow flakes put THEIR JUICE to shame” instead….but what the hell does that mean? Snow flakes put their juice to shame? WHAT? What juice? They hate their orange juice so they put it to shame? IT MAKES NO DAMNED SENSE! And listen to it closely…listen to it a dozen times over like I have…there is no way that they are singing “THEIR.” They sing “THE.” So either it’s they put THE JUICE to shame or THE JEWS to shame.

Or, I hope to GOD, something else nobody else has picked up on so far!

"Their juice" makes absolutely no sense to me, and I doubt it does to the person who submitted it to allthelyrics.com. Not that putting Jews to shame with a Helter Skelter makes any more sense in a Christmas song, but geez, at least I can wrap my head around that.

While on the topic of misheard lyrics, let’s take “Oh Holy Night.”

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

ERROR??? I believe it’s “e’re,” shortened version of EVER for poetic purposes that has not really been in our vocabulary for several years now, but was a common word when this song was written. ERROR pining? Who the hell thought that should be the word used in the online lyrics?

I really have nothing to back me up on that…it’s not like I went to the library to get a book with old carols with original lyrics. It’s not that deep to me, folks. I am just saying which makes more sense to you… “ERROR pining” or “E’RE pining?” EVER pining is something I can wrap my head around.

I wonder about these lyrics posted online sometimes, I really do!

I also apologize for not posting more this past month. I had to get this in today so I could remain true to the Twelve Months of Christmas! Would you believe I FINALLY got caught up on all the Christmas music I got last year and then some, though? So I have some pretty long lists of compilations I want to post on this site over the course of the next several months, so be sure to check back for more Christmas goodness.

I also have some other goodies in mind for future posts, and promise to post more often in the future!

Say You're Mine

2009-02-17T20:02:00.005-06:00

First off, an apology for this late post: Obviously I meant to get this up in time for Valentine's Day...actually I intended to post this ON Valentine's Day. I may have mentioned before how I listen to Christmas music while working and I will make notes of play list/compilation ideas as I go along through my day and the songs (and I've been going through an 8 GB flash drive FULL of Christmas music over the last month!) and I store the lists in my "drafts" folder in Outlook Express at work.

I can also access my work email from home, and get a hold of my lists when I need them. Only this past week was a double whammy for me...late Thursday into Friday night I had to deal with a virus/spyware on my computer which prevented me from getting ANY work done. Then when I got back up and running, it was too late...the IT department where I work had closed for the long holiday weekend and I couldn't access my email folders from home.

So I had to decide if I should hastily put together a quick list of songs to post by searching for "love" in the titles (or something equally prosaic) or should I just wait until Tuesday and get the list I wanted to post? I opted to wait and make a late post, because I had songs on my play list that I couldn't think of off the top of my head.

And I am glad I did wait.

So, without further adieu, here are the the Christmas Valentine's Day songs! Some are rather sad and plaintive...I guess people are longing for love at Christmas time! But I tried my best to find some of the more off the beaten path Christmas love songs for this post.

Santagold: The My Space Collection Vol. 2

2009-01-01T13:00:00.006-06:00

You know you've been waiting for it, so phone the neighbors and wake the kids because IT IS HERE!!! The SECOND ANNUAL TWELVE MONTHS OF CHRISTMAS MY SPACE COLLECTION!

Whether you love, hate, or are ambivalent to the current state of My Space (my relationship with them is a love/hate one, actually) the fact remains that this is perhaps one of the few places on the 'net where I can find such a wide variety of Christmas music. Granted, the bit rates on the songs are not the greatest, which frustrates me. Other websites (not nearly as large as My Space, granted) can permit their artists to upload higher bit rate MP3s. So sound quality of some of these songs aside, I do feel that these are the rare singles of tomorrow. Some of these songs are only up for a limited time, and I've seen some bands remove them from their page the day after Christmas. Some of these songs are only released for the fans to hear online, and are not on any of the artist's CDs. So somebody has to curate what they can find, and while it's a long process to do so, it's quite rewarding in the end.

And in the end I had nearly 8 hours of music, well over 130 tracks, all compiled from My Space this year. I could have easily turned this into a "boxed set," and there are certainly tracks I left off this compilation that I REALLY wanted to include. As it is, two discs just isn't enough, but I guess having extras will make for some interesting compilations to share in the future. But I still say having to leave off some of the tracks I did is like leaving out the cranberry sauce from Christmas dinner. Oh well...we gotta do what we gotta do.

And what you have here is what I think is a pretty solid collection of music, and spans a good range of styles and has a little of something for everybody.

I took a cue from our friends at Sounds Familyre for the downloads...I chose to utilize the "widget" feature on box.net as I found downloading from Sounds Familyre to be MUCH better using this feature than downloading from any other site, hands down. I hope you find it much easier to use as well, and if you downloaded the Sounds Familyre Christmas comps in the past, then you already know what to do. If not...well, it should be self explanatory once you click your mouse on a title. If you have any problems, let me know. Just remember to right click over the song icon and you can select your options to play or download from there.

Also, just FYI....some of these songs (believe it or not) COULD have been on the Wayside Waifs CD! I won't name any names - you know who you are if you are reading this - but there are bands/artists listed here that I contacted personally to see if they could contribute and they never responded but then their Christmas song gets slapped up on My Space. Oh, I'm not bitter. I just mention it to show any potential artists/bands (and I know some are reading this blog...I get emails!) that I contact that it was a legit deal, and not spam as some suspected.

(And if you are an artist/band I contacted, I didn't check your profile to see if you had a Christmas song you withheld...I checked it because I was sincere when I said I loved your style and that I wanted to see what you could do with a Christmas track!)

You will also note there are a few New Years Day, Boxing Day, and Hanukkah songs here as well...I tried to make it a nice, varied collection.

The track listing:

Disc One
1) The Singles-New Year's Eve
2) A Smile and A Ribbon-Heavenly Christmas
3) Sean Porter Experience-Christmas Time Is Here
4) The Revelations feat. Tre Williams-It's That Time of Year
5) Huggie-Rockin' on Xmas
6) Dean Farnell-Why Don't Christmas Go Away? I'm Bored With the Wizard of Oz
7) Jace Blues-Christmas Time
8) Kja & the Jersey Cowboyz-Christmas Without You
9) Alyssa Bonagura-Come Back this Christmas
10) Hajen-Hajens Julsång
11) Ingrid Michaelson-Snowfall Kind of Love
12) Jimmy Robbins-Hurry Back to Me
13) Paper Route-The Sound
14) Sleeping At Last-A Cradle in Bethlehem
15) The Violent Husbands-Home Sweet Home
16) The Features-Christmas Wish Book
17) Mike Ryan and the Wabbits-Ah, It's Christmas
18) Poos-Bad Boys and Girls Club
19) Mid Knight-Christmas Star
20) We Know, Plato!-Christmas Ain't a Nursery Rhyme
21) Metro Jets-Jingle Jangle Christmas
22) Socratic-A Christmas Coal Carol
23) The Vonage-Kitten in the Snow
24) Brownie Points-Auld Lang Syne

Disc Two
1) Camera Obscura-You're the Only Star in my Blue Heaven
2) Jens Lekman-Run Away With Me
3) Wolfkin-Christmas Comatose
4) Steven McKay-Sounds Like Christmas
5) Said the Whale-This Winter I Retire
6) The Margarets-Christmas in a Northern Town
7) Bicycles-Snow
8) Jack Hayter-Blind Man's Fog
9) My Skinny Valentine-Christmas Crime
10) Oliver North Boy Choir-Blizzard
11) The Boy Least Likely To-The First Snowflake
12) The Leisure Society-The Last of the Melting Snow
13) The Teenage Prayers-Yuletide
14) Wave Pictures-We Dress Up Like Snowmen
15) Love It or Leave It-You, Me and this Christmas Tree
16) First Class Fever-Mary's Christmas
17) Champagne Riot-December Slopes
18) Captain Polaroid-You'll Never See Christmas
19) Amanda-Cookie Santa
20) Gravity Wave-Lil' Baby Isaac Newton
21) Koo Koo Kanga Roo-Seth Cohen
22) My First Earthquake-Fa La Freezing

Santagold Disc One

Santagold Disc Two

Thank you for listening and for reading!

Off season finds part 3

2008-12-31T21:25:00.003-06:00

There is one My Space find I forgot to share yesterday that I wanted to share with you today as a way to link yesterday's post with today's...

The Duloks-Bad Vegetarian

Those of you who downloaded my podcasts may have already heard the CW Stoneking track and this track, as I shared both of those in my podcasts.

There is a DJ out of Portland, Oregon named Dave Cusick who hosts a radio show called That Sound. In addition to admitting he's visited my blog looking for music to use on his Christmas shows (and Dave LOVES Christmas music! Be sure to check out his archived programs and download his podcasts, especially his Christmas shows!) and in addition to contributing a track ("The Cat Who Controls Christmas") for the Wayside Waifs CD, Dave also turned me on to Local Cut, which put out a charity CD last year called "Another Gray Christmas." Unfortunately, I learned of the CD a bit too late, as they were sold out of it by the time Dave told me about it. (So if any of you dear readers want to share the CD with me....just sayin' you know!)

HOWEVER, Local Cut did have a couple downloads up on their site and here they are:

Eskimo and Sons-Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown
Starf***er-Happy F***ing Christmas

And some random tracks I found at artist's websites in my talent search for the Wayside Waifs CD...all sites I just randomly came upon in my quest for people who might be interested in contributing a track or two to my effort.

Mike Viola-Give Me A Second Chance for Christmas
The Walkmen-No Christmas While I'm Talking
Unstatuesque with Stafrænn Hákon-Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Unstatuesque with Stafrænn Hákon-White Christmas

Thank you for listening, and be sure to check back tomorrow for your New Years Day Gift!

Off season finds part 2

2008-12-30T18:46:00.003-06:00

First, before I delve in further, just a disclaimer: I am not claiming these songs were posted NEW over the summer...some of them I just found for the first time over the summer, and for all I know they have been up online since one Christmas past. So it may show my cunning to find cool stuff online, or show that I am slow to the draw and some other bloggers beat me to the punch.

First off, some tracks I am fairly certain were new this past summer, and these were posted online on individual band/artists websites as they record their Christmas tracks to have them ready for the Holiday period. Many of these tracks I found while looking for bands/artists to contact to see if they would be interested in using their song on the Wayside Waifs CD. And even if these bands/artists said no or declined to reply, I don't hold that against them and gladly feature their music here because I do think it should be heard.

The first example I have of that is Morning Glory and their demo of Not Another Christmas. I believe this is the same version found elsewhere around the Christmas season, so it looks like the demo is the only version so far.

Morning Glory-Not Another Christmas (Demo)

Next up is an unmastered version of a new song...

Maybe It's Reno-Gravestones and Christmas Trees

And one of my favorite finds from the off season...

Gentlemen Auction House-Home for the Holidays
Gentlemen Auction House-On the Rooftops

And there were also a few Christmas songs posted on the My Space profiles of some artists I contacted, so perhaps they were up early or left overs from last year and I missed them previously. At any rate, they were new to me and hopefully new to you as well! And this should give you a nice mixed bag...

Farrah-Christmas is Canceled (this Year)
Declan O'Rourke-Christmas Wine
C.W. Stoneking-On A Christmas Day

Just a word about C.W. Stoneking...you may not tell from the style of music here, but he was born in 1974. He's from Melbourne, Australia and his album King Hokum is well worth seeking out. I did contact him to see if he'd include this song on the Wayside Waifs CD, but he never responded. I just love this song, and hope he does more Christmas music in the future.

And CW is of no relation to me, but I suppose you never know. There's probably a similar ancestor somewhere back far enough.

Thank you for reading and listening, and I will have some more off season goodies to share tomorrow to help you ring in the New Year.

Off season finds part 1

2008-12-29T18:03:00.005-06:00

For those of you who only check the blogs around this time of year for Christmas music, you may not realize that Christmas music can be found online all year long (or perhaps you don't want to know about it!) Granted, it's not going to be nearly as plentiful in mid June as it is in mid December, but I managed to find a good number of Christmas goodies over the past twelve months while the rest of you were on the beach playing volleyball and getting your tans.

And, since this is the Twelve MONTHS of Christmas, I thought what better time for me to reflect on this past year of Christmas music than to share with you some of my off season finds?

And as I compiled my list, I realized that I had more than could probably be contained in one post, so I will make this a multi parter until I am done...probably on New Year's Eve if all goes well.

First up on the list of things I want to share are a couple radio show goodies I found. Before I got into collecting Christmas music, my big thing was collecting air checks and radio morning show CDs. Man, that got REAL expensive, and difficult! (You don't know how many DJs across the nation did NOT want me to buy the CD of material from their morning show because they were afraid I was going to steal their material...and some of them had material ripped off and used on shows like Crank Yankers and by other DJs!) But I use my past experience in looking for things in helping me find even MORE Christmas goodies. So I visited some of my favorite radio/aircheck haunts this past year and uncovered a couple goodies. Of course, I hope to find even more in 2009, but for now these are rather fun...

Radio Caroline-Batman's Christmas Caper (1966)

Radio Caroline was an offshore radio station that broadcast off the shore of Felixstowe, Suffolk, England. They began transmission Easter Sunday, 1964, and went on to broadcast for 40 years. This broadcast took advantage of the Batman craze at the time and the cast consists of the Radio Caroline disc jockeys.

I sincerely hope to find more Radio Caroline Christmas goodies in the coming year. My search has just begun....

Next up...

KMPC-Robert Morgan 12-23-1983

KMPC was an AM station out of Los Angels and I understand that Christmas was a real important time to Robert Morgan (pictured above), and he went out of his way to make his Christmas broadcasts quite memorable. Here is a snippet of time preserved for us to enjoy today from the 12-23-1983 broadcast from 7-8am. As with more Radio Caroline Christmas goodies, I hope to find more Robert Morgan Christmas goodies.

Ok, well, I will leave you with that to enjoy for now...this should give you plenty to listen to until I come back tomorrow with even more off season Christmas goodies to share with you!

The Post Christmas Post

2008-12-26T17:38:00.006-06:00

So it's the day after Christmas: servers all across the nation are breathing a sigh of relief as those of us who collect Christmas music ease off on the downloads and uploads, the nog is going sour, the tree needs to be tossed, and what was a white Christmas has melted into a muddy and salty post Christmas. I don't know how many will be here to check out my site for more Christmas songs, but in the event you haven't gotten enough, I have more to share.

Last year I started a folder for new songs I just got in 2007. By the end of the year, I had somewhere over 1100 songs in that folder alone. In the 2008 folder? Well...let's just say I don't think any human being is meant to get this much Christmas music in one year, and I still have a handful of CDs to rip and a good pile of LPs and 45s to convert to MP3 (though me thinks those vinyl sides will be in my 2009 folder) and a good number of zipped files on my desk top waiting to be unzipped and put in my 2008 folder. So when all is said and done this year, I've exceeded my expectations of what I think I would get for music.

Which makes cataloging it all the more difficult. There's just so much to listen to and to connect the dots between all the tracks and that makes coming up with compelling post ideas quite a challenge. But I plow ahead.

When I listen to my Christmas songs, I make notes of common themes that stick out to me (and I often have to listen to the songs SEVERAL times before bigger themes stick out to me) and that's how I get the ideas for my posts here. But from time to time sometimes all I have is just a couple songs that are related and I don't get around to making themed posts on those topics. So today you're in for a bit of a treat...Here are songs I've noticed from my personal collection that may not be great enough for individual posts, but I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at them in one longer post.

One unexpected theme came to me as I listened to my new songs this year: pirate Christmas songs. Granted, two of them are from the same artist, but I was able to uncover one more for this post. An interesting concept...of course, these are comedy songs by default.

Kevin Mahler-Pirate at Christmas Time
Kevin Mahler-Pirate's Christmas
Gastronomical Unit-A Pirate's 12 Days of Christmas

Another curious and unexpected theme arose from my collection of Christmas songs this year...Brady Bunch Christmas songs. No, I am not talking about the old Brady Bunch Christmas album, but songs inspired by the Brady Bunch.

First up is from a compilation I found online this past summer (yes, Virgina, there ARE Christmas songs to download during the summer!) and my honest review of the compilation is don't bother seeking it out unless you want something for your audio torture chamber. One or two songs by this "artist" is quite enough in my book. The entire CD worth of music by him not so much. Individually, his songs are unique, quirky, and certainly something fun to toss into a mix to keep people on their toes, but a little bit of this guy goes a long way, trust me.

The second track is from a download I found this past month.

Kenny and the Christmas-Tones - The Ann B Davis Christmas Song

(and I am telling you all of Kenny's Christmas songs sound that way...and he is obsessed by cows.)

Joe Algeri and Friends-All I Want for Christmas is Cindy Brady

Another curious theme that came out when listening to my music was the concept of Christmas trees with FEELINGS. Not too many songs are out there like this, folks...I've only come across two so far. That's not to say there are more, but they are certainly far and few between.

This first track comes from my most absolute favorite compilation I purchased this past year: A Very British Christmas. Crappy cover, awesome collection of music. (As of the time of this post, it looks like it's out of print...or maybe just out of stock for now, I hope...)

Peter Brough & Archie Andrews-The Little Fir Tree

That track reminded me of a track I got last year from Nellie McKay's My Space page, a very passionate plea by Nellie to, please, have sympathy for these Christmas trees we kill every year.

Nellie McKay-A Christmas Dirge

You'd think there would be more war songs, and perhaps if I plunged more into the Christmas music from the 40's I'd find more, but in the modern age we pretty much have John Lennon's famous track. But I did manage to find a couple more examples.

Arthur Askey-I'm Sending a Letter to Santa Claus
Jona Lewie-Stop the Calvary

And if Santa retires some people think he'd have some problems....(though I think if he just shaved and changed his clothes he'd be fine...)

Tina Marie Holbrook-If Santa Claus Retires
Keith Tenley-Gold Watch for Kringle

As always, thank you for reading and listening.

You gotta wake up....

2008-12-25T00:27:00.004-06:00

It's Christmas time in the morning! What did Santa leave us???

Humph...that's not exactly what I asked for, Santa, THANKS A LOT!

And look what he left for you!

Get it while the getting is good...the present will be gone tomorrow!

Santa has gone back to the North Pole, kids! The link has expired!

Christmas Eve Present

2008-12-24T15:16:00.004-06:00

So I know that the traditions of Christmas are varied and numerous world wide, and even in America. But growing up we always got to open presents Christmas Eve and then get to open MORE presents on Christmas Day that "Santa" left. So today here's my Christmas present for you this Christmas Eve, and tomorrow you will have to see what Santa decides to bring. NO PEEKING!
That present to you is an EP I made in collaboration with Ken Clinger. Two of the three songs feature lyrics by me, and one is a cover version. It should be fairly obvious which is which.

I hope you enjoy.

1) The Elf Song
2) The Clingmunk Song
3) Song of Rahab

Whew! Lots of "song" songs on this!

And for those of you who received the bonus disc for the Wayside Waifs CD, the version of the Elf Song is slightly different here...I re-recorded the vocals. I actually prefer the vocals on this take much more, but in the end you are the final judge.

Merry Christmas, and thank you for reading and listening.

Benji Is...

2008-12-23T17:56:00.005-06:00

When I learned of this record, I immediately assumed this was Christmas songs from the more famous Benji, star of movies and TV for years. When I got the record I didn't remember Benji being so...well...evangelical.

It turns out that this record became a bit of a history lesson for me. It turns out Lutheran Television produced these animated specials, and "Christmas Is" featured Benji and Waldo. And Benji is the boy, not the dog, so please don't confuse this Benji with Benji the dog. It took me a minute.

Benji is to be a shepherd in the school Christmas play and he doesn't hide his disappointment. As Benji practices his lines with Waldo at his side he falls asleep and dreams he and Waldo are back in Bethlehem at the time of Christ's birth. I have never seen this special, but reading up about it on IMDB.com makes me wish this one would come to DVD.

My understanding is that "Christmas Is" was popular enough to make the title song a radio hit, so we can file this one under "Lost Radio Treasures" as well.

At any rate, I want to share the tracks with you, saved from a flexidisc mailed out back in 1974 for whatever reason (was it a give-a-way? Send in cereal box tops? Did Lutheran Television sell it? Fan club premium?) and I have to say finding Christmas music like this on flexidisc is one of my favorite things to find. Not too many are out there, and it's a good day when you find one in great condition.

1) You Can't Stop Christmas
2) Chip Chip Away
3) Christmas All Over the World
4) Christmas Is

And you can find the special on You Tube...

Thank you for reading, listening, and watching.

The 100th Post

2008-12-22T18:58:00.003-06:00

I was going to start off this post with the obligatory Wayside Waifs CD update. Then I saw that this is actually my 100th post, and I thought I should make it something just a little extra special. So, for the little something extra, I thought I would offer a coupon code for the Wayside Waifs CD!

If you order the CD (the physical copy only) you can save $3.00 by entering the code ChristmasPup when checking out. Shipping and handling rates will still be calculated, and the offer remains for the bonus disc of outtakes to be added to your order if you donate an extra $5.00 for the cause.

The coupon code Christmas Pup EXPIRES 12-31-08.

And I realize the economy is in the ditch right now. I get that money is tight, and all of us have trimmed our wish lists and we're cutting back as best we can. But please consider making a donation to Wayside Waifs by ordering this CD. The economy is hitting the animal shelters hard, and I know there are a lot of shelters out there to donate to and you are wondering, "Why should I donate to this one?" I can't say this shelter is better than any other shelter out there, or more worthy of your donation over another shelter, but you do get a CD of pretty darn good music in exchange for your donation. I've checked around to some other places...places like public radio fund drives that would want you to donate a hundred dollars or more to get the "premium" gift of a CD. Here all you have to do is donate the amount of money it takes an average person to eat out once. And your donation at the shelter will go further than money you could spend on elsewhere, and you get that CD on top of it. Sounds like a win/win situation to me.

Friday night I was driving home from work and I saw something that just devastated me. I was driving through this park and I thought I saw a deer at first in the middle of the road. It turned out it was a German Shepherd. It looked like a pure bred dog. No collar, and I think it was a girl. Her belly was all dirty and look liked she got wet and muddy, and she was just barely moving. Standing, but really not in a hurry to move. I stopped my car because she was right in the middle of the street. She looked at me with the saddest eyes and all I could do was race through my mind what it might mean if I picked the dog up. I have a one bedroom apartment, and a lease that allows me only one pet, and even the shelter I know of will only take in surrendered animals a couple times a week on a by appointment basis only. Like the priest and levite that walked by the robbed man in the Biblical parable, I felt at the time my only choice was to honk my horn to scare the dog off the street, and hope that the dog would be spared the fate of being struck dead.

I wanted to help...I wanted to live up to the words of my own CD and help those who cannot help themselves, and if I had a house and the freedom to have more than one dog, absolutely, I would have picked the dog up.

She just ambled to the side and walked along side my car. I was going to see if she was by my door wanting in. She just kept on walking to the side of the road then walked in front of the car behind me and was in the middle of the road again.

My heart just broke for this dog. I am sure you can imagine. But despite all my impulses to open the door and get the dog in my car, there is nothing I could really do for the dog once I had her. Take her home, sure, but I can't have another dog here and there's no collar so it's not like I could call a number on the rabies tag to help track down the owner. So I had to just drive away, wanting to turn around with each passing revolution of my tires as I distanced myself from the park.

And all I could think of was that dog was probably dropped off there and probably waiting in the street for their owners to come back and pick them up. Surely this was a mistake. The people she loved all her life and devoted herself to couldn't just leave her out here in the middle of nowhere, could they? Not on what's going to be the coldest weekend of the season so far. If she stands there her owners will come back, and take her home, give her a bath, feed her and love her all the more. They will realize their mistake and that they forgot their beloved dog there. Right?

Except that people are assholes and this is the thanks a dog gets for a life time of devotion.

I did go back, figuring if I could just get the dog I could hope doors would open up for me to help the dog. Or, if this was a case where the dog was too far gone health wise and the decision had to be made to put the dog down, then at the very least I could provide the dog with a warm and loving home for the last days of her life, something her previous owners could not see themselves to do.

I was frightened and anxious as I drove back to the park, expecting to see the dog's dead body in the road or off to the side because somebody didn't even have the patience to stop and honk their horn. But the dog was nowhere to be found. And I looked and looked, even driving down some other side streets in the event the dog wandered down one of those roads. The dog was not to be found.

So I can only hope and pray that the dog was picked up by somebody with a house and the means to help them. I can only hope that dog is going to have a warm home with love for the holiday.

As for what I wish for the owner(s) that dumped the dog off...well, we have to turn the other cheek, I suppose, but that's easier said than done when you see something like this.

So is your donation for this CD going to give that dog a home? No. There will always be assholes dumping their dogs off in the middle of winter, leaving for them done when all the crime the dog could have committed is being a dog. No, your donation won't stop any of that. Nor would it help if I could sell a thousand copies of the CD. But it WILL help the dogs already in the shelter, so perhaps the shelter can be more free to open their doors to dogs like that and people like me won't have to contemplate the measure of help I can find for them when the economy is tight.

So, please, use the coupon code and order your CD today. And remember that you can adjust the total of the amount you wish to donate if you wish to donate more than the suggested amount.

I will leave you with this:

CHRISTMAS AT THE SHELTER
author unknown

'Tis the night before Christmas and all through the town,
every shelter is full - we are lost but not found,
Our numbers are hung on our kennels so bare,
we hope every minute that someone will care.

They'll come to adopt us and give us the call,
Come here, Max and Sparkie - come fetch your new ball!
But now we sit here and think of the days..
we were treated so fondly - we had cute, baby ways.

Once we were little, then we grew and we grew -
now we're no longer young and we're no longer new.
So out the back door we were thrown like the trash,
they reacted so quickly - why were they so rash?

We jump on the children, don't come when they call,
we bark when they leave us, climb over the wall.
We should have been neutered, we should have been spayed,
now we suffer the consequence of the errors THEY made.

If only they'd trained us, if only we knew...
we'd have done what they asked us and worshiped them too.
We were left in the backyard, or worse -left to roam-
now we're tired and lonely and out of a home

They dropped us off here and they kissed us good-bye...
"Maybe someone else will give you a try."
So now here we are, all confused and alone...
in a shelter with others who long for a home.

The kind workers come through with a meal and a pat,
with so many to care for, they can't stay to chat,
They move to the next kennel, giving each of us cheer...
we know that they wonder how long we'll be here.

We lay down to sleep and sweet dreams fill our heads..
of a home filled with love and our own cozy beds.
Then we wake to see sad eyes, brimming with tears --
our friends filled with emptiness, worry, and fear.

If you can't adopt us and there's no room at the Inn --
could you help with the bills and fill our food bin?
We count on your kindness each day of the year --
can you give more than hope to everyone here?

Please make a donation to pay for the heat...
and help get us something special to eat.
The shelter that cares for us wants us to live,
and more of us will, if more people will give

The first day of Winter...

2008-12-21T17:12:00.002-06:00

It's the first day of Winter, the longest night of the year (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! WE GET MORE DAY LIGHT AFTER TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!) so I thought I would share some of my favorite winter songs, and some not so familiar winter songs.

Starting off the festive solstice, here's another one that could be categorized under "lost radio treasure." Surely a song that doesn't get nearly enough spin time on the radio these days...

Milan-Wintertime

It's perhaps one of the coldest days/nights of the year here, perhaps one of the coldest nights in my parts in a long time. At least as long as I've lived here. And the weather forecast calls for more sleet and snow this coming week. But yet it's still good to be alive on this winter day.

The Lundstroms-On a Winter Day

And here are yet a few more lost radio treasures celebrating the winter season...

Vinnie Monte-Hey Look at the Winter Snow

Linda Laurie-All Winter Long

Connie Francis-I'm Gonna Be Warm this Winter

And a few more winter songs to keep you warm this long night...

Eisley-The Winter Song

Remington Super 60-Wintertime

Ingrid Michaelson first came to my attention last year with her My Space song "Men of Snow." Since then she's been quite a contributer to the world of Christmas music, and putting out a very nice body of work. Here's hoping next year we get a full length Christmas CD from her. The following track is a live performance of her song from the compilation Winter Songs.

Ingrid Michaelson-Winter Song (Live on the Tonight Show)

A couple more from the lost radio treasure era...

The Crystalairs-Winter Love

Danny Janssen Group-Winter Wonderland

Winding down today's post, here is a track by one of my favorite groups, Havalina Rail Company. They put out a decent body of work, but largely unnoticed and criminally underrated and under appreciated. They didn't perform any Christmas songs but we do have their ode to winter from their CD Russian Lullabies.

Havalina Rail Company-Winter

Next up is a new track I discovered on MySpace. The leader of Havalina Rail Co. is Matt Wignall. To me, the lead singer of this new band I found reminds me quite a bit of Mr. Wignall. I don't know if that's a coincidence, or if Matt Death is Mr. Wignall's new moniker. Whatever the case may be, this is one of my favorite finds so far this year.

Matt Death and the New Intellectuals-For Winter

And here is a song about a topic we really don't like to think about too much, but this band doesn't dwell too much on the negatives...

Pearlfishers-Winter Roads

Finally, a find from this past summer, when I visited a record store in Kansas City. I picked up this private label folk record and it had a song about the winter on there so I took a chance on it. Not the find of the century, or even the find of the year. But it's a capable recording and I thought I would share the one winter/Christmas track on the album.

Joyce Brookshire-Wintertime in the Mountains

Hope you have a good solstice, and thank you for reading and listening.

Songwriter's Christmas

2008-12-19T18:43:00.004-06:00

Now here's something I wish I saw more Christmas music bloggers share: local radio programming. Now you know if you have stations left of the dial that are community supported and if they play local music or unique and interesting Christmas shows. And if you do, start recording them and sharing them! Because this is where some of the great grassroots Christmas music is being found.

So I am going to step out and post a Christmas special that aired on KKFI last night and hopefully inspire more to do the same. It featured a good number of local musicians performing Christmas music live, including Larry Garrett, who provided one of the tracks for the Wayside Waifs CD.

KKFI 90.1 Kansas City Local ShowCase 12-18-08 pt. 1
KKFI 90.1 Kansas City Local ShowCase 12-18-08 pt. 2

Now I am serious about wanting to see more of this stuff online. Streaming broadcasts and low bit podcast downloads are not very much fun. I recorded this off the air and saved it at 160 kbit MP3. If you know of radio programs of this nature in your area this coming week, then by all means please record it. Post it on your site, or contact me if you don't have a site and perhaps I can post your recordings here.

I hope you enjoy.

Just time for some favorites..and more lost radio treasures

2008-12-18T21:14:00.003-06:00

Today I present some favorites...some songs that I planned for playlists in my podcasts but didn't make the shows for one reason or another.

First up....

Louis Philippe-The 13th Day of Christmas

The Arcadians-Write Your Letter

These two songs kind of have a timeless feel to them, or maybe it's just me. And I like how they sound. Louis' track comes from World in Winter and the Arcadians' track comes from Chantons Noël Ghosts of Christmas Past. Both are wonderful compilations.

Which takes us into the topic of letters to Santa, and another song that fits in with that older and timeless style just fine....

Anne Lloyd-When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter

Which takes us back into that "Lost Radio Treasures" territory we visited earlier this month. And that leads me to a track from the 2004 Adventures in Carols compilation posted by our friends over at FaLaLaLaLa.

Living Voices-Be A Santa

One of the finest classic recordings of Christmas music, and a must have in any collection, small or large, is the Rotary Connection's album Peace. From their landmark Christmas album...

Rotary Connection-Christmas Child

While dipping our feet in the radio treasures of the past, here's an oldie and a goodie from Tex Ritter on the I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus compilation.

Tex Ritter-Christmas Carols by the Old Corral

There are really so many songs from the "lost radio treasures" era I could share, but I have to save some for the future postings on this blog. But for now I will leave you with this one ...

The Newports-It's Christmas Once Again

And, just for something a little extra...

Don Campau, who contributed a track to the Wayside Waifs CD, hosts a radio program and he put the podcasts up of that program up this past week. It is his holiday episode, though not all the songs he played are Christmas songs. But there are a few Christmas songs to be found here, including a few tracks from my CD. So stream or download...you're gonna find some cool Christmas music and you're also going to find some interesting new music to boot.

No Pigeonholes KKUP edition 14 December 2008 pt1
No Pigeonholes KKUP edition 14 December 2008 pt2

Please note that these are being hosted by Don himself, so they will be gone when he decides they will be gone. Get while the getting is good.

Playlist:

3-4 PM
Artist/title/label-source

Ken Clinger/ Radio/ Bovine CD
R. Stevie Moore/ Joy To The World/ Microscope Media Group CD
X Ray Pop/ Fuzzy Christmas/ MBS 7”
Brunos Band/ JamminG/---CD
Background music: Hsia-Jung Chang/ Inside The Piano/---CD
What About Frogs/ The Cat Who Controls Christmas/ Microscope Media Group CD
The Parlotones/ Colourful/ Sovereign CD
Freelove Circus/ Freiliebe/ Guaranteed Cleveland CD
Sneaky Pete/ Three Steps Ahead Of You/---CD
Evan Peta/ Full Metal Al/ Scorched CD
JP Delaire/ Last Call/ Tender Girl CD
Exotica/ Don’t Fight Your Fate/---CD
Joe And Bev/ Favorite Christmas/ Lonely Whistle CD
Brunos Band/ Heartbreak/ R&R CD
Brunos Band/ Watermelon Man, You’re Not Alone/---live
Brunos Band/ Changes/ R&R CD

December 16, 2008 10:16 AM PST

60:00

Nicole Campau/ Snowflakes/ Lonely Whistle CD
Ken Clinger/ I’m Coming Home For Christmas/ Microscope Media Group CD
Sling/ When I’m With You/---CD
Suddyn/ Gravity/---CD
Brunos Band/ Tin Can Blues/ R&R CD
Brunos Band/ Los Suenos, Life’s Too Short/---live
Doug Michael/ Completely Accidental/ Tradewind Music CD
Jerry Keating/ You And The Horse You Rode In On/ Alethia CD
Drift/ The Ultimate Gadget/ Swinging Axe CD
Off The Sky/ Willow Piece/ thelandof CD
Jliat/ Now That’s What I Call Noise Vol 15/ Jliat CD
Harlan Mark Vale/ World Of Good/ Pillars Of Light CD

Thank you for reading and listening.

Podcast Episode Four: The Rock Episode

2008-12-17T20:21:00.003-06:00

OK, I know I usually save the podcasts for Thursday night, but time just went by like a bullet tonight. I got off work, went to the post office and then to the vet's office and before I knew it I was getting home more than an hour after I left for work. After Fletcher and I greeted each other and he got plenty of attention, my beloved doggie got his evening walk then it was time to come in, feed him, and then check on emails and post my Wayside update and before I knew it it was 7pm, TIME FOR PUSHING DAISES! And I hadn't even had dinner yet! I was HUNGRY too!

So now it's pushing 9pm. Where the heck does the time go? After taking time to upload the podcast there was scarce time left to make a long, thoughtful post here full of sundry songs one by one so I decided to post my podcast a bit early to keep you Christmas music lovers tide over.

I haven't seen much feed back on the podcasts, but they have downloaded more times than my regular song postings so I guess that's a good thing. I mean, you'd tell me if they sucked, right? RIGHT!!! Ha! Well, any feedback would be welcome, if you wanted to share!

So I present...

Podcast004-The Rock Episode

And parts of it really ROCK!

The playlist:

Beatnik Filmstars-Ho Ho Ho (A Very Cherry Christmas 2)
Dogday-Santa Will Never Get Here (Oh No…It’s Christmas)
Morning Glory-Not Another Christmas (online demo)
The Replacements-Bundle Up (studio demo-Please to Meet Me expanded edition)

The Odgen Steers-Christmas on the Rocks (Christmas on the Rocks)
Dead Artist Syndrome-Christmas (Prints of Darkness)
DJ BC-You Shook Me All Noel
Evil Beaver-Smells Like Christmas Spirit (Still Smells Like Christmas Spirit)
Opiate for the Masses-Christmas Evel (Taste of Christmas)

Fishbone-It’s a Wonderful Life (Gonna Have a Good Time) (A Different Kind of Christmas)
Five Eight-Just Think About Christmas (and Sing What You Want) (Flagpole)

Kenny Roby-When My Dad Wins the War (Have a Holly Raleigh Christmas)
Grande Roses-To Bring Christmas Back this Year (Oh No…It’s Christmas)
Legendary Shack Shakers-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Redeye Christmas)
Matches-December is for Cynics (A Santa Clause-It’s a Punk Rock Christmas)

Meg-Another Merry Christmas (‘Tis the Season to Be Filthy)
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin-The Wheels Are Off (Peace on Earth Vol. 1)
Follow Now-Santa’s Hard (Flagpole)

Yet another Wayside Waifs update

2008-12-17T18:38:00.003-06:00

Normally I reserve my updates for Monday, but today I got some sad news.

I posted previously how I had been trying to contact Wayside Waifs just about every day. I had a couple contacts there and then I started to get emails back undeliverable and I wondered if the contacts I had were even with them anymore. Did they resign? Did they get laid off due to the recession?

It turns out the lady who coordinated my visit there on Saturday the 6th had a terrible personal loss for their family. Obviously I am not sure how public they want this information, but I am not revealing any names. The lady lost her child that she was pregnant with.

On top of that, their whole voice mail/email system was jacked up for some reason, so I guess nobody was getting emails.

So if you've been thinking about donating to get this CD, your help would go a long way and be much appreciated by all.

I did manage to get the CDs for sale at my vet's office, which should help. My vet had to check with the office manager first and said that she wished they could have had them out sooner. Yeah, like right after I took my dog in for his annual booster shots a couple weeks ago! But at least I got them up there and Wayside Waifs told me they would get something on their website as soon as they could. Every little bit is going to help.

I will leave you for now...I hope to have time to come back later tonight to post some more Christmas goodness for you...I have a few ideas in mind for a post this evening.

Forgotten Christmas Characters

2008-12-16T19:34:00.004-06:00

Rudolph, Frosty, and Nestor the Long Eared Donkey. Just to name a few. Those are the better known characters of the Christmas stories told this time of year, characters that have captured the imagination of children world wide and continue to be sung about to this day. Well, except for Nestor...I can't think of too many songs about him.

But there are others who vied for the top spot in your heart as a beloved Christmas character. For some reason, time forgot these songs and the characters featured in these songs didn't get new songs done about them by subsequent generations nor did Rankin Bass decide to do an animated special about them.

But I've made a list. Perhaps not an exhaustive list...I am sure I will find even more as this blog goes on...but a healthy list for now. These are the Christmas characters that time has forgotten. Granted, the Christmas music lover/collector reading this will probably recognize most, if not all, these songs, but you're not going to hear these on your radio stations playing Christmas music this year. Nope, you can't have these played anymore on the radio...they are forgotten Christmas characters.

The first on my list is Jingle-O the Brownie. I am not exactly sure what "Brownie" is...he builds toys, so he may be an elf. He can sing and dreams, so he's a sentient being. And apparently he helps compile the list of who is naughty or nice, as he traverses the world each year to check up on you. (HEY! I thought Santa saw when I was naughty or nice! What the heck is that gyp!) But he also shakes the clouds and makes it snow, so he's muscling in on Jack Frost's job as well.

What is he? I think he's the "affirmative action" elf and Santa was, well, not exactly politically correct when he called him "Brownie." That's my theory anyway. Which if we have a black president, then we can now have a Christmas special about the black elf.

Tennessee Ernie Ford-Jingle-O the Brownie

While on the topic of elves, here has got to be the most annoying elf ever. I'd kill this elf if I ever had to work with him. Bernard the Elf is one thing, but this dude needs to take some ADD pills or something. Wow.

Sonny Blochs Coralairs-Louie the Elf

One thing I LOVE about these forgotten Christmas characters are they often have overlapping jobs. I guess the economic recession made Santa lay them all off and that's why we don't hear about them anymore. Jingle-O made it snow. But so does Suzy Snowflake, so go figure. I guess Jingle-O shakes the clouds and Suzy falls out. Oh, I mean tumbles down.

Little Marcy-Suzy Snowflake

But who else helps Santa? He obviously can't do it all...he has to delegate some of the work. Elves and reindeer are what we best know, but there were filthy rodents as well. And when Santa had to decide a name for him he calls him "Santa Mouse." Real creative there, St. Nick. I guess I should have called my dog, "Jeff Dog." Is it any wonder?

Bob Morrison-Santa Mouse

Christy Christmas also helped him out. And Christy is a HE. And he's made of the wood of a Christmas tree, so I guess this is like an elf version of Pinocchio. It's his job to pick out all the presents and to load Santa's sleigh as well. Not bad work if you can get it. And I also like it that he brings me food, not just eats it like Santa does. Good job, Christy.

Brenda Lee-Christy Christmas

Angie, the Christmas Tree Angel helps Santa dress up the Christmas tree. Then he thanks her by imprisoning her on top of the tree. What thanks!

Andrews Sisters-The Christmas Tree Angel

Mrs. Claus gets a few songs here and there, but mostly joke parodies of other songs. Here's a genuinely fun one that's a good song about her tasks around the North Pole. Not a forgotten character, I suppose, but do we realize all she does? She feeds the reindeer, she wraps the gifts and packs the sleigh (so much for Christy Christmas! This was what I was talking about with the overlapping jobs!), she keeps his red suit looking nice, she's the one who advises Santa directly, and she also gives Brownies all their spice (the black elves????) You go girl! And she does so much more...every line of this song is like a line of her resumé!

Alma Coogen-Mrs. Santa Claus

And for all the other jobs, there are the Grasshoppers! Wait...Grasshoppers in the North Pole? WHAT???

And if you ever wondered where the idea for the Three's Company theme came from...I am actually not sure which came first.

The Grasshoppers-Santa Claus, Rudolph and Us

Not everybody is out to help Santa. Some are just out to freeload and stowaway, but Santa makes the best of it and puts the little brat to work.

The Golden Orchestra-Little Stowaway on Santa's Sleigh

Perhaps the most curious of the forgotten Christmas characters isn't a sentient being like an elf or a reindeer or an angel or the sort, but a bell. A freaking BELL. But an apparently sentient bell, as it realizes it can't jingle and is crying because it can't go on the sleigh. There were lots of drugs in the 60's, folks. That's the only thing that can explain this song to me.

I said all of these characters didn't get their own animated special. Could you even imagine an animated special about this bell?

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass-The Bell that Couldn't Jingle

As I said earlier, many songs were sung about Rudolph. Not so many about Vixen. If we had more about Vixen we might have had more about Twinkle Toes, the gay son of Rudolph and Vixen. At least that's why I figure they called a male deer TWINKLE TOES. He did not go on to go down in history like his dad, apparently. Shoot, I don't think he even got mentioned in any of the animated specials!

Dino Perrone-Twinkle Toes

And Frosty isn't the only snowman who vied for your attention either. There was The Littlest Snowman, and apparently what brought this snowman to life was a red candy heart. Just an odd story.

Captain Kangaroo-The Littlest Snowman

Frosty and the Littlest Snowman were both alive and apparently could do something about it. But the Lundstroms wrote of a snowman that their little daughter loved to torment. LaShawn Lundstrom dances and sings for the snowman who, unlike Frosty, is unable to come to life. Taunting him with her autonomy and being a fully sentient being, I have to wonder if the snowman feels as if he has been delivered to the bowels of an icy hell while he waits for the sweet relief of melting to come so he can escape his frozen mortal coil. Who knew the Lundstroms could make me ponder such deep topics?

The Lundstroms-Mr. Snowman

Well, that's all for now. I am sure I will find some more oddball characters as I listen to more Christmas music!

Thank you for reading and listening! Oh...and be sure to buy a copy of the Wayside Waifs CD!

It's Monday Night...

2008-12-15T20:56:00.005-06:00

...it's time for HEADLINES!

Oh, wait...wrong show.

But I would like to share a brief update on the status of the Wayside Waifs CD!

First off, here are pictures of the CD and interior for those curious....

And a few more things I would like to note, perhaps some minor details that I forgot to mention before...

This is a LIMITED EDITION CD OF 500 COPIES. When they are gone, they are gone. So those of you waiting to order your copy, please keep that in mind!

This edition is an actual CD, NOT CDR, complete with silkscreen printing.

Also, I don't believe I ever posted the song samples here. Yes, they are on the Wayside Waifs CD blog, but for people who just visit this site or for new readers, here they are...They are minute long 24 kbit samples.

1) ShiSho-Christmas Bells
2) Zen Doggies-Oh Santa
3) Don Campau-It's That Time of Year Again
4) Ray Carmen-Jingle Bell Rock
5) Lord of the Yum Yum-Ukrainian Bell Choir
6) What About Frogs-The Cat Who Controls Christmas
7) The Harvey Girls-Christmas Time Is Here
8) Thee Majesty-I Like the Holidays
9) Fireflies-Xmas Song (new version recorded for this compilation!)
10) Matthias Rowe-A Different Scarf
11) Ken Clinger-I'm Coming Home For Christmas This Year
12) Rick Malsick-Joseph's Song
13) Euchrid Eucrow-A Horse Is Not Just for Christmas
14) John Mitchell-The Reason for the Season
15) R. Stevie Moore-Joy to the World
16) Zen Doggies-Goodbye Christmas
17) Mercurial Rage-It's Christmas
18) Ethan Waters-5AM Christmas Pawn Groove
19) Worm is Green-Jólaljósin
20) Matthias Rowe-Northern Lights
21) Ken Clinger-I Will Hold You Until You Sleep
22) Larry Garrett-Old Dogs

So, how is the CD going? Well this is an update...

Sales picked up a bit since I made my post on here last week. While not exactly breaking the wheels on the post office truck, I did ship out a good number of packages last week and got a few more orders for downloads.

For those who said that they were going to help with the project (Wayside Waifs, my vet, Gary Lezak...I am looking in your directions!) that has been another story. It's just been a cycle of no responses to emails and I don't know what. It's just a bit frustrating, especially not knowing if Wayside Waifs is EVER going to put anything on their website about it. It's like do they realize the sale of this CD can only help them out?

I did get a chance to meet with Gary Lezak (he's the weather man for NBC 41 here in Kansas City and does a lot of work for Wayside Waifs and area shelters) and I personally handed him a copy of the CD so now it's just up to him on how he promotes it. But the bottom line is I am only one guy and only so many people read this blog and I believe this is a great CD and more people outside of this blog will want to pick this up. Word of mouth makes a project like this work. I can't do it all myself, folks! It will be a slow process raising money for them if it's just me here.

So if you run a Christmas site of your own, if you are a DJ, if you do anything where people may read/listen to you/whatever...tell them about this CD! Link back here or to the Wayside Waifs blog. Either or is cool.

The links to buy the CD are right on this page. You have the track listing above, with samples, so there should be no confusion what is on the disc! Buy a copy for yourself, buy a copy for a friend, buy some as Christmas presents!

What Is A Classic?

2008-12-14T09:57:00.006-06:00

"They don't write them like that anymore."

That's a phrase usually tossed out after somebody posts a long and forgotten moldy (but goodie) oldie Christmas song online. Granted, they don't really record songs like "Kitty Ate the Tinsel on the Christmas Tree" anymore, or like any of the countless dusted off Christmas treasures I've shared here and elsewhere on the blogosphere.

And this is a topic I've been discussing elsewhere on the 'net...what makes a Christmas song "classic." What songs of today will be classics in years to come? What Christmas songs being churned out today will have the staying power of "Silent Night" or even "Do They Know It's Christmas?" I don't know...people tell me they don't write them like they used to.

But then again, they don't write songs like they used to anymore. Take, for example, the song writing team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. (And if those names are unfamiliar to you, then you have some homework to do!) One of my favorite songs by them is "Save the Last Dance for Me." Awesome, beautiful track. Compare that to the new popular songs by the likes of Jay-Z and tell me they don't write them like they used to and I will agree, absolutely. I can't wrap my brain around why stuff like Jay-Z is popular...I tried to listen to some of his stuff when he's performed on TV and give him a chance because I consider myself opened minded and open to new styles of music as the next guy. I felt like my brain was being assaulted when I heard him sing. And I can't imagine those types of angry sounding songs and ferocious sounds having the same standing power of a Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman composition.

But then I hear stuff by Gnarles Barkley and TV on the Radio and I feel all hope is not lost. But they don't write their songs like they used to either. I think that's a good thing. We can't continue to expect new acts to churn out music like we had in the years gone by. But I believe the music of Gnarles Barkley and TV on the Radio stands a better chance of surviving time and circumstance more than Jay-Z. At least I know I would rather be listening to Gnarles Barkley and TV on the Radio 20 years from now than I would want to hear a Jay-Z song 20 years from now, but I can only speak for myself. Maybe I will be wrong...maybe Jay-Z will rise to produce the classics of tomorrow. I honestly don't know.

But that's just one example...I could spend a few more paragraphs talking about whether or not Britney, Miley, Justin Timberlake, the Jonas Brothers, or any of the popular acts today will have the standing power of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, REM, and others in the future. But I am not that smart, I don't have a crystal ball to tell me what will be a classic of tomorrow, and I certainly don't subscribe to the whole "instant classic" mindset that people try to attribute to popular media today. But if I were a betting man, I would place my bets on new comers like Duffy, Adele, and the sort to have more of a staying power than Miley Cyrus or Hillary Duff, and more able to churn out some songs that may be getting attention 20 years from now.

But back to Christmas music, as this is a Christmas music blog... I like the fact that Christmas music is progressing forward and that we have such an incredible variety of Christmas music to choose from today. I am glad it is NOT like how they used to write them. I would be ashamed, saddened and bored if new Christmas songs sounded like the classics of the past. But "Silent Night" doesn't sound like "Frosty the Snowman" and "Frosty the Snowman" doesn't sound like "Do they Know It's Christmas." I think the best Christmas songs are the best examples of the era they were born in, and I think great music is being produced today on a whole that embraces the time they were born in. I used Gnarles Barkley and TV on the Radio as two examples that give me hope that great music can still be produced today. While not Christmas music, it just goes to show me that great music today does NOT have to sound like great music of the past to be great. It can take elements of the past but put a new twist on those styles and churn out something new and exciting. And I think Christmas classics of tomorrow will be created in the same way.

To examine what makes a classic recording, let's go to one of the more famous modern classics, "Silent Night." Or "Silent Night, Holy Night." Or "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht." That song was far from an instant classic. The lyrics were written in 1816 and a melody wasn't put to those words until 1818 and it wasn't even until 1863 that we got the song translated to English. Wow...so it took 55 years for a song to even start it's path to become a classic? Of course, that was before the Internet and radio...perhaps if they had You Tube or MySpace back then the song would have caught on faster. But I think the principle of what creates a classic are two fundamental elements: time and circumstance. For some reason, people prefer to listen to songs about Frosty and Rudolph this time of year, but there are dozens upon dozens of songs that were great in their own right that were about other characters that, for one reason or another (I guess Rankin Bass didn't do an animated special about the characters), just didn't catch on. Time and circumstance. It took time for the melodies of "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" to become ingrained on the minds of millions upon millions of people world wide. And it took circumstances such as TV specials and the commercialization of those songs to make them popular standards. There are many songs that fell by the wayside that are treasured by a few online but not remembered by a whole on a mass media level because they didn't get the same circumstances over time to become ingrained on the minds of people world wide as the sounds associated with Christmas.

So, what will be the classics of tomorrow? What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino? Well, the answer to the latter is my answer to the former. I don't know what circumstances will shape the next 20 years. Maybe corporate owned radio will continue to play the same four hour blocks of Christmas music over and over and over again each year during their 24 hours of Christmas music, and NOTHING from today will become a classic of tomorrow. But I don't believe for one instant that doesn't mean there aren't songs being produced today that should be heard 20 years from now. However, I don't think they are coming off of the staples of Christmas radio today, nor are they likely to come off the place holders popular recording artists put out to have a presence on the shelves at Christmas time. But though we have the Disney kids rehashing old Christmas standards for the upteenthgazillionth time I see Ingrid Michaelson on the horizon with some great original songs. I see a handful of independent compilations come out each year...compilations that you aren't going to find in Wal-Mart or Target or Best Buy...with awesome music on them that I love to hear every year. Songs I would love to see get air play, but they don't have a corporate record label behind them buying time for them on the corporate owned radio stations.

But then we get back to time and circumstance. The circumstances of the recording industry as a whole is a shifting paradigm. People predict hard physical copies of music will go the way of the Edsel. I don't know...I think even young people who are compressing all the music they can to get 8 months worth of music on one portable device are finding uncompressed music with the highs and lows present is much more preferable. Blu-Ray DVD uses uncompressed audio, and is creating a new generation of audiofiles. And that new generation of audiofiles will find a way to get their music in the best possible means necessary. For now, vinyl sales are rising again becuase of this, and I don't believe baby boomers are the only reason behind it. I believe young people are finding the value of music that's NOT in MP3 format. What goes around comes around. Now, whether or not the CD format will rise in popularity again remains to be seen. Maybe the new generation of audiofiles will create something better and more convenient and durable. Who knows. Time and circumstance.

Wait...what does this have to do with Christmas music again? Because I believe you can't have one without the other. If music as a whole fades away into kbit files compressed and compressed until it sounds like a cheap AM radio then Christmas music will also suffer as a result, and not be as popular and labels and corporations won't promote it like they once did. And tomorrows classics may never get a chance to survive. But I have hope that the new generation of audiofiles aren't just finding good music out there they want to hear preserved, but they are finding their own Christmas music out there they will want preserved. And, yes, I think time will produce more classics in the future.

As for what I personally would like to be listening to 20 years from now...well, I guess I could find a handful of examples and post them here for you. But music is such an individual experience. And I think any music I put up on this post would be a let down to some. So I will let the past year of this blog stand as an example of songs I think should be noticed 20 years from now. Granted, I try to pick out the songs that are not getting the attention on mainstream radio, so maybe they won't go on to be classics of tomorrow. But then again I don't know what circumstances we face over time. With the state of the economy and the world in what it is right now, I would say anything can happen, and I think those of you who decry that they don't write them like they used to anymore just may be surprised. At least I hope we are.

And if you read through all that text, then give yourself a Kudos bar.

Podcast #3: The My Space Episode

2008-12-11T20:35:00.006-06:00

For those of you who were following my blog last year, you may recall I posted a good number of songs I found on My Space. I even posted a compilation of some of my favorites.

There were other songs, naturally, that I never did post on my blog. And when coming up with a theme for this week's episode of the podcast, I thought back to those My Space songs and thought it would be fun to revisit some of those. Some of the songs in the podcast were previously shared in the compilation, but I trust most of them are new...at least to this blog. I am sure some of you eagle eyed Christmas music lovers may have already heard some of these songs!

But, hopefully, there is something new in this podcast for you to enjoy. Not all the songs are from My Space...I did decide to include a few tracks from other sources for a good variety, but the focus of this episode are songs found on My Space.

Podcast003: Episode Three-The My Space Episode

Playlist for Podcast 3

Left With Pictures-Did I Put A Bow On You? (My Space)
Clumsy-Roamin’ Holiday (Electric Ornaments: An Idol Records Christmas Collection)
The Holloways-It’s Christmas, It’s Christmas (My Space)

Greg Yeti and the Best Lights-Christmas Quarantine (the Liver is the Eater EP)
Summer Cats-Plastic Christmas Trees (My Space)
Lima Research Society-Santa Had an Accident (My Space)
Ross Copperman-Christmas Time (My Space)

Project 86-This Time of the Year
Reigning Sound-If Christmas Can’t Bring You Home
Noah and the Whale-To Cyril at Crunkmas
Ten Thousand Dollar Tattoo-My First Santa

Gritty Kitty-Why they Chose the North Pole (Christmas in Stereo)
Chicago Pete and the Detroiers-Christmas All Year Long
Big Dee Irwin & Little Eva-I Wish You A Merry Christmas (A John Waters Christmas)

Verve Pipe-This Christmas Time
54 40-2000 Years of Love
Simon and Garfunkle-7 O’clock News/Silent Night

NOTE...you will hear me say this is the second episode! Which it was intended to be until I recorded episode four and decided to make that the first one. Oh, well!

Also...just one more thing to add...there is somebody who emailed me not too long ago making a request...they needed one track of the Winter Warnerland CD and I seem to have deleted your email by mistake. For that, I profusely apologize. I certainly wasn't ignoring your request. My hope is you are reading this, and if you are, please email me back again.

(And, yes, I take requests! Should I do long distance dedications too?)

Christmas Is For the Animals!

2008-12-09T20:38:00.007-06:00

Keeping a bit in the theme of the Wayside Waifs CD, but not really going on so much about it in this post, I thought I would make a few themed posts that could tie in to the project and still bring you some cool Christmas music to boot!

There are a couple animal related Christmas songs on my CD..."The Cat Who Controls Christmas," "A Horse Is Not Just for Christmas," and "I Will Hold You Until You Sleep." Of course, Larry Garrett's song "Old Dogs" that finishes off the disc is about dogs, but it's not so much of a Christmas song as it is just about seeing the decline in the health of a loved furry one.

But there are, from time to time, fun animal Christmas songs out there. Some of them I just discovered (or I would have asked some of the contributing artists to cover a track or two!) and a couple of them I shared previously (such as "Lonely Pup in a Christmas Shop") and I had a couple on my podcast last week for you to enjoy as well.

But here are some new ones...

First, I want to start with a new one to me, but an oldie. How did I get through my life without hearing this song before? This could also be filed under "Lost Radio Treasures" as well, as this may have been played on the radio back in "the day" but for some reason it just doesn't get rotation on the air any more.

Ricky Zahnd & the Blue Jeaners-Something Barked on Christmas Morning

I don't know...maybe the song would have done better if they didn't have a person doing the barking and actually were able to record a real dog!

Speaking of something old that's new to me, and a song with a person barking... Here is one that could also be cross referenced under "Lost Radio Treasures" and I've been planning a "Forgotten Christmas Characters" themed post for a while now and this would certainly fit in that post as well, but for now I will share it in the animal post, because I think it's much more outstanding for being one of the rare Christmas songs to be about a dog.

Tennessee Ernie Ford-Little Klinker

The real klinker for me on that song is the grown ass man barking at the end! What is that about? Were real dogs barking hard to record back when these songs were recorded?

There is a newer song about a similar topic, recorded in 2006. I found this song on You Tube, and while it is a newer song, the recording is decidely low-fi. But I think it's a decent song, and worth sharing here for this themed post.

Martin Metcalfe-Santa's Dog

Ok, I know, I've been playing a few dog songs and the cat lovers out there are wondering where their cat Christmas songs are! I haven't forgotten you!

From the Cwistmas Twee compilation...

Colin Clary-Meow Meow

I haven't been able to track down as many oldie cat Christmas songs, but here is one goody from the Marty Gold Children's Chorus...

Marty Gold Children's Chorus-The Kitty Ate the Tinsel on the Christmas Tree

It makes me wonder what the kitty will cough up later on if they eat all that tinsel! But at least it won't be cat hairballs...

Ren and Stimpy-Cat Hairballs

From Canada we have a more modern cat carol...and a bit of a sad song at that...just so you are warned.

Meryn Cadell-The Cat Carol

That makes me wonder if Christmas is indeed safe for animals...

Of Montreal-Christmas Isn't Safe for the Animals

After all the dog and cat songs, there are others...Christmas donkeys for example...but I would like to share one more animal song I found. And this goes out to one of my followers...it's not a parakeet song, but at least it's a Christmas song about a bird! Maybe the bird isn't a parakeet, but if they ever do make a parakeet Christmas song I will be sure to post it here!

Red Coffee Quaky the Singing Duck-Ducky Christmas

That comes from an online compilation I downloaded back in 2006 called Holiday Freakin. (It doesn't look like anything Christmas related is on that site today, however...) Another track from that compilation isn't so overtly about animals, but the last bit is a decent Christmas message for our furry friends.

Alain Marcoux-Noel Jai Mal Au Coeur

Wow...there actually turns out to be a good handful of animal Christmas songs out there! And I do know there's more...quite a few more. But these are just the ones that came to my mind first when I thought of this post.

If you enjoy these animal Christmas songs, then by all means pick up the Wayside Waifs CD! It's available either as a physical CD or a download...which ever you prefer! And I did have a few sales since yesterday! Thanks to all who ordered! It is appreciated!

Wayside Waifs CD Update

2008-12-08T17:58:00.005-06:00

Ok, I am going to post my CD updates here. The main reason is because I want the sale of the CD at my Wayside Waifs blog to remain at the top of the page when people visit the page. Also, I wanted to bring more attention to the project here. A good number of my faithful readers have purchased a copy already, but a good number of you have not. That could be George Bush's fault for making the economy turn out the way it has, or it could be I just haven't promoted it enough here. And I feel The Twelve Months of Christmas gets considerable amount of traffic, and many of you viewing this post probably never knew I had a CD available of Christmas music.

Or at least I am going to go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt.

I mentioned earlier that I would be at Wayside Waifs on Saturday the 6th selling the CD with my faithful pooch by my side, and that's exactly what I did. Here I am with my dog:

It wasn't exactly a prime locale...not right by the main doors where people came in and out all day, but it was the first table (after the coffee) people saw as they headed down the hall to get their pet's pictures taken with Santa Claus. But I had a fair amount of traffic, and all in all that day I sold 6 CDs. I thought I would sell more, so maybe the sales slump from this site has spilled over to Wayside Waifs!

They did keep 25 copies there to sell off, so hopefully all goes good with that. Larry Garrett was also there to help out for a bit, and he took this picture. He also contributed a song to the CD, called "Old Dogs." He played a show that evening at Latteland and took 5 copies. He sold 4 of the 5.

So, total sales so far, as of today: 38. That's not counting the 25 Wayside took to sell, of course. 63 would be a decent number to report, but I don't know how fair it is to count those as sold quite yet. I am trusting they will sell.

So, if you haven't ordered your copy yet, I encourage you to do so. All the money made off of this CD will go to benefit Wayside Waifs of Kansas City, and I don't just feel it's an important enough project to interrupt this "regularly scheduled blog" for this post, but I also feel it's a fine CD, a damn fine CD. I am not just saying that because I produced it, either. I feel the artists that contributed brought their A game. They didn't just record something for the sake of recording it and moving on to the next project. You can tell they put time and effort into their music. And it's an eclectic collection and, while I like every song, I don't believe everybody will like every song. But I think there's something on there for everybody. At least for everybody I think would dig buying a CD like this.

And ten dollars? There's not too many ten dollar CDs around like this, folks. Even online...I've seen a few other Christmas charity CDs being sold for more than that. I realize the economy is in the dog house, but ten bucks for a disc of nearly 80 minutes of music? Not too shabby at all, even in an economic slump.

And I know how many times my most popular MP3s have downloaded from this blog. #1 was downloaded 2674 times when I looked this morning. A song I put up can have a hundred hits in no time at all before a day or two is completed. So I know this site gets traffic, which is why I am plugging this here. By contrast, the number of times the song samples I have on my Wayside Waifs blog were downloaded is about 50 times. So 50 times....38 sales...wow...just imagine if I had that same percentage of the 2600+ that view this site buying the CD! Come on, people!

So you understand why I am spending just a bit more time promoting the Wayside Waifs CD here. And I think I am beginning how those NPR people feel during their pledge drives!

The links to buy the CD are right near the top, to the right of my post. I look forward to your order!

Thank you for reading and listening...and buying!

Podcast #2-Mixed Bag Episode

2008-12-04T19:49:00.004-06:00

If this podcast seems more like an introduction, it was the first one I recorded. Which made episode one last week actually the fourth one I recorded so that's why I decided to throw the Star Wars reference in the title last week.

Today I decided to take as a diverse collection of music I could think of and compile it into one episode. As I make my podcasts, I often have a set list in mind when I begin but as I start searching through my collection as the podcast progresses, it often takes on a mind of it's own. This is such an episode. I hope you enjoy!

Podcast002-Episode Two: Mixed Bag Episode

Playlist:

The Accelerators-Christmas is a Pain in the Arse

Monty Python-Christmas in Heaven

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass-The Bell that Wouldn’t Jingle

Jack Hayter-Balloons

Jack Hayter-All To Do In Wagin

Laakso-Merry Christmas

The Duloks-Bad Vegetarian

Fountain-Shout For Trout At Christmas Dinner

Goddakk vs. JM-A Winter Rhythm In You

Remora-O Come O Come Emmanuel

Firefox AK & Tiger Lou-Christmas Eve

Elvis-Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees

Brazos Valley Boys-Gonna Wrap My Heart in Ribbons

The Bobby McGee’s-God Save the Queen’s Speech

Ray Saporita-Sixty-Seven Santas

Gayla Peevey-77 Santas

The Bobs-Too Many Santas

Adam Faith-Lonely Pup in a Christmas Shop

The Eels-Christmas is Going to the Dogs

Also, just an update on the Wayside Waifs Charity CD...the first week it's been available has been a good week. While I certainly wish I had more sales (it wouldn't bother me one bit to come home from work to see I had 20 orders or more!) what I have had has been good. So for those of you who have purchased the CD, I hope you enjoy and I certainly hope you spread the word! And if you haven't purchased it yet, just keep in mind the donations you make for the CD goes to benefit Wayside Waifs, I am not profiting from this CD at all. It's all for a good cause, and it's a great collection! And I am not just saying that because I produced it!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Low-Fi

2008-12-03T22:08:00.002-06:00

Ah, low-fi music. I just have a soft spot in my heart for those songs...often homemade, DIY artists of varying talent, but always very interesting results.

Of course, since most of it was released on cassette tape back in "the day," a lot of it is hard to come by these days. But some has not only survived the passing of time, there are still artists and people who have taken the home recording cassette scene to a new level and are recording through email and file downloads.

But, first, I am going to revisit some of the greats from the cassette culture era.

Don Campau is one of the main artists of this genre, with a recording career that spans back to 1970. He is the founder of Lonely Whistle Records and also hosts a radio show called No Pigeonholes. While he did contribute a new track to the Wayside Waifs Charity CD, he is certainly no stranger to Christmas music (though he has told me in the past he hates Christmas music!) and produced a compilation of Christmas music for Lonely Whistle back in 1986. While I don't have a direct link for that compilation, there is a comp from Norway that features many of the same tracks.

Don was kind enough to share with me a CD copy of his compilation, and I do know that there are a few of the artists on there who may not want their music shared online. But I am sure Don is fine with it...he's been a friend of this blog and a supporter of the Wayside CD since I told him about it... so I am going to share with you some of the early Christmas tunes from that compilation.

Don Campau-Drummer Boy/Do You Hear?

Ken Clinger is also another one who's influence on the home recording scene dates back more than a quarter century and aside from his vast body of work he's personally put out he's contributed to many projects and collaborated with various artists in his career. It was sure an honor when he decided to contribute (and collaborate) to the Wayside Waifs CD! But I found that these were not the first Christmas songs he collaborated on. Back in 1986 he had two songs on the Lonely Whistle compilation, one solo and one he did as a collaboration. I would like to share those with you today.

Ken Clinger-Astounded by Snow

Ellen Miz Elle & Ken Clinger-Jingle Bells

While we are honoring those who have been mainstays in the home recording scene, I have to give a nod to Ray Carmen, who also contributed to the Wayside Waifs CD with "Jingle Bell Rock." But Ray recently released a Christmas cover on his My Space page that just blew my socks off. I wrote to him and said I wish he had included that song for the Wayside CD, not that I had any problems with "Jingle Bell Rock," but I simply just love what he did with this song. Yoko Ono would be proud...

Ray Carmen-Listen the Snow is Falling

In my quest for some goodies online by artists from the cassette culture era, I did find a few goodies I would also like to share with you, goodies that I believe capture the spirit of the cassette culture in a modern setting.

Tapehiss Recordings is the first I found. Started as a means for Scott Carr to release his solo work, it has gone on include a few more acts. Hot Buttered Elves is one of the acts included on the label and I am astounded by what I have heard so far and will certainly seek out more of their work.

This comes from Tapehiss Recording's My Space page so I credited the song to Tapehiss Recordings but it appears that this song is actually by Hot Buttered Elves.

Tapehiss Recordings-That Winter Mood

Hot Buttered Elves is a collaboration between artists from both sides of America, collaborating over the Internet. The results are perhaps some of the best Christmas music being released today. They have a number of recordings available on CD Baby, and I have to say this is perhaps some of the best work I've found on CD Baby.

Here is their single they released on My Space...

Hot Buttered Elves-A Winter Perfect Moon

Last, but not least, is an oddity that I just randomly found while not deliberately looking for it. In fact, I can't even recall how I found it, but it was at bomb-MP3. It had that home made feel to it that I felt was fitting for this post.

Colleen Af Venable And Annie Sanders-A Very Fluffy Christmas

And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you to BUY a copy of my Wayside Waifs CD! It's available as a CD or a download! Please click on the links to the right of the screen for more details. ALL the money made off the CD goes to benefit Wayside Waifs. I am not profiting at all from this, folks, and nobody involved is even getting a free copy of the CD! Heck, I even bought my own copy, so be sure to get yours TODAY!

Thank you ever so kindly, I appreciate you reading and listening.

Lost radio treasures

2008-12-01T18:43:00.003-06:00

This blog was started to showcase songs that may not get airplay but should in a perfect world. Naturally, we have navigated into some territory that most radio stations would NEVER touch, but hey, it's been a fun journey nonetheless.

I am reminded from time to time that there are songs that were once played on the radio quite a bit but, for some reason or another, just didn't have the staying power of some of the standards. And this coming week I am going to focus on some of those songs.

Now, I must let you know I am not from the era that these songs would have been popular on the radio. I don't have access to the playlists of radio stations of years gone by, and I can only surmise that these did get air play in their day. Perhaps they were extremely popular, perhaps they were one hit Holiday wonders. Regardless, you don't really hear these songs much these days anymore. And I often wonder why.

First up, a request and also one of my personal favorites. And perhaps the inspiration for this themed post. I shared this track previously last year on this blog, but that link has long since expired.

Brenda Lee-I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus

Brenda Lee always gets air play to this day with "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree," which is a great track in of itself, and I don't think any version of that song has come close to touching Brenda's version. After all these years, her take on "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" reigns supreme in my book. But this was before then, recorded when she was nine, and it's as every bit as great as "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" in my book. It's a cute song, though I still wonder why she feels she can do a better job than Santa Claus! But if anybody can give Santa a run for his money, I'd place my bets on Brenda Lee!

When these songs played on the radio, I imagine both Elvis and the Beatles vied for top spot on the Billboard charts. It certainly wouldn't be long before somebody tried to capitalize on that success with their own Christmas songs, and sure enough, that great era of radio delivers.

Cindy Rella-Bring Me A Beatle for Christmas

Marlene Paula-I Want To Spend Christmas with Elvis

I don't think Marlene received the news, though...Linda Hughes has some bad news...

Linda Hughes-Elvis Won't Be Here For Christmas

Since we are rocking around the Christmas tree with these songs, let's take rock around once with Santa Claus...

The Hepsters-Rockin' 'n' Rollin' With Santa Claus

Ok, so maybe the Beatles and Elvis aren't what they used to be, so they don't play those songs on the radio, but I am not buying it. Elvis is the highest ranked money maker who is dead. The Beatles will always be popular. And who doesn't like good ol' rock and roll? It amazes me why these songs don't see air play these days on the radio. While I am glad we have what standards we have, songs like this, and more I will bring you this week, really makes me ponder all the more why the 24 hour Christmas radio stations seemed intent to repeat the same songs several times a day.

Wayside Waifs CD UP FOR SALE!!!

2008-11-29T14:49:00.003-06:00

Some of my faithful readers were quick eyed and already saw I posted the CD for sale on my Wayside Waifs blog already. I am VERY GRATEFUL for the early orders that came in, even before I had all the bugs worked out of the system! Rest assured, each order received before I set up the online store will be out in the mail ASAP! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I placed three orders for myself through the online store I set up...two physical copies and a download (so, yeah, basically I just donated money to Wayside Waifs since I didn't need to download it!) and it worked like a charm for me. If anybody gets any trouble with the online store please let me know at TheToneKing@comcast.net. Just add "store problems" in the subject line so I can promptly address it.

So, for those of you who are new to my blog and are checking me out for the first time this year, the short of it is this: I decided early 2008 that I wanted to compile a CD of holiday music to benefit Wayside Waifs and I contacted several artists and solicited material for the CD, and the final result is now here and available to buy! The long of it can be found at my Wayside Waifs blog.

Click on either Wayside Waifs blog link to buy, or click on the image in my profile picture to go to the page to buy it!

For right now, this CD is available exclusively through me. I will be at Wayside Waifs on December 6th from noon-3pm to sell copies at their Holiday Open House! I am really excited for that opportunity! Also Larry Garrett and some of the local musicians involved will be selling copies at their Christmas shows and I am crossing my fingers that Wayside Waifs will be linking the CD for sale on their main page and well...all kinds of good stuff to come!

Also, a marketing rep wrote up a press release about the CD to send to the Kansas City Star and elsewhere, so hopefully this CD project will get a decent amount of word of mouth!

Just a few changes from what I said about the project earlier: the main one is I scrapped the idea of using CD Baby. It might have helped in the sales...send a ton of copies to them and let them handle it all, but the bottom line for scrapping them was the cost. $35.00 to set it up and then $4.00 for each CD sold and I forget exactly how much they take for each download, but a small percentage of that as well. Or, I could use E Junkie, which is FAR cheaper and doesn't take money from me for each transaction, and provided me with a free trial (how cheap is that!) so CD Baby would have meant less money going to the charity or I could use E Junkie and get the most amount of money for the charity? Well, it was a no brainer once I realized I could use E Junkie.

And my friend Caleb (who provided me with a wee bit of advice on how to start this project) uses them to sell his charity album. Be sure to pick up his as well over at It's Hard to Find a Friend. I gotta give him a shout out because he is the one who helped me realize that this sort of thing could even be possible.

Podcast #1-Episode One: The Phantom Blogger

2008-11-27T08:59:00.004-06:00

I mentioned in earlier posts that I was preparing Christmas podcasts for this year. In addition to that, I do have some themed posts in mind to bring you even more fun, and you should see the stack of Christmas CDs and LPs waiting to be ripped to MP3 sitting by my computer! There is apparently no shortage of Christmas goodies to bring to you! And I JUST placed another order with amazon.com when I saw two CDs I've been wanting for quite some time were finally back in stock (and it said only THREE WERE LEFT! ORDER NOW! What else was I supposed to do?)

Which is why I am glad to put together these podcasts for you. It provides me with an opportunity to give to you a good selection of music in a "radio" setting. These podcasts are samples of how I would run a Christmas music program on the radio (so if any DJs/programming directors are out there reading, hire me to host a Christmas special for your radio station! I provide all my own music!) So if you're already tired of the same revolving playlists on the radio, this podcast may help alleviate some of that.

Also, I can't promise this year I will be able to post EVERY day. With the Wayside Waifs CD going on, I may be busier this year so that's another reason I decided to create these podcasts.

Podcast001-Episode One: the Phantom Blogger

Playlist (links provided to the CD/album if they are available online to order):

Konie-Oh Yeah, It’s Christmas (Oh No…It’s Christmas)
Rosemarie Clooney- C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S (the First Christmas Record for Children)
The Medical Mission Sisters-No Longer Alone (Gold, Incense and Myrrh)
Evan Pretti and the Central Moravian Church Choir-Morning Star (PHC Xmas special 2007)

Fleet Foxes-White Winter Hymnal (self titled)
The Weavers-Burgundian Carol (We Wish You A Merry Christmas)
Momus-Little Lord Obedience (World In Winter)

Suburban Kids with Biblical Names-Jullaten 2004 (Oh No…It’s Christmas)
Five for Fighting-Policeman’s Xmas Party (Two Lights)
Centro Matic-Fuselage (It’s Starting to Look Like Christmas Once Again) (Electric Ornaments)
Bathing Beauty-Christmas Tears (Holiday Freak In)

Terry Anderson & the O A K Team-Santa Had a Wreck (Have a Holly Raleigh Christmas)
Chatham County Line-O Santa! (Redeye Christmas)
5 Chinese Brothers-Rockin’ in the Manger (A Window Shopper’s Christmas)
C.W. Stoneking-On a Christmas Day (My Space)
Victoria Spivey-Christmas Morning Blues (I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus)
Divide and Kreate-Velvet Santa (Santastic III in 3-D)
Ella Fitzgerald-Sleigh Ride (Cool December)
Richard Gills-CB Santa (1976 single)

Wayside Waifs CD update

2008-11-22T10:39:00.003-06:00

OK, for those of you checking to see when the CD will be available....I spoke to a rep at Mixonic and they informed me I should have the package no later than FRIDAY. So I am hoping to spend Thanksgiving night getting it set up for you all to make your orders online through me!

The availability of the digital download at CD Baby will be a short while later...I have to send them copies of the CD first, obviously, before they can get the songs up for download.

So, yeah...it will be SOON! I am looking forward to getting copies of the CD and getting the copies out to YOU!

Cyndi Lauper and The Hives: Christmas Duel

2008-11-22T10:27:00.003-06:00

Another shout out for you all: be sure you download this track for FREE from NOV 28th-30th at The Hives Broadcasting Service. It will be available online for purchase after Dec 2nd if you miss the free download.

Project 86: This Time of the Year

2008-11-22T09:48:00.006-06:00

I know I mentioned previously that Project 86 had a new Christmas EP coming out, but I wanted to take some time and remind you all that it is coming out! The release date is Nov 25th, but a copy fell into my hot little hands yesterday and I just got around to listening to it this morning, and it is FANTASTIC!

Anybody who knows me knows I like a wide variety of entertainment. While some people may just focus on one genre of movies, or one genre of TV, or even one genre of music, I like a wide variety in my life. When people see I own movies like foreign art films, David Lynch, some more "high brow" type movies then I go out and buy a copy of "Dude, Where's My Car?" they tell me I'm hard to figure out.

That is the way I am with my music. The same day I got this new Project 86 EP I also received my copy of Kristin Chenoweth's new Christmas CD A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas. I am willing to bet dollars and donuts that most people wouldn't buy these two CDs together. In fact, the CDs Amazon.com lists as frequently bought with Kristin's CD are NOT hard rock Christmas CDs. Imagine that.

Maybe you are one of those folks who likes a wide variety of Christmas music. Or maybe you just want some good Christmas ROCK music this year to add to your stocking. If you are one of those then by all means make it a point to pick up Project 86's This Time of the Year this year.

The music on the entire EP is just as incredible as the title track, which I shared on here last year. This was one of my My Space finds last year, and I offered up the title track on my My Space collection as well. I guarantee I am NOT going to be posting MP3s from this EP any time soon. There are sites selling the MP3s, so you can find samples online, but the style of the songs are consistent through out.

My first impressions on the other tracks:

2) Wrought on this Holiday Eve: You know when you get a CD and the track that the band released to hook you in was really good and then you find the other tracks on the CD just are not that good? That is SO not the case here. Busting out of the gate, bursting through the doors, breaking down any disappointments that might have been after the fantastic title track, this song comes in with both barrels firing, blazing a fresh and new path of Christmas music. It's a song about an "other reindeer," this time Dasher. And who knew a song about Dasher could be so incredibly cool.

3) Shiny Skin: You can hear this song on their My Space page. A rocking tune, but I am not hearing the Christmas references in this song on the first listen. A great song, but I have to say not quite as impressive as the first two. That's OK...I don't dig every track even on my most favorite CDs.

4) Misfit Toys: Any thoughts that this EP was running out of steam after the first two powerhouse songs are dispelled when this comes around on the CD. Just as rocking as the previous tracks, this song manages to create another great Christmas original that I know will be in rotation in my personal MP3 collection.

5) What Child?: Well, I guess you had to have a familiar Christmas song on the EP. I know from putting my own compilation together that there seems to be a consensus among folks that if you don't have some familiar titles of songs on your CD, people won't want to buy it. I don't know...is that true? I think this CD would have sold just as well without this track, and perhaps even with another great rocking track of original music. But this is what it is: a cover version of What Child is This. Rather obligatory, and instrumental at that. While they incorporate elements of their style into the song, for this hardened Christmas music vet, I have to say this is my least favorite track on the disc. Sorry, guys, but this won't be ripped to my MP3 library. Cool track, but not essential.

I also wanted to add that the title track sounds INCREDIBLE on this CD. I would highly recommend getting the CD over a digital download, as the MP3 of the same song from last year shows the limitations of the MP3 format. You can really hear the remarkable difference in the music from the MP3 released last year to the track on the CD. I don't know if they remastered it, or if hearing it in uncompressed audio made that much of a difference, but if the difference from MP3 to uncompressed CD is that remarkable, then by all means I suggest the CD over a digital download.

So, I guess in light of that, I would give this CD a solid FOUR out of FIVE stars. The tracks that deliver deliver great. I think "Shiny Skin" kind of distracts from the rest of the CD, but is a good track on it's own. However, ending the CD with a instrumental cover version took a star away from the review.

In the end, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Buy yours today!

There is no CD booklet, no liner notes, no lyrics. The CD cover is clear with a sticker of the cover art on the clear plastic. The art is a line image that allows you to see the CD underneath. The image of the Santa with the screaming children reminds me of my "Last Christmas Record for Children" cover!

Charity CD news and a song

2008-11-14T16:31:00.007-06:00

I posted a news update for the CD on my Wayside Waifs blog, so be sure to CHECK IT OUT!

I know many of you are wondering when the CD will be available, and the answer is soon...at least by Thanksgiving!

Ethan Waters was gracious to submit a track to the compilation CD, but it wasn't newly recorded for this compilation. I believe this was a single in his homeland of New Zealand, but I am glad to have it on the compilation nonetheless. But I saw on his My Space page the other day he has a different Christmas track up! I wanted to contact him to see if he would let me use this on the compilation instead, but I really didn't have the time, and I am quite happy to have his Christmas single to offer on the comp. However, that doesn't stop me from sharing his other Christmas song here! I am liking the work I hear from this guy...here is to hoping he's a long time friend of this blog! (You can also view the music video for his Christmas single on his My Space page!)

Ethan Waters-Winter Smile

Announcing the Wayside Waifs Charity CD

2008-11-03T19:46:00.004-06:00

Faithful readers of this blog will know I've been working on compiling tracks for a CD to raise money for Wayside Waifs. The CD is featuring holiday tracks by independent/unsigned bands, most of which are new and/or previously unreleased. Some artists were unable to record new tracks and showed their support by providing existing tracks. Not everything submitted could make the cut...there were quality issues with some tracks, other tracks just did not seem to fit in with the rest of the mix, and some of the previously released tracks were removed from the compilation to make room for the new tracks artists were able to provide.

This CD will be available for purchase soon directly from me or online at CD Baby, both in physical format and as a download. 100% of the proceeds will go to the charity of the Wayside Waifs of Kansas City. In the coming weeks, I will also be talking to the fine folks at Wayside Waifs to sell the CD in their lobby and also to promote through local TV, as Wayside Waifs has some spots on the local news channels. A few stores in the area look like likely candidates to sell physical copies as well directly to folks. More details will be posted as I know them.

Your Christmas will be complete now...the tracks are in, the final selections have been made. Here is the official track list:

EDIT: TRACK LISTING UPDATED 11/14/08!

1) ShiSho-Christmas Bells
2) Zen Doggies-Oh Santa
3) Don Campau-It's That Time of Year Again
4) Ray Carmen-Jingle Bell Rock
5) Lord of the Yum Yum-Ukrainian Bell Choir
6) What About Frogs-The Cat Who Controls Christmas
7) The Harvey Girls-Christmas Time Is Here
8) Thee Majesty-I Like the Holidays
9) Fireflies-Xmas Song (new version recorded for this compilation!)
10) Matthias Rowe-A Different Scarf
11) Ken Clinger-I'm Coming Home For Christmas This Year
12) Rick Malsick-Joseph's Song
13) Euchrid Eucrow-A Horse Is Not Just for Christmas
14) John Mitchell-The Reason for the Season
15) R. Stevie Moore-The Reason for the Season
16) Zen Doggies-Goodbye Christmas
17) Mercurial Rage-It's Christmas
18) Ethan Waters-5AM Christmas Pawn Groove
19) Worm is Green-Jólaljósin
20) Matthias Rowe-Northern Lights
21) Ken Clinger-I Will Hold You Until You Sleep
22) Larry Garrett-Old Dogs

I will keep you updated on when the CD is ready for sale, and when it is available to purchase for download. It should be soon.

Twelve Months of Christmas Halloween Special

2008-10-31T17:51:00.009-05:00

Halloween is a SCARY time of year, right kids? Yet it seems that the scariest time of year is Christmas! Think about it: how many kids do you see cry at the silly Halloween decorations we put up? Do they lose it and have childhood trauma over pumpkins? Now, how many kids do you see cry in frantic terror at the stranger posing as Santa? I see more cries, more screams, come Christmas time.

Which makes Halloween a perfect day to celebrate Christmas! And, surprisingly, there are some great Christmas tracks out there that qualify for a nice Halloween Special! And I compiled those tracks into a very special podcast, hosted by yours truly!

Play it after dark, but keep the lights on!!!

The Twelve Months of Christmas Halloween Special

(Rated T for teen. There might be a naughty word or two in one or two of the tracks.)

And I can't promise this will be an annual tradition...there's not too many Halloween Christmas songs out there!

Christmas on 45 part 7

2008-10-27T20:35:00.002-05:00

This is the final installment of this series.

48) Freddie Jackson-Christmas Forever

Pure 80's pop here, right out of the Billy Ocean style. This comes from an EMI Records 45 released for "Jukeboxes Only!" It says it right on the label! This is also available on the CD compilation, "Give Love on Christmas."

49) Danny Tate-Lovin' Little Christmas

This is the flip side of the jukebox 45 from EMI.

50) Space Negros-Jingle Hell
51) Space Negros-We Wish You A Lousy Xmas
52) Space Negros-Deck the Halls
53) Space Negros-Silent Fright

These four tracks are from one 45 record, "Have a Lousy Xmas." I tracked down a original copy of the 45 online, but these songs have been released elsewhere over the years. I have another LP in my collection with all four of these tracks on it (also called "Have a Lousy Xmas." They really thought a lot of that name, didn't they?) and also on the CD "The Dark Side of the Christmas Tree." (I see now that the CD I just linked to and the LP record I referenced are indeed one and the same...not sure why the CD release of the LP didn't use the same LP name and record cover...you gotta love it when these songs get repackaged! I am sure they love it when it fools collectors like me who think they are finding something new and it turns out to be repackaged songs!)

To close...and certainly something completely different from what we've heard so far...

54) Becky Lamb-Go to Sleep Little Lambs

A beautiful song to close off any collection. Just not exactly sure in retrospect how well this fits in after a Space Negros set, but hey...

And, just a reminder, this is the last week I am taking submissions for the Wayside Waifs Charity CD! I can honestly say this collection is really coming along very, very well. I am excited to bring this to you this year, not only to contribute something to the Christmas music world that I love, but also to contribute something for homeless dogs and cats. I was driving to the store the other day and I saw a dead dog on the side of the road, no collar. It seems when it gets cold out jackasses have to let their dogs go and let them off on the side of the road. (I doubt it was a stray from a pup.) I realize my collection won't be able to save all those dogs from jerk owners, but every little bit helps. And gas prices are heading down, so you got a few extra spending dollars to pick up the CD! And a few extra copies to give out as presents! Keep your eye on this site for an announcement soon on how to get your copy.

Til' next time, thank you for reading and listening!

Too Soon For Christmas Music?

2008-10-22T20:08:00.004-05:00

No music postings today (sorry, folks...I just spent the last couple days dealing with a nasty virus/spyware on my computer! THANKFULLY everything is safe as far as my personal files go, including all the files for the Wayside Waifs CD. It nearly turned into a disaster! YIKES!) but I've been perusing online for Christmas music, as I often do. And, yes, people do post Christmas songs all year long elsewhere...not just like I do here...but good original music can be found any time of the year.

Which brings me to today's post...I burned a CD of Christmas music to listen to at work, and somebody thought they were playing Christmas music on the radio! I laughed to myself, not correcting them, letting them find it so hard to believe that a radio station would be playing Christmas music this early.

But, lo and behold, a radio station out there IS playing Christmas music this early! They started on the 10th of October! This has to be a record for the station to switch to an all Christmas format this early!

River Front Times is reporting that "Moving 101.1 FM" is switching formats at the end of the year so they figured what the Holly Heck! Let's start the Christmas format early this year! Most of the listeners HATE IT, but a few are LOVING IT! Hey, just as long as they mix up the play list in their last days I bet it's gotta be good!

And Clear Channel is reporting that haters of Christmas music just as well better get over themselves! It's going to be EARLY for a lot of radio stations, it seems! YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!

So, dear readers, when does your local station go all Christmas? Keep us updated! Discuss in the comments!

Christmas on 45 part 6

2008-10-17T18:24:00.006-05:00

With talk in the weather forecast tonight of our first frost and snow falling not so far from where I live, it's getting easier and easier to get in the Christmas mood! And I've even seen Christmas commercials already! Wow...it's coming fast, folks!

39) Wayne Champion-Merry Yuletide Day
40) Wayne Champion-It's Xmas Time

I am not exactly sure what year these are from (and I am am not exactly sure what it was about the vinyl singles industry that didn't feel a need to put DATES on their products!) and I can't find much about this record/artist on Google. But I can say with certainty that I found this record during my summer buying, and this is on Invictus Records. Based on that information, this record was put out sometime between 1969-1972. This music has an older feel to it, yet somehow it feels timeless.

41) Merv Griffin-Christmas City
42) Merv Griffin-The Song of the Christmas City

Can you believe this was listed more than once on Ebay? Some fool let the first auction go with NO bids! Lucky for me when I found it! This was put out by WDSM, a talk radio station in Duluth, MN. So it was not only fun for me to find a great Christmas treasure on 45, but also a treat to find something from my old stomping grounds of Minnesota! And to find this music so soon after Merv's passing... RIP Merv.

Merv also has a Christmas album released in Canada (which I'd like to get a hold of) if anybody ever feels like setting up a trade of CDs/files...

43) Camille-Snowbelle
44) Camille-White Christmas

Now for something completely different... As far as I know, this is NOT the femme persona of Prince Rogers Nelson (otherwise previously known as the Symbol.) This Camille comes several years before Prince decided to do his version of the Chipmunks...1979 to be exact, on EMI Records. This actually comes from a 12 inch record, but it's played at 45 RPM, so it counts for this compilation!

45) Billy Jackson and the Citizen Band-Have a Happy Christmas

Another 12 inch record played at 45 RPM. I see as I pull out the record that the track is actually called "Have a Happy Christmas (Twas the Night Before Christmas." This was released in 1983 on Partytime Records.

46) Blondie-Yuletide Throwdown (Rapture)

This comes from a flexidisc in Flexipop magazine (which released a number of flexidiscs, but I am not sure how many Christmas flexis...I've seen bootleg CDs available compiling these flexis but don't want to part with my money like a fool as the listings for the sale items never list the tracks). I actually shared this first early on in the first days of this blog, but that link is long expired. Now is the time for you new comers to enjoy this once again.

47) Society Threat-It's Christmas, Yes It Is

You may see a pattern...we are progressing in time as we go through these Christmas 45s. This one comes from 1988. Rare and hard to come by...I believe I found this one on Ebay.

Well, I gotta save the last ones for one more post!

I do have to say I was shocked...really, seriously shocked...when I looked at the previous post and saw it was posted October 3rd. Man, it doesn't seem like two weeks ago I last posted here. What the heck fire was I doing last week?

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know of my work on the Wayside Waifs Charity CD...I have 14 tracks so far for this project, with more coming. It's going to be an exciting project, so any time lost here is well made up with work on this project. Remember to buy your copy when it comes out, buy extras to give a way as presents! Keep in mind I don't get any money off of it, the artists involved don't get any money off of it, nobody gets any money off of it...all the proceeds go to help charity. Watch this space for details!

Also...last, but not least...this is long overdue. Here is a new site for you all to check out. Watchful eyes on this site have already seen this posted in the comments of part one of this compilation, but it's well nigh time I put a link on here and add it to my favorite links on this site.

Christmas Music For Your Listening Pleasure

It's an excellent resource for Christmas music! I see some great information on here about releases I never knew about! It's just one more thing that helps those of us who love Christmas music to find even more music we love!

Thank you for reading and listening!

Christmas on 45 part 5

2008-10-03T18:56:00.006-05:00

I betcha this one was going to be only four parts like the previous ones! Well, remember...I have a whopping 54 tracks to share with you for this compilation, so hang in there...we will get through it!

31) Voices of the Little Flower-Christmas all Year 'Round
32) Voices of the Little Flower-Little Pine Tree

This was put out by Decca records, but I am uncertain of the year. I know I've shared side A before on this blog, but both sides are mighty fine.

33) Bubber Johnson-It's Christmas Time
34) Bubber Johnson-Let's Make Everyday a Christmas Day

If my old man fuzzy memory serves me properly, this is one of my Minneapolis record show acquisitions. So the dollar I paid for it can forgive the scratchy sound here, but I see some better condition copies for sale now and then so perhaps one day I will pick up a new copy of this. I rather enjoy these tracks. From Complimentary King Records, year unknown.

35) Lowell Fulson-The Original Lonesome Christmas (pts. 1&2)

In his day, Lowell was a formidable force in R&B during the 40's and 50's. Most Christmas songs seem to be footnotes in an artist's discography, but this is one track (among others) for which Lowell is fondly remembered. A very strong piece of work here! I edited both sides of this 45 together into one track. I have located this on CD, but haven't acquired the CD yet...it will eventually be mine as I expand my collection. But for now enjoy those warm vinyl sounds (through digital compression, that is....) I am sure it was recorded during the height of his career during the period previously mentioned...I believe around 1950.

36) Lee Jackson & the Cadillac Baby Specials-Christmas Song
37) Clyde Lasley & the Cadillac Baby Specials-Santa Came Home Drunk

Fitting right in with the current style of songs we've been hearing...From Bea and Baby Records. I have the Clyde Lasley song on CD (Bummed Out Christmas) but I can honestly say I think I prefer the audio quality of my own MP3 made from the original 45.

38) The Cameos-New Years Eve

This 45 certainly has seen some better days. It sounded worse until I cleaned it up! I shared side A of this single in part one of this compilation.

Well, that gets us through some of the doo-wop/R&B sounds of the 50's...I hope you enjoyed today's installment.

And once again I apologize for the sporadic posting of this continuing comp...I realized today I totally missed the post last week, for which I say "sorry" but for good reason...I am continuing work on the Wayside Waifs compilation.

And, just for a thank you gift to my dedicated readers, here's a preview track...consider it an "advance single." This song was penned by yours truly (I wrote the lyrics), with music and vocals by Ken Clinger, who is a rock in the foundation of the home taping/DIY scene...a genuine pathfinder of independent music who deserves to be on the same lips that utter names such as Daniel Johnston and R. Stevie Moore (and how many of you are going, "WHO????" Tell the truth!) Ken's been recording since 1983 and certainly has never received his full due, but one day I am confident he will get more attention for his music. This is a start...

Ken Clinger (with lyrics by The Tone King!)-I'm Coming Home For Christmas This Year

I'm not sure how long I will leave this track up, so get it while the getting is good! I wanted to give something extra to my readers. So...as usual...thank you for reading and listening!

EDIT: Ok, I took the link for the Ken Clinger track down! I admit...it was arbitrary...I really just put it up to give a sneak preview to the charity CD to my faithful readers and I saw a good number downloaded it, so I thought it was time to take it back down, the intended audience got it already. I hope those of you who got it enjoyed it! If you missed it, it will be released soon on the Wayside Waifs Charity CD! Purchase your copy...watch this site for more details later...as the purchase goes to help a good cause!

Christmas on 45 part 4

2008-09-23T18:33:00.004-05:00

24) Lila Lou-We're Gettin' Pa a Brand New Still For Christmas

John Denver and Lowell Lundstrom don't want their daddies drunk for Christmas but not so much for Lila Lou...get paw liquored up for the holidays! YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWWW!!! This little treasure was put out on MBS records and is credited to Lila Lou and her Country Folks. I am unsure on the year.

25) Sonny James-Barefoot Santa Claus

A friend to this site, musicalfruitcake.com, featured this song on their site sometime last year. Truthfully, I have to take exception to the classification of this being the worst of Christmas music. As soon as I dropped this on my record player, I was rather amused by the track. Certainly, it's not going to make any of us scratch our heads and wonder why this isn't the modern day "Frosty the Snowman," but it's a decent song nonetheless.

My classifications for the worst of Christmas music may differ slightly from our friends at musicalfruitcake. Maybe one day I will post the worst I have...but I am thinking of much more modern examples, such as Jewel, Mary Kate and Ashley, Hillary Duff....

26) Sonny James-My Christmas Dream

So even if you were already familiar with Barefoot Santa Claus from musicalfuitcake.com, here is the flip side. A pretty decent song by itself, too. This single was put out by Capitol Records in 1966.

27) Floyd Dakil-Merry Christmas Baby

This was released on Pompeii Records in 1968, but unlike the city, I don't consider this song a complete disaster. In fact, it kind of has a Roy Orbison kind of feel to it, though his vocals can't compare to Roy's. But it would have been great to hear Roy perform this song.

28) Jim Eanes-It Won't Seem Like Christmas

You may recall when I shared side A of this single when we were discussing songs where grown men were asking Santa for dolls for Christmas for unmentionable uses... This was on Starday Records and Jim is credited as performing this song with the Shenandoah Valley Boys.

29) Russ Morgan-Mistletoe Kiss

30) Russ Morgan-Blue Christmas

From 1950 on Decca Records.

Thank you for reading and listening

Christmas on 45 Part 3

2008-09-14T15:51:00.004-05:00

I apologize once again for the lateness of this post. If it's any consolation, the delays are all related to Christmas music! I've been working on the Wayside Waifs charity compilation, and also in getting my radio show demo ready and creating podcasts for the upcoming holiday season...so lots of stuff has kept me busy in preparation for the coming Holiday season!

But I do not want to neglect the current themed posts any further...

14) Saturday's Children-Deck Five

Ok, here we get into some of the b-sides of singles I shared previously, plus some new stuff. We start off today's post with the second track on the fourth side of the 45 EP by Saturday's Children. You may recall that I shared their other song in part one of this compilation.

15) The Spirit of Christmas-Will You Still Believe In Me

A lot of attention goes to side A of this single. When you do find the single posted on other Christmas/music blogs, it's usually just side A. And side A is a fine song, but I really like this side. If I was to compile a list of top ten favorite Christmas songs (if I EVER get that ambitious!) this would be in that list, for sure.

16) DiMara Sisters-My First Christmas

I shared side A of this single WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY back when I first started this blog, so long ago that the link to that song expired! I said I would share side B later. Well...now is later!

This is a single I found in a random search on Alibris, and I had no idea what the songs sounded like, I just knew the titles were nothing I was familiar with, so money was soon parted from this fool, and I ended up with two great Christmas songs that I enjoy greatly to this day.

17) DiMara Sisters-Santa's Italian Wife

That side A I teased you about that is now an expired link on an old post? Here it is again for you to enjoy.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my mind swirls around with ideas that abound for an animated special with the same title. Rankin-Bass missed the boat in not adapting this to a TV special...it would have been awesomely fun. If anybody has the capability to make such a special, I have some writing experience.... Just putting it out there! But this is a great story song, and a fun, original Christmas song at that. A true audio treat.

18) Bob Morrison-Santa Mouse

Yet another single I chose to share the B-side with you first in part one of this post. I held off on this side because I thought it would compliment the sheer fun of "Santa's Italian Wife" well, and I think it does go well with that song. It could have been another Christmas special as well...

19) Jewel Blanch-Christmas Kangaroo

I am not exactly sure which came first...kids looking for hippopotamuses for Christmas or kids looking for kangaroos for Christmas. This has an "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas" feel to it to me, and it does delve into that novelty territory I am cautious of stepping into. But, hey, if it's obscure enough, I am willing to share it here. Jewel Blanch went on to have a nice career in TV and movies.

20) Jewel Blanch-By the Window

This is actually the A-side of the single, though in my mind this is the B-side because I prefer to think of the Christmas side as the A side. (The 45 doesn't actually say which side is what on the label, but "By the Window" is used for the front cover.) For some reason, they thought this was a better song to sell than the Christmas track. Of course, you all know which side I am partial to, but I thought this was a nice little tune to share here, even if it's not a Christmas song. I just thought there would be those of you out there who would want to know what the flip side of this single was, so here it is.

21) Christmas Squirrels-Country Christmas Party

Time to get these novelty songs out of the way since we are going there. I shared the B-side of this earlier. It's fairly clear to me that they were trying to be the next Alvin and the Chipmunks. I always like how we humans think that if small animals could talk, they would sound like sped up adult human voices. Sure they would, sure they would.

22) Miss L.L.-No Cheese (On the Xmas Tree)

23) Miss L.L.-Wedding Ring for Christmas

Here is a single I picked up from the record show for a buck in Minneapolis. Not sure if it made the $80.00 in gas to get up there and back worth it, but hey...it was only a dollar for the single! And ends up this run of novelty songs with small animals quite well.

Until next time, thank you for reading and listening!

OK, I realize I am late...

2008-09-08T00:16:00.001-05:00

I realize I am late in posting part 3 of my Christmas on 45's post, but I will be back VERY soon to do that.

In the mean time, I wanted to share this wonderful find: a LIVE performance of Momus performing "Christmas on Earth." (Perhaps my MOST FAVORITE Christmas song I've encountered in quite some time.) The live recording is a little shaky with the live elements over the prerecorded sound bytes, but it's exciting to see.

Christmas on 45 Part 2

2008-08-30T14:21:00.003-05:00

8) The Trashmen-Dancin' With Santa

The Trashmen are better known for "Surfin' Bird," but Christmas music aficionados will also recognize them for their 7 inch single "Dancin' With Santa," recently reissued by Sundazed records.

9) Royal Guardsmen-It Kinda Looks Like Christmas

This is the b-side of the Snoopy's Christmas song, which I LOVED when I was a kid. I never knew the b-side until recently. Oh, it's on CD, but not on the CD that I had that contained the Snoopy's Christmas song, and I never felt too compelled to buy a whole CD for one more song I didn't have. But I tracked down a decent copy on 45 for only a dollar, so here we go. If there are a few more out there who haven't heard this yet...

10) The Tropics-Groovy Christmas

Or by Chipper? I have a scratchier copy of this in my 2007 Christmas music folder credited to Chipper with 197? (sic) as the date. But that's exactly what it appears to be...as far as I have been able to locate info online, The Tropics made this record under the name Chipper. What year? I actually believe 1968 is the correct date on this record.

11) The Knickerbockers-I Want a Girl For Christmas

I believe I already shared this track in one of my summer compilations, but what the heck...it's worth another spin here, don't you think?

This is yet another resurrected single on the Sundazed label. And it has that late 60's kind of feel I am into at this point in the compilation, so it fits right in. For more information...

12) The Trashmen-Real Live Doll

Sticking in with the period pieces here, this is the first of a bit of a trend I noticed on a handful of records around this time...grown men desiring sex dolls for Christmas. There were just a few too many of these songs around back then for my comfort level. I guess if Lars and the Real Girl had been a movie back in the late 60's, it would have been hugely popular. And this is from the gents who brought us "Surfin Bird," as if I had to remind you...

13) Jim Eanes-Christmas Doll

Yet another obscure single I picked up this year...and yet another song about wanting the technology that wouldn't be available until today.

BONUS TRACK-Paul Revere and the Raiders-Dear Mr. Claus

Not found on a 45 (though maybe it had been released on one, I don't know...this comes from CD), but yet another example of the strange fetish that was sung about in Christmas songs from this period. SING A LONG, KIDS!!!!!

Santa Claus Presents: Christmas on 45

2008-08-21T21:56:00.006-05:00

After much mulling about, as I thought about making this like my usual month long compilation posts and have all the songs run under 80 minutes in length so they can make for a nifty CD compilation, I had a real hard time whittling down my selections from my 45's to just 80 minutes of music.

Then today I picked up a record I bought in Minnesota during my vacation and inside the record were two more 45's I bought as well but forgot about and I also received two more 45's in the mail today.

So I said forget about it...forget a nice and tidy 80 minute CD length compilation on this one. Cutting nothing, restoring all the cut files from the folder on my computer, here it is...my Christmas on 45's collection, uncut and unrated! I have over 50 tracks chosen just for you!

Well, they aren't rated. It's not like the MPAA has rated these, and they came out before Tipper Gore could have any say, so...

Before I get into the first part of the compilation, I want to mention again that the holiday season is right around the corner. That means it's time to clean out my old files on my file sharing service, which means that inevitably I will have to take down certain old links. Now, I honestly don't know which ones are more popular or not, so I will do it as I personally see fit. I have to make room for the new files I have in plan to post for this coming holiday season. So, if you are new around here, stop dilly-dallying around and get to downloading those older files! There's no promises on how long they will remain up! Consider any time after today time that they could be subject for removal.

Without further adieu...

1) Country Squirrels-How I Love Those Christmas Songs

I picked up this record a few weeks ago from a retired DJ selling off their collection online. It was in perfect condition; it really looked like it could have come off the store shelf yesterday, yet this record was pressed in 1972.

The record label that put this out is Metromedia Country, and the best I can tell they were looking for the next Alvin and the Chipmunks. The A side of this single is pure kiddiefied pap designed to capitalize in on the Alvin and the Chipmunks frenzy that no doubt enthralled the nation in 1972. Don't worry...I will post side A later on in the compilation listing. But first is side B. While it maintains the ridiculous sped up voices that are common in kids records featuring animals (because we all know that if animals could really talk, their voices would sound like adult humans who speed up their voices), it's actually a relatively decent song in of itself. So much so that I wish it wasn't recorded like kiddiefied pap, but made into a regular song by the people behind the Country Squirrels.

It's not a lost treasure that will leave you scratching your head why it's been lost to time, but it's certainly a fine, capable song.

And as a bonus, here is the same song with the voices sounding normal (with digital editing, not by simply playing the 45 at regular speed.) I am not exactly sure if this is what their voices would really sound like in normal speed, but I did my best to edit it in a version that sounded relatively normal. Perhaps with different production values, this could have turned out to be a really good song.

BONUS: Country Squirrels-How I Love Those Christmas Songs (the Tone King Edit)

2) Becky Lamb-Little Becky's Christmas Wish

Perhaps the most hated and loved Christmas song. But it seems for everybody who hates it, this song receives an outpouring of support. I've read stories online about how well this song charted back in 1967 and the requests for it and the compliments outweighed the complaints.

I have to be honest and say I never heard the song until I spun the 45 record on my player a few weeks ago. I bought the record because I never heard of the song, and that was all the reason enough for me.

3) The Spirit of Christmas-Christmas Is My Time of Year

Now I am sure there is a good number of you reading this blog who recognize this by the name alone. Don't get excited...I haven't tracked down my own copy of the original White Whale records 45. I haven't been that lucky, and I doubt I'd have that much money to blow on one record.

So maybe this entry in this compilation is a bit of cheating, as I don't have this on 45. But this is from the 45, just as it appeared on the White Whale Story Vol 2 CD compilation. (It's also on Rockin' Christmas from Rhino Records, which I also own.)

4) Saturday's Children-Christmas Sounds

God bless us, everyone. Oh, and Sundazed Records, too. They have been re-released a lot of great records and singles and have given us some great lost treasures to enjoy on vinyl again. This song actually comes from side 4 (or is that D???) of a self titled two 45 EP set. Originally recorded in 1966 it is now on a fresh new pressing for us to enjoy today, but it is the same great sound from yesteryear .

Saturday's Children were Chicago's answer to the Fab Four. This song (and the second one from this side that I will share later) was written by Ron Holder and Geoff Bryan, who were the Lennon/McCartney of this band. For some reason the Fab Four didn't give us too many Christmas songs, but we have a good selection of Christmas songs inspired by them from that time period, and I think this is a pretty darn good song.

5) The Cameos-Merry Christmas

From 1957 on the aptly named Cameo Records. A pretty good example of some early doo-wop as well as an example of a pretty good Christmas song.

6) 5.6.7.8's-Rock and Roll Santa

Released in 2003 by Norton Records, this might be the most recent of 45's I have to offer in this compilation. Yet I chose to put it with the oldies because it sounds like and oldie but a goody. They are a Japanese band fronted by Ronnie Fujiyama, with Akikio Omo on bass, Sachiko Fujii on drums, Jun Tomia on sax and Chiho on piano.

7) Bob Morrison-It's Christmas

Another B side of a 45. I will share the A side, Santa Mouse, on another part of this compilation. This comes from Columbia Records in 1966. Two pretty strong sides here...

Well, this is a good start, I must say. Look for weekly updates until all the songs are posted (so i am figuring 4 weeks of posts for this compilation.)

Thank you for reading and listening!

Holiday hump

2008-08-18T20:12:00.003-05:00

Well, we are over the hump month for the holiday season! Now I feel like Christmas is just right around the corner...and it IS! The leaves will be falling before we know it, the snow flying soon after that... it's amazing how fast time flies.

My trip to Minnesota yielded a few Christmas music finds. I didn't score a whole lot from Cheapo or from the record show I went to (unfortunately, I got there late so I felt rushed enough as it was and I didn't have time to search through everything.)

And there was also a record store in Kansas City that closed because the owner died and they were selling off a TON of records (and I mean a TON) downtown Kansas City two weeks in July. I was out of town for the first week, but I went down there once I got back in town. It was hot...105º heat advisories...and it was in this hot warehouse downtown where they had these records for sale and it about killed me to be there for four hours the day I went. I didn't go back the next day because it was even HOTTER. And there were other people there loading up on Christmas records too...some to give away as joke gifts for Christmas, some serious collectors (one I saw was rambling on about different versions of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, for some reason. Hey, to each their own!) And the records there were only a dollar each. I wish I could have gone more often. It was a once in a life time opportunity.

(Hmmm...there were other Christmas music collectors there....Did anybody who reads this blog show up there?)

But in all these trips, I didn't amass huge amounts from one single place, but I managed to get a few records here and there to make a decent sized collection to add to what I already have.

There are also a few more things I am working on. One, of course, is the Wayside Waifs Holiday Charity CD. I will be updating the latest news on that project soon, but briefly for here: Out of 79 artists I've contacted so far to date, 11 have said they would be willing to contribute. I have one completed song ready for the compilation, and I am contact with the other contributing artists and always reaching out to more to see if they are interested. I've had musicians from as close to me as the next town over from me all the way to Sweden interested in contributing, so I am rather excited about the prospects of this project.

One band I am especially delighted to say are contributing a song is Shi-Sho, who are known around these parts for their contributions to the Filthy Angels online compilations. I wrote a song for them and they are working on recording it as I type this!

So, please, SPREAD THE WORD on this project! Share information on your blog/Christmas site about it if you have one. Submissions are welcome from anywhere and everywhere. So if you know a band or a musician who would like to contribute a song for this charity project, share this information with them.

Another thing I am excited about and I am looking into (though this is entirely up in the air and admittedly a bit ambitious) is there is a local community radio station in Kansas City called KKFI. They allow people to volunteer, do guest DJ spots, and such. So......yeah, I recorded a "pilot episode" of a Christmas music program. Hey, you never know! They just may play it! Either way, the readers of this blog will be treated to a podcast of it once I hear back from the radio station, pro or con. Pro, and I will post the podcast as soon as it airs on the radio. Con, I will post it here sometime during the regular holiday season, and may very well do a few more podcasts for this blog even if I can't get the shows on KKFI.

Hey, it may be a long shot, but it's a community radio station, not a corporate owned commercial station...and I wouldn't collect a dime for my work, so you never know.

Not too long ago I opened EVERY Christmas song on my hard drive to play them in Windows Media Player. Mind you, these are JUST the songs on my hard drive, and I have not transferred everything I have to MP3. I have a solid 12 days worth of music so far, and that is if the songs played back to back for 24 hours a day! Yeah, I think I could pull off a few podcasts for the radio. Well, we will see what KKFI has to say about it! And I will keep you up to date!

No songs to share with you today. I just wanted to touch base with you all to let you know what's been keeping me busy these past few weeks. I am currently working on my next compilation for this blog: a collection of my recent acquisitions of Christmas songs on 45 record! I should have the first part of that up in a few days.

Keep it bookmarked to this blog (somehow I don't think it works to say keep it "tuned" when referring to a website....) and thank you for reading!

Christmas on the Beach Part 4

2008-07-13T20:08:00.005-05:00

OH MY! Time just goes by so fast. I have to leave first thing tomorrow morning for my vacation, so this will just be a quick post! I might be sparse on the comments/why I chose the songs I did, but hey, I did promise to make my post before I headed out of town, and here it is...

19) The Knickerbockers-I Want a Girl For Christmas

There just isn't enough good 60's pop Christmas music in my book!

20) Fats Domino-I Told Santa Claus

21) The Debonaires-Christmas Time

22) The Weavers-Lulloo Lullay/It's Almost Day

23) LaDawn Lundstrom-I Can't Hardly Wait `Til Christmas

24) CLM Industries-Santa's Factoree

Again, I apologize for the rushed post.

I hope you find some time to set aside to celebrate Christmas in July!

Christmas on the Beach Part 3

2008-07-05T11:03:00.003-05:00

13) Lundstroms-The Joys of Christmas Day

From their 1981 release "Best of Christmas." They actually have quite a few Christmas releases under their belt. There is one more LP I have to transfer to MP3 to share later on in the year, and I hope to come across more as my collection grows. I can't say I think their music is the best...it capably written and enjoyable and at times it hits a good mark. However, what I appreciate most about this family's music is that Lowell Lundstrom managed to pen quite a few original tracks for his Christmas releases, a rare thing to see in Christian music Christmas releases that just regurgitate the same standards over and over again.

14) Jane Siberry-Are You Burning, Little Candle?

I don't think I gave this song much notice the first time I listened to the Winter, Fire & Snow compilation (currently going for as little as 27¢ from amazon.com's sellers right now! Buy it!!!) but when it came around on my MP3 player while I was figuring what to include on this compilation, this song was one of the first ones to stick out to me. In fact, I think it was the first song I put on my list for songs to include, and I never wavered from it. A nice, nice tune...a good listen.

15) Gene Stewart-I Love Christmas

Wow, I just realized I am sharing a lot of tracks from this CD on this blog: Christmas Countdown. It may not be filled with the most revolutionary original Christmas music on Earth, but wow...it does deliver in a string of one great song after another. Highly recommended.

16) Ferlin Husky-In Santa's Bag

Like the song I used to kick off this compilation (The First Christmas) I wonder why we haven't heard versions of this over the years, keeping this on the rotation for classic standards to enjoy at Christmas time. Well, radio's loss is this blog's gain...I just wish that this song would get more attention around the holiday times! A fun, fun song, and from a great record over all: Christmas All Year Long. I have it on LP but I see amazon.com sells it as a MP3 album!

17) Bob Morrison-It's Christmas

From a 45 I acquired earlier this year.

18) Autumn Leaves- Wintertyme Joy

This was one of the My Space finds I found last December, but never got around to sharing it on the blog. Seemed fitting some how for a summer Christmas release to reflect on the joy of winter! The band is from Minneapolis, MN.

I promise to post the remaining six songs from this compilation before I head out of town!

Thank you for reading and listening!

Christmas on the Beach Part 2

2008-06-26T19:31:00.002-05:00

Continuing our summer celebration of Christmas! These are just some of my most favorites of my favorites so far this year.

7) Merrill Osmond-A Very Merry Christmas

From the 1976 Osmond Christmas Album. The Osmonds have always brought great Christmas music to our ears, much like Lawrence Welk. I feel not much of it gets heard these days (like with Welk's Christmas music) because times have changed, people associate the name with something outdated, but man...this sounds as fresh and as invigorating to me as anything released recently. If not more so.

8) Valerie Masters-Christmas Calling

It may be hot, humid, and sticky today (at least in my stomping grounds!) but Christmas is coming soon. Hear it calling? From World in Winter.

9) Brook Benton-Our First Christmas Together

From the compilation Holiday Magic. According to his Wikipedia page, he charted on the Christmas charts. I am not sure if it was with this song, but I imagine so. A lost treasure for sure.

10) Sonny Knowles-Old Christmas Dinner

From the Irish compilation Christmas Countdown.

11) Lula Bolden-Old Time White Christmas

Now this is a nice little track. I wish I could say where I found it. The fact is it's been in my collection for a little while now...I don't recall where I got it. I believe it's from a rare 45, and I believe I got it on Ebay (which is a safe bet as I found most of my Christmas 45's on "the Bay." It really could have landed on my favorite cover versions compilation I posted not that long ago
as it really turns into an interesting cover of White Christmas.

12) Phoebe Snow-Merry Christmas, Baby

From the very, very nice compilation called Winter, Fire and Snow. It's out of print but can be found at a fair price.

Back next week with six more...

Christmas on the Beach Part 1

2008-06-20T19:49:00.004-05:00

So this is the first day of Summer, and what better way to commemorate it than by reflecting on the festive season of CHRISTMAS! (Because you expected me to do something else???)

Santa's on vacation, people are heading to the beach, but yet for those festive ones among us, Christmas isn't just one day out of the year...Christmas is in the hearts of men! Yes, you can have Christmas without the snow and mistletoe! In fact, that is what the first song that starts off this compilation says...

1) Danny Thomas-The First Christmas

The goal of this blog from day one was to locate and share Christmas music that is great but rarely heard on the radio. I don't think any song achieves that goal more than this one. It's so simple, so melodic, easy lyrics...all the signs of a Christmas standard, yet this is on an album that is only on LP (at least according to amazon.com): Cricket on the Hearth. The album opens with this song and also closes with it, though it's Danny's version that wins me over. This deserves to stand along side some of the most beloved Christmas standards we know. If Danny hadn't been busy with acting and doing his charity work, no doubt he could have made some good cash at singing.

And what better way to start a compilation about celebrating Christmas in Summer than declaring that we can have Christmas without the snow and mistletoe!

2) Evie-Christmas, A Happy Time

This comes from her record of the same name. It can also be found on her CD Christmas Memories.

3) Michael D'Egidio-Santa's Vacation

I would have started posting this compilation earlier this month, but I had to wait on this record! It's from a 45 record released in 1986 on Saxtone Records. I hope it was worth the wait!

4) Irene-Christmas on the Beach

A single released on Labrador Records in 2006. I actually found this in my files at the last minute! I was about to post this compilation without this song, but I found it by chance in my files and knew I had to share it!

5) Lawrence Welk-Christmas Dreaming

Oh, the perfect songs for this compilation just keep coming! No snow around, but I am dreaming of Christmas! How about you?!?

6) Captain Carla Voeller-Wake Up, It's Christmas Time

Well, I only have so many songs about Christmas when it's not Christmas. Now I get a chance to share with you some of my favorite Christmas songs of the year so far (not released this year...just some of my personal favorites of all I've been listening to lately!) This comes from a compilation I found on Ebay called Twin City Christmas (not St. Paul/Minneapolis!) It seemed fitting to follow up Lawrence dreaming of Christmas with this song.

Well, there will be more to come...this is just part one! I have 24 tracks to share with you over the coming weeks! I hope to have all of them posted by July 14th, as I am going on my own vacation then (on which I will be going to a record show AND getting to shop at a Cheapo Records! OOOH, YEAH, new Christmas music here I come!!!)

Thank you, and I appreciate you listening and reading!

Christmas for the Outcasts Part 4

2008-05-31T11:37:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the late timing on this post this week. It's been a little busy, trying to get work done on the Wayside Waifs Charity CD and all. (Which, by the way, if you know of anybody who would like to contribute or simply want to spread the word on your own site/blog, PLEASE feel free! I will make it a two disc set if I have to!)

Anyway...here's to the final installment of my Christmas for the Outcasts compilation...

16. Chris Flew-Christmas on Ward #7

This song was originally recorded and released under the name "The One Who Flew," which gives the song a bit of reference to the Jack Nicholson movie, though the song isn't about people in an insanity ward celebrating Christmas (and how cool would it be if it was!) but the name of the artist who created this song is Chris Flew, a greatly talented musician from Glasgow, Scotland. I like his style and hope to hear more Christmas music from him in the future! This track comes from his album, Kingston Bridge.

17. Felice Brothers-Murder By Mistletoe

For all that I've said about the Felice Brothers, this it the first song I listened to by them, and it was the song that got me to get everything they had. If they could make a Christmas song this compelling, they were bound to make awesome music. And they have not let me down at all.

18. Calexico and Iron & Wine-16, Maybe Less

Calexico should do an entire album of Christmas originals... This comes from In the Reins.

19. The Handsome Family-So Much Wine

I've seen this song pop up on a few blogs posting off the beaten path Christmas music, but it deserves to be listened to again here. This is one of the few bands I like EVERY song I hear by them...I have all their CDs and every song is ripped to MP3 for portability and to enjoy anywhere I go. If only they did a CD of Christmas originals too.... This version comes from Live at Schuba's.

20. Handsome Family-Stupid Bells

A Christmas song the band found on an old cassette tape that they recorded years ago and released on a CD only available from their website.

Christmas for the Outcasts Part 3

2008-05-19T19:50:00.003-05:00

Just a slight update to share: In part one of these themed posts, I said I had 22 tracks. Well, as I often do, I tinker a bit with these compilations after I start posting them. Some tracks came to my attention that just HAD to be on the collection, and while I tried to remove what I could, the total running time (which I want to keep under 80 minutes total so these can be made into a CD compilation) was too long. After much picking and deleting, I am down to 20 songs. But I feel 20 VERY good songs. And if you are wondering what you missed out on...I believe some of them I shared previously on this blog back in December or I will fit them in at a later date.

So...on to the next five tracks:

11. Momus-Christmas on Earth

This is a track from Timelord. I really like this song. Kind of a David Bowie/Space Oddity type feel to it, some how...very off beat, and certainly a Christmas song about somebody who is truly outcast!

12. White Birds-Possessed by the Stars

From Chantons Noël: Ghosts of Christmas Past. So I guess this one was on a Christmas compilation, unlike most of the tracks I am sharing on this comp, but a quite offbeat, outcast compilation at that!

13. Bruce Springsteen-Pilgrim in the Temple of Love

Oh, Bruce...why haven't you recorded a studio version of this song? So....SO much better than his version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town (IMHO!) Recorded at the Brixton Academy, London, on the 24th April 1996. And it is this track you can thank for the sacrifice of two others. I honestly feel the sacrifice of two for this one was well worth it.

14. Captain Beefheart-There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evening Stage

I know I've seen this track shared on other Christmas blogs, so I realize I am not treading any new ground in sharing it here, but I thought it fit in well.

15. Evangelicals-The Last Christmas on Earth

I wish I could tell you where I found this originally...it wasn't on a Christmas compilation, that much I am positive of. It very well could have been from Obscure Sound, but I am not positive. One thing I am sure of it was one of the first tracks I decided to put on this compilation.

Christmas for the Outcasts Part 2

2008-05-12T22:18:00.003-05:00

6. Pernice Brothers-Pisshole in the Snow

I really can't remember how I discovered Pernice Brothers...I believe I downloaded one CD by them from a Russian MP3 download site but not exactly sure why. I discovered I really liked all their music. I soon sought out the rest of their CDs and found they had a pretty similar sound to all their albums, which was good and bad (some of their stuff begins to sound similar to previous releases.) This particular track comes from their CD Discover a Lovelier You. It isn't particularly a Christmas song, but fits well in a collection for outcast Christmas music, as it has a wintery feel in a Claudete Longet "Snow" kind of a way.

7. Matthias Rowe-A Different Scarf

I shared music by Matthias Rowe's music back in a post about music I discovered on My Space. I recently went back to his My Space page to see what he was up to, as I was really impressed with his song "Northern Lights" and also to invite him to contribute a track to the Wayside Waifs Charity CD. I heard this song posted on his page, and it also had a touch of a Christmas theme to it. He's got a good sound...I hope you enjoy it.

8. Lyle Lovett-Christmas Morning

While not a new song, while not exactly obscure, it's not something I commonly see on compilations. From The Road to Ensenada.

9. Felice Brothers-Ruby Mae

Another track from the Felice Brothers, which I introduced here last week. This comes from their 2008 self titled release.

10. Okkervil River-Listening to Otis Redding During Christmas

This is another artist I discovered recently, and was greatly impressed with their sound. Certainly worth searching out more from this band. This comes from their CD Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See.

Christmas for the Outcasts Part 1

2008-05-06T20:49:00.009-05:00

One of the benefits of my menial office job is the privilege to get to sit there all day long and listen to music on my MP3 player. Every day. As a result, I expose myself to a great deal of music, podcasts, other downloaded fun off the Internet.

And as a result, I listen to a lot of music that is not Christmas music. I guess I've trained my ears to pick up on certain things in music that I would have other wise overlooked, such as hints of Christmas themes/references in songs. And, much to my surprise, there are Christmas songs hidden in plain sight on regular albums by mainstream artists. Songs that will likely never see the light of day on compilations that feature Bing Crosby and Burl Ives, that is for certain, and unlikely to show up on play lists of radio stations devoted to playing Christmas music during the holiday season.

It occurred to me that others might get a kick out of my finds. So this month I am going to to be sharing tracks I selected for a compilation called "Christmas for the Outcasts." This is Christmas music so far off the beaten path of Christmas music that I seriously doubt this is the stuff people think of first when you say you like Christmas music.

And there might be some debate on a few of my choices, but I think you will enjoy them. If you are the type of person who is reading a Christmas music blog in the middle of spring...yeah, I think you might enjoy these tracks.

1. Van Morrison-Glad Tidings

I know, I know...you are thinking, Van Morrison has never put out a Christmas song! But consider the lyrics starting out the song... " And they'll lay you down low in the easy/And the lips that you kiss will say Christmas./And the miles that you traveled the distance." The lips say Christmas, so it's a Christmas song! From the CD Moondance.

2. The Byrds-Pretty Boy Floyd

I recently listened to Sweetheart of the Rodeo for the first time in my life. I know, I know...I often wonder why I waited so long as well. So imagine my surprise when, after searching and searching for Christmas music from the 60s by bands like the Byrds, this came around on my MP3 player! The song is about an outlaw in Oklahoma who is committing crimes on Christmas. I know it's not Suzy Snowflake or Frosty the Snowman, but it IS a Christmas song!

3. Iron and Wine-Sodom, South Georgia

Papa dies at Christmas. Not a happy Christmas song, but certainly not something you are going to hear your local Christmas music station play immediately after Jingle Bells! From their CD Our Endless Numbered Days.

4. Felice Brothers-Roll On Arte

Felice Brothers is perhaps one of my most favorite finds this year. I came across them completely by chance, by doing a search online for songs with "mistletoe" in the name while searching for some Christmas music (and that song I found will be shared later.) I got their CDs because I loved their sound, and imagine my surprise when I found a handful of tracks that were Christmas related. This is one of a few that will turn up on this compilation. From their CD Tonight at the Arizona.

5. Brazzaville-Christmas in E.C.

About a couple's Christmas vacation that is destroyed when they discover heroine. I told you this was Christmas For the Outcasts! From their CD Welcome...To Brazzaville.

This is only the beginning...I have 22 tracks in total to share with you over the next month!

Thanks for listening!

New Blog, New Announcement

2008-05-05T20:55:00.004-05:00

Ever have one of those ideas where you think it would be great if somebody did it, but you realize probably nobody ever will? I had one of those ideas earlier this year: produce a CD compilation of Christmas and holiday tracks by independent artists to raise money for Wayside Waifs, a local animal shelter in Kansas City, MO.

I see plenty of charity CDs raising money for toys for kids, feeding families at Christmas and such...CDs focusing on people. Now that's a good thing...I applaud and support those charity CDs! I have bought quite a few myself, in fact, glad to get new Christmas music and glad to know my money is going to a good cause.

And I know animal shelters have their own fund raisers at Christmas time, but I have yet to see anybody make a CD to sell to raise money for the charity.

So that's my announcement, what I've been working on so I wasn't able to complete the artwork for all of Deep, Crisp and Even. Instead of sitting around waiting for somebody to take on this project, I am donating my time, my efforts, my creativity to over see this project, and see it through all the way to completion, with the goal to raise money from the donations brought in from selling 1000 CDs and from online downloads.

The new blog I created is for the Wayside Waifs Charity CD. Please take a moment to check it out. While I am seeking the best of local Missouri and Kansas artists, I am open to submissions of tracks from all interested contributors from all over. In fact, I think it would be AWESOME if I could get contributors from other places outside of Missouri and Kansas. If you are an artist and your life has been touched by an animal, then please consider contributing a track.

Please visit the new blog and download the rules and guidelines and the release form for the project.

Since this is a charity CD, NOBODY will get paid for their work, I won't even keep any profits from the sale of the CDs at all. 100% of the proceeds will go to benefit Wayside Waifs.

I started sending out emails to local artists on Saturday and am happy to announce I have three artists interested in contributing! Please get the word out there! I want a full 80 minute CD! If I have to make it a two disc set, then that's a problem I welcome figuring out!

In the mean time, I also want you to know I will be back tomorrow posting a new theme for May's collection of Christmas songs: Christmas For the Outcasts, featuring some of my favorite Christmas songs that are so far off the beaten path that most of then NEVER appeared on any Christmas record! You won't find these tracks on compilations along side Bing and Frank, that's for sure!

Deep, Crisp and Even part four

2008-04-28T19:27:00.010-05:00

25. The Ravens-White Christmas

There is nothing rare or hard to find about this track. In fact, I am certain this is used in a movie soundtrack or two. But as for versions of White Christmas go, this is perhaps one of my personal favorites, and the one that, to this day, remains the version that I prefer just as much to the original classic.

26. Her Space Holiday-Let It Snow

I know I have shared this one on the blog before, as this was one of the My Space finds in December 2007. I wish the sound quality was a tad better...hopefully I will find this on an actual CD release by the band at some point.

27. Findlay Brown-Last Christmas

You know, considering I never particularly liked the original version, I sure do like the various cover versions of this song I come across. And I love cover versions of up-beat 80's bland pop that manage to bring out the true beauty of the original song (not Christmas related, but I have an acoustic cover version of Billy Idol's White Wedding that is stop-in-your-tracks astonishing. Behind all the power pop and awful music of the 80's, there were some darn fine songs being written in that decade that just needed proper production.)

And I know I shared a cover version of this song previously on this same compilation, but the ghostly whistle on this version makes for quite a haunting rendition, as if Scrooge's ghost of Christmas past is singing this from beyond.

I don't remember where I got this...my original MP3 says "unknown album."

28. Sinead O'Connor-Silent Night, Holy Night

Speaking of haunting beauty.... There may be those who don't agree with this woman's politics/religious views, but I sure hope that doesn't detract from the stark beauty she brings to this song. This song is always played plaintively, and with very quiet tones. This version offers nothing new in instrumentation, but certainly brings something in terms of vocal performance that I have not heard in previous versions.

29. Blind Boys of Alabama ft. Chrissie Hynde and Richard Thompson-In the Bleak Midwinter

The Blind Boys of Alabama have been together for an astonishing 69 years. If they want to do a cover version of a Christmas standard, you know it's going to trump any version that came before it, and this is no exception.

30. Bruce Cockburn-Early One Christmas Morn

Not too many versions of this song to go around, unfortunately (though I do have the original.) Like the Blind Boys of Alabama, you know if Bruce is going to do a cover version of a Christmas song, he's going to give it his own personal touch and totally make it his own.

31. The Weavers-Go Tell It on the Mountain

Though I did not take the title of this compilation from this track, this is actually the song I was listening to when I thought of doing this compilation. This may be quite a traditional version compared to some of the versions of other songs I shared on here, but when I first heard this I really was taken by this take. This comes from their album, We Wish You A Merry Christmas. (I'd give a link on more of these, but amazon.com is glitchy right now for some reason and it's not improving.)

32. Felice Brothers-Saint Stephen

I contemplated quite a bit on what song to end this compilation with. I do have other cover versions to share but I recently discovered the Felice Brothers (who has made some AWESOME Christmas music you WILL hear at this blog in the future!) and was quite taken by this song. It is not a Christmas song, but a song that is about the stoning of St. Stephen. Well, I considered two things: 1) There are not many songs about St. Stephen and the title of this compilation is taken from a song about St. Stephen and 2) how many people put out collections of ORIGINAL Christmas music only to have one or two cover versions on it? So I thought I would include one original song on my compilation of cover versions. It seemed to be a fair balance.

And I know I said I would have tray art and disc art ready. I haven't had time to make the files yet for those, but I will update this post at a future date when they are ready. (I like making physical copies of my personal comps such as this, so I guarantee the art work will get made!) I have been busy with other things, and hopefully more exciting things, things I will be sharing here, and hopefully soon. Stay tuned.

Thanks for listening.

Deep, Crisp and Even part three

2008-04-21T08:41:00.003-05:00

17. Crash Vinyl-Snow Miser

This track comes from the compilation Electric Ornaments. Perhaps the only cover version of Snow Miser I have, but a pretty darn good one at that.

18. Morgan Fisher-O Come All Ye Faithful (Remix)

Yet another track from Claws, which I featured a track from in part one of this compilation.

19. Whirlees-The Grinch

This kind of goes along with Snow Miser, though this one has been covered a few more times. This version comes from the compilation, It's Finally Christmas!

20. Dean Plays Hardball-Little Retail Boy

Little Drummer Boy has always been a personal favorite of mine; it has seemed to be an oddity in of itself among other traditional Christmas songs. And there are plenty of cover versions to be found of this one, but I chose this one from the A Very Standard Christmas compilation because I liked the little twist Dean Plays Hardball puts on the song.

21. Prewar Yardsale-Marshmellow World

And, yes, the title is spelled that way on the CD back cover. This comes from the Get Thee Behind Me, Santa compilation put out by Puppy Dog Records from England in 2002. Marshmallow World (as we commonly know the song) has been covered several times, but the cover versions are often uninspired and not very impressive. I happened to think that this particular version was the best among those I have heard. While still a simple tune, not changing the original that dramatically, it's a nice version.

22. Shaft-Must Be Santa

This comes from a compilation I picked up from New Zealand, Christmas On the Rocks. It is a highly recommended compilation if you can find it. It features a TON of original tracks. In fact, this is one of the rare cover versions found on the disc. Awesome stuff.

23. Chillaz-Clint Frostwood

Is it kind of cheating to pick a song that is a cover version of TWO songs? This comes from the annual Kevin and Bean Christmas collections (Swallow My Eggnog for this track) and I have yet to find a version of Frosty the Snowman that is more satisfying than this.

24. The Ricketts-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Yet another track from my favorite compilation of late: Get Thee Behind Me, Santa

Deep, Crisp and Even part two

2008-04-15T21:21:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the late posting of this...I meant to get this up on Sunday or Monday, but time really got away from me. (Especially with figuring my taxes last night! I should find a way to deduct my Christmas music purchases then I'd be OK!!!)

Very well....on to part two of the collection....

9. Kanute-Last Christmas

Last Christmas is probably one of my least favorite Christmas songs, but has yielded some of my most favorite cover versions. It turns out the Wham boys wrote a pretty great song (though my understanding it was originally an Easter song but changed to Christmas by the record execs to sell more copies! Hey, whatever works!) I felt this plaintive version was a great follow up to the stark beauty of Hugh Downs.

I found this track at a wonderful blog that is dedicated to nothing but Last Christmas cover versions...

http://www.last-christmas.com/

Most the links are dead right now, but I hope he posts a whole lot new ones next year...certainly one to drop in my links list on this site. Bookmark it today!

10. Meaghan Smith-Little Drummer Boy

This version came to my attention from Todd MacEwan, of SPUD 102 fame. He strongly recommends the compilation this song came from: A New Kind of Light (featured towards the bottom of his blog, linked above...not sure if it's still for sale though.)

11. Jerry Chamberlain, Sharon McCall, Riki Michelle, Derri Daugherty-I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

From the collection Noel on Via Records from 1995 (Sorry, I am not finding a link for this one right now.) Every song on this CD is a cover version of a familiar traditional song, but all are awesome. I purchased it because of the strength of the talent involved.

12. Peter Wood Singers-Winter Wonderland

If I recall right, I found this first from our friends at FaLaLaLa. The Peter Wood record he posted is a great recording over all...seek it out by all means if you haven't already. This version just pops and hits every right note. Peter Wood certainly makes this song his own with this recording.

13. Apollo Zero-Do You Hear Rainbows I Hear?

Is a mash-up also a cover version? Well, I guess I will let you debate that among yourselves. For the sake of me and this compilation, I am going to go ahead and say, yes, yes it does.

This came from our friends at DJBC.

14. Starflyer 59-Christmas Time Is Here
15. Bon Voyage-Holly Jolly Christmas

I put these on the compilation not only because they are excellent cover versions, but also because the lead singer of Starflyer 59 is married to the lead singer of Bon Voyage. This comes from the Happy Christmas series.

I really like Starflyer 59's spacy take on Christmas Time Is Here, and with Bon Voyage...well, I have to say that Burl Ives' version of that song really has a special place in my heart. It may be a standard, heard by so many, but rightfully so. I really haven't heard a version that tops his. And, to be fair, Bon Voyage doesn't top it, but I think the vocals on this particular version are very memorable in their own way. Jason Martin and his clan are a very talented bunch....I always appreciate what they put out.

16. Elephant Micha-Jesus Christ

This is an oft covered version of this song, and I was torn between a few for this compilation. I finally settled on this one because I really preferred the arrangement to other versions I have heard. It was purely a personal preference. This comes from the compilation A Very Standard Christmas. (Which was one of my favorite comps I picked up in 2007.)

Remembering Charlton Heston

2008-04-08T22:28:00.002-05:00

Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008)

And what better way to honor him than with a Christmas song?

Catscan-Christmas on the Planet of the Apes

RIP, Mr. Heston.

Deep, Crisp and Even part one

2008-04-06T16:58:00.005-05:00

I don’t think anybody who has been checking up on this blog would be too shocked to learn that I am not particularly drawn to collections of Christmas music that has a long list of all too familiar titles on the back cover. Unless I am already familiar with the artist, or perhaps the compilation is coming from a record label that has a reputation for mining the deep caves for jewels, when I am looking for interesting Christmas music to add to my collection, the more familiar it looks to me, the more likely I am to pass it up.

Granted, that probably means I have missed some really incredible versions of “Winter Wonderland,” “Silver Bells,” “Silent Night” and so many others along the way. So be it. Limited $$$$ means I have to be quite choosy, and the vast majority of Christmas albumbs I pick up are blind purchases. I don’t have time or money or even the storage space to be fooling around with just any compilation that has cover versions.

Another thing about cover versions is I often have my standard favorite with just about any given song out there. It’s hard for me to warm up to another version of “Holly Jolly Christmas,” for example, when I feel that Burl Ives nailed it already. Most cover versions are pale versions of songs people did better long ago, and I find the whole concept of somebody giving a half-rearended effort to a Christmas standard to be a complete turn off.

So when I come across a cover version that really stands out to me, I sit up and take notice. And I’ve failed to share a lot of those cover versions with you through the course of this blog so far because I’ve been busy focusing on mainly original Christmas music that I have found interesting. But there are good cover versions, and over the course of this coming month I am making this “Cover Versions Month” at the Twelve Months of Christmas.

I have compiled my favorites into one collection that I’ve titled “Deep, Crisp and Even.” The name of the compilation comes from a cover version of Good King Wenceslas that is included in this collection (those words are part of the lyrics.) (Which reminds me…there’s not nearly enough songs out there about the Feast of Stephen!) 32 tracks in all, and I am going to share 8 each week this month. By the end of it, I will included full cover art, disc art, and tray card art so you can print your own CD case if you’d like and the collection will be complete.

So onto the first eight tracks…

01-Ich Bin Chimp-Mary's Boy Child

To me, there has never been a better version than that by Boney M. It may be a radio standard, over played at the holidays and heard just about anywhere you go. But there’s something about that song that just is so perfect…like the stars aligned when Boney M recorded their version of that song. Every other cover version has failed to really come close to Boney M’s version. They try, they get close, but fall short. Ich Bin Chimp doesn’t try to sound like Boney M’s version, which is why I guess is why I love this version so much that I chose to kick off my collection with it. Ich Bin Chimp totally makes this version their own and brings it up to a new standard. This comes from the online compilation, “`Tis the Season to be Filthy.”

02-Tom Tom Club-Il Est Né (trad.)

I have to admit I never heard this song before I purchased Tom Tom Club’s CD “Mistletunes.” But this is a traditional French Christmas carol, so I am sure others have performed this song in the past. And while this may be my first exposure to the song, I am betting money that it’s better than most of the versions that came before it.

As an added bonus, I did find a slightly older version of this song that’s not part of my compilation, but a great thing to share nonetheless…it’s the song performed by Siouxie and the Banshees. A solidly great version as well…

03-Casiotone for the Painfully Alone-Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone first came to my attention through their My Space page and it came apparent to me they were friends to some great Christmas music. This is perhaps the only cover version I’ve found by them, and it’s pretty well done.

04-Morgan Fisher-Good King Wenceslas

This is the song I take the title of my compilation from. Good King Wenceslas has never been much of a real favorite of mine. It’s been more of a curiosity…Why do we only have one song about the Feast of Stephen when it’s a Christmas tradition for many? I’ve heard capable and acceptable versions in the past, but this one really takes it to a whole new level.

I came across Morgan Fisher completely by chance. For a while now I have owned Pillows and Prayers, a collection of punk rock singles put out by Cherry Red Records from 1981-1984. While it does not have any Christmas songs on the compilation, it did strike me that Cherry Red Records must have put out some Christmas songs in its time on this planet. So a Google search away was Claws, by Morgan Fisher. Apparently, this was released on Cherry Red Records sometime back in the day, and I tracked down a copy on CD put out by Blueprint records in 1997. Great, great stuff. It’s a collection that I would never have found normally because it doesn’t have Christmas anywhere in the title or in anything you’d really search for online.

05-Abbey Garage-In the Bleak Midwinter

In the Bleak Midwinter has long been a Christmas standard with…well, pretty much standard cover versions. This comes from a compilation I just tracked down this year: Get thee Behind Me, Santa. It’s hard to find, but well worth the effort. I am sure I will share more from this compilation later on.

06-Infant-Goodnight, We 3 Kings

Another selection from Get thee Behind Me, Santa.

07-Thunderbirds are Now-Winter Wonderland

I wish I could say where I found this, but I don’t recall. Online somewhere, that much I know. We are all familiar with the traditional version we hear on the radio at Christmas time, and that version is great. It became a classic for a reason. But Thunderbirds are Now make this song their own with this version.

08-Hugh Downs-I Wonder As I Wander

Yes, this is 20/20’s Hugh Downs. I Wonder As I Wander is a typically slow and plaintive song, and this really is no exception. In fact, it’s about as a traditional version as you’re probably going to find, and you may wonder why I included it here. Simply enough, because I like it; it’s beautiful in its stark simplicity and trumps any other version I’ve heard. This comes from Nick At Nite’s compilation, A TV Christmas Dinner.

More to come….

God's Own Fool

2008-03-31T20:22:00.002-05:00

I was going through some old tapes I've had since pterodactyls ruled the skies, and I found a Christmas concert I taped off the radio featuring the music of Michael Card. As you may recall, I previously shared his music on this blog so even if you never heard of him before, hopefully you checked out his songs I posted before.

The concert starts out with a set of some of Michael Card's better know songs, and the first one he begins with is "God's Own Fool," so it struck me to be a fun idea to post this concert since April Fool's Day is upon us.

The year this was recorded is unknown to me. Considering The Promise came out in 1991 and I recorded this off KJLY in southern Minnesota, that puts this between Christmas 91 and Christmas 93 because by Christmas 94 I had moved out of the listening area of this particular radio station. My guesstimation is that I recorded this in 1993. It's as a good of guess as any, but there is a clue in the concert: he mentions the following week he's going to be performing this same concert in Belfast. That concert, as far as I can tell, was released on video in 1997 (though I am not certain...I don't own the video and it's not on DVD.) So I am not exactly sure what year that was recorded for the video.

Nonetheless, I have this tape. I have tried to find a DJ copy of this musical, but to no avail. While I have been able to track down copies of radio shows on LP and CD that were sent to radio stations for broadcast in the past, I am guessing this was not sent on LP or CD to radio stations, as it was simulcast live. And I wish I had an official radio station copy, because the sound quality on my approximately 15 year old tape leaves a bit to be desired, and worst of all the third part of the concert is incomplete. I regret that, but I am thinking it had to be a 2 hour concert and I only had a 90 minute tape. (Just to say I am SOOOOOO glad I have the ability to record from the radio directly onto my computer now...no more messy tape to deal with!)

Also, a bit of Michael Card's talking (I forget on which track) is missing because of the switch from side A to side B.

So I apologize this concert isn't complete and in better quality, but I present here the full tape I have, divided in tracks, but none of the concert has been edited out. Even the pauses from Michael Card's speech to the time his band starts playing is fully intact....this is just as I taped it off the radio and given to you, including a station ID for you air check fans out there.

01-God's Own Fool
02-My Shepherd (Psalm 23)
03-Know You In the Now; Could It Be?
04-Talking, introductions
05-Jubliee
06-More introductions
07-Band warming up
08-Christmas portion introduction
09-The Promise
10-Reading
11-Unto Us a Son is Given
12-Reading
13-What Her Heart Remembered
14-Joseph's Song introduction
15-Joseph's Song
16-Vicit Agnus Intro
17-Vicit Agnus Noster (Our Lamb Has Conquered)
18-Reading
19-Shepherds' Watch
20-Jacob's Star intro
21-Jacob's Star
22-Reading
23-We Will Find Him
24-Thou the Promise
25-Immanuel intro
26-Immanuel
27-Carols portion (incomplete)

Also, I thought I should point out that the posting of this puts my online files at well over 1 gigabyte. I have 2 gigs available on my online storage site, so we have a ways to go yet, but I thought I would mention that when I run out of space, the first things to get taken down are these larger collections. I am not going to give a date when these files will no longer be available...I will more than likely take down the older ones first to make more space for new ones...but these won't be around forever. So get them while the getting is good.

Thank you, and thanks for listening. And I think I have some really cool stuff to share with you all through the month of April. I plan on making one post per week for the next couple of months, so keep checking back from time to time...there will be some good stuff coming. Maybe familiar stuff to you die hard Christmas music enthusiasts, but hopefully something new as well. I got some good collections planned to share.

What a Year for a New Year

2008-03-20T18:34:00.007-05:00

In my Merry March post, I forgot to mention one of the most important holidays of this month...NOWRUZ!!!

Also spelled Norouz, Narooz, Norooz, Nawruz, Newroz, Nauruz, Nawroz, Noruz, Novruz, Nauroz, Navroz, Naw-Rúz, Nowroj, Navroj, Nevruz, Наврӯз, Navruz, Navrez or Nowrouz

It is not just the first day of Spring, but it is the first day of the year for many cultures around the world. As I said in my New Year's Eve post, I feel we screwed the pooch by trading the first day of spring as the first day of the new year for Jan. 1st. See, we could have kept Jan 1st...I am sure our collective minds could have come up with a holiday to celebrate that day. "Turning of the Calendar Day" or something. But, dang, if today wasn't a great day to have off of work, at least around here. 70º and sunny...but I know it wasn't that way for everybody.

In fact, 70 counties not far from me are declared Federal disaster areas due to heavy rains and floods, and they are going to get worse. I went by the store after work to get some groceries and I got next to nothing and spent $46.00. My gas gauge in my car is getting closer and closer to that E mark everyday, and that will be another $32.00 or so to fill my little tank. Jobs falling, prices rising. Fed cuts interest rates, corporations cut jobs and mortgages raise and our salaries remain stagnant.

Not that you need to come to this blog to read all that...turn on the news if you wanted to really know about it, right? But it got me at least a LITTLE hopeful today since this is technically the first day of the new year (and the day I prefer to celebrate the first day of the New Year!) And I know it's more middle eastern countries that celebrate this as the first day of the New Year, but they have been doing it a lot longer than our country has been around, or probably could hope to be around. So, yeah, I think they got this day right.

We may be facing a recession (and if we are facing the recession, I hate to think what we are in now!!!) but this is an election year, so you never know. Here's hoping...this is quite a year for a new year.

Dan Wilson-What a Year for a New Year

Christmas Story Gone HORRIBLY Wrong!

2008-03-19T20:35:00.002-05:00

I cannot be the only person that thought of our friend Ralphie when I saw the news story I am sharing today. I can't be. I just can't.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23687413/

6-year-old boy dies after being shot in left eye

Memphis police probe spring break case to determine who fired fatal shot

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Police have identified a 6-year-old Memphis boy who died after being shot in his left eye.

Authorities say Charlris Fleming was transported to Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center in extremely critical condition Monday morning. He was pronounced dead at 10:18 a.m.

Police say Fleming was in a room at New Greenbriar Apartments with a 7-year-old boy when the shooting occurred. Three adults were in the apartment when the incident occurred, but not in the room at the time.

Police were still trying to determine who fired the fatal shot.

The shooting occurred on the first day of spring break for students in Memphis City Schools.

The Merry Month of March!

2008-03-14T19:26:00.002-05:00

March is a special kind of month. I think outside of the Christmas season, this is the most holiday enriched time of the year (and don't tell me Christmas is just one day...we've already been around that topic!)

This month we have (just to name a few)...

●12 Girl Scouts Founded

●16 Palm Sunday

●17 St Patrick's Day

●20 Vernal Equinox/Maundy Thursday/Journée internationale de la Francophonie

●21 Good Friday

●22 Holy Saturday

●23 Easter Sunday

●24 Easter Monday

Try as I did, I could NOT find any Christmas songs by Girl Scouts to commemorate their anniversary. It's a sad thing, but I guess when you're so busy making all those cookies you don't get much time to get in the recording studio to lay down some Christmas tunes. And if I do find any, well...I guess I will just have something for next year!

But March has plenty of other great things to celebrate, and I contemplated making separate posts for each day for each holiday, but I figured what better way to celebrate this festive month than to share a few great March and Spring related Christmas tunes!

First up, why not celebrate the first day of spring with a wonderful tale about Santa's visit to this wonderfully festive time of the year! This is from the excellent collection titled "What Would Santa Say?"

Mark Shane Xmas All Stars-Santa Claus Came in the Spring

Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of songs that tie in Christmas with the Spring, but I managed to find a couple others. This one is an instrumental by Bill Mallonee (of Vigilantes of Love fame) from his Christmas release, Yonder Shines the Infant Light. It's Springish, I guess!

Bill Mallonee-Dayspring

I'd like to share another song that celebrates the passing of winter into spring. This is from Wonderland: Cool December, an excellent collection at any time of the year.

Julie Christy-Love Turns Winter to Spring

March brings us St. Patrick's Day, and there is seemingly no shortage of Irish Christmas music to share. This year I have a couple tracks from Frank Kelly's Christmas Countdown on Rego Irish Records. (The information on the site I linked says the CD is a CD-R but I can verify that my CD is an actual pressed factory made CD, not that makes a huge difference to me, but I thought the info might be useful.)

Tony Kenny-Any Dream Will Do

Gene Stewart-I Love Christmas

This following track comes from another EXCELLENT Christmas blog (which is already found in my links section to the right of this very post) and I am sure those of you interested enough to check out my blog in March are already fans of this man's blog, and more than likely already downloaded this track from his site, but I had to share it here nonetheless because it is one of the rare tracks that dares to meld Christmas and Easter with a wonderful result. (You can also see a high res scan of the original record cover there!)

Alex Houston & Elmer-Here Comes Peter Cotton Claus

Captain OT, if you are checking up on this blog, I sure hope you don't mind me sharing one of your awesome finds! Music like this has to get around!

I don't think I shared any Christine Wyrtzen on here before, but I more than likely will in the future. Fans of classic Christian radio may recognize her voice. The main bulk of her music is a wee bit before my time, as was her father's music (Don Wyrtzen). The Wyrtzen's were a formidable force in the genre of music they covered, and one of the things I appreciate most about them is their albums, even their Christmas albums, consisted mainly of original tracks. Well written original tracks. Surprisingly, information on them online is a bit sparse, and I do see Christine's original LPs are available on CD on her website, so be sure to support her by purchasing her excellent Christmas album, Christine's Christmas.

Christine Wyrtzen-All Year Long

That song is just a gentle reminder we should celebrate Christmas all year long. And, as we have found in March, there are plenty of reasons to find in each month of the year to remember the Christmas season and what it means to us.

Finally, I'd like to share another track that reminds of pretty much the same thing. This comes from Ferlin Husky's album Christmas All Year Long, which was released sometime in the 60s on Capitol Records.

Ferlin Husky-I Wish It Could Be Christmas All Year Long

That's it from me for this month! May the Easter season bring you some Christmas cheer!

Santa's workshop FOUND!

2008-03-01T15:14:00.000-06:00

Santa's workshop has been FOUND!

It's February...do you know where your lawn ornaments are?

2008-02-29T19:15:00.005-06:00

It's February...do you know where your lawn ornaments are? Well, if they are still out on the lawn, doncha think it's time to bring them on in??? (I mean, come on...what happened to poor Santa there???)

And while it may only be February for a few more hours, it is a special day in February that I couldn't resist making a post on...it's a LEAP YEAR DAY! So what better way to celebrate one more day in February than with some new Christmas songs for you to enjoy?

Today I have an obvious choice of a song, but perhaps not the most common version of it. It is a live performance of Lou Reed's seasonal favorite, "Xmas In February," which he performs with Bruce Cockburn. And, honestly, I am not sure of the source. I can only surmise it's from one of the legendary Bruce Cockburn Christmas concerts. But I managed to come across the MP3 somewhere and I am pleased to share it nonetheless.

Lou Reed, Bruce Cockburn-Xmas in February

Finally, I'd like to share with you another reminder that Christmas is all year long. This is a nice little track I acquired from a recent purchase of a old 45, circa the 1950's.

Voices of the Little Flower-Christmas All Year 'Round

Senator Bobby's Christmas Party

2008-02-18T18:50:00.001-06:00

Records must have been very cheap to produce and put out. It astonishes me how many wonderful novelty records are out there, and not just Christmas records. But SOOOOO many different types of oddball records that one can uncover if one takes the time. It seems this has been lost in the CD age. Now, I suppose, much of the oddball stuff lands on You Tube or other websites, but it's a shame the physical product is being lost for future generations to uncover and enjoy.

Not that Senator Bobby's Christmas Party is a small potatoes release. It's put out by Columbia Records and features the talents of Chet Dowling and Bill Minkin. Ok, not exactly household names, but I am betting money those names sold records back in the 60's. There is good talent on this record, to be sure, but it seems you just don't see this kind of thing any more. Oh, what I would give to see Senator Obama's Christmas Party! Or Dennis Kucinich's Christmas Elfin Eve! The mind reels in thinking what we could be getting today if only things like this still were being made! And maybe they just don't want to put that out on CD. And that leads me to wonder exactly how cheap it was to put out a record back in the day, because it seems everybody was doing it.

This was recorded live on October 11th, 1967. It may not be presidential, but I felt it was a good thing to share today, on President's Day, in light of the two senators vying for the nomination of the Democratic Party. I will decline in taking sides here on my Christmas blog, but I will just say I think it's certainly a time for change in this country, and we have a great opportunity to get TRUE change if we want it! So go vote if you haven't already!

Senator Bobby's Christmas Party is written and produced by Chet Dowling and Bill Minkin. Bill Minkin portrays Bobby Kennedy, and other voices include Chuck McGann, Bryna Raeburn, Joan Shea, and Chet Dowling. I just may have to go and rent the movie Bobby after listening to this!

Senator Bobby's Christmas Party

GROUNDHOG DAY!

2008-02-02T15:46:00.000-06:00

It's Groundhog Day, possibly one of the best post Christmas holidays made all the most special because of the seminal favorite movie of the same name starring Bill Murray. And it's certainly one of the best non-Christmas holiday movies ever, if not arguably the best.

Which is why it's no surprise people would take this concept from Groundhog Day and try to merge it with movies of a similar theme. Movies that are arguably much, much worse than the standard holiday movies out there.

We had Christmas Every Day, which--judging from the You Tube clips I found--would make me wish Christmas was no days if having it everyday meant everyday this movie was on TV. And more recently we had Christmas Do-Over, which is the same concept only executed in a more painful way. And execution is what you will want to endure after watching either of these movies.

I thought about trying to see if there was a soundtrack to either of these movies to share with you today, but I thought there is no way in heck fire that either of those movies are yielding any kind of memorable unique Christmas songs. (They might...Santa Vs. The Martians gave us "Hooray For Santa Clause," so I guess it can happen...but I am not looking to find out.)

Instead I have a couple tracks from my personal collection about celebrating Christmas everyday. So pop Groundhog Day into the DVD player, get it on demand, watch it on TV, download it or however you get your movies and listen to these tracks. Think of your worst Christmas ever and what would you do if you could relive that day over and over again. Yeah, I said worst. It was a crappy day for Bill Murray and he made it into a wonderful day. What would you do differently on your worst Christmas to make it better?

So now I give you the tracks:

First up comes from a record I picked up a couple weeks ago called An Austin Rhythm and Blues Christmas, dating back to 1983. It's a great collection, and I don't know if it's been issued on CD.

Paul Ray-Let's Make Every Day Christmas Day

And the final track today is from a favorite, but not oft listened to band, called Giant Sand. This is from their best of collection, Giant Songs, Vol. 2: The Best of Giant Sand

Giant Sand-Christmas Everyday (Maybe It'll Help)

Christmas Nuggets Found in Classic Christmas Tunes

2008-01-16T19:52:00.000-06:00

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

David Hakan-Christmas Day live

2008-01-11T22:08:00.001-06:00

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

Pac Man Christmas Tree

2008-01-08T23:41:00.000-06:00

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!

The Last Christmas Record For Children

2008-01-06T12:27:00.001-06:00

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.

Servotron

2008-01-04T23:15:00.001-06:00

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:

"Christmas Day of the Robot"

Insensitive Side:

Some more non-compilation Christmas songs

2008-01-03T20:11:00.000-06:00

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

A Mouse Family Christmas

2008-01-02T19:44:00.000-06:00

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!

New Year's Day gift

2007-12-31T23:03:00.002-06:00

Here is a gift for the 7th day of Christmas....My first (and hopefully annual, and preferably earlier in the season) My Space Holiday Collection Vol. 1. As you may know, I have compiled several My Space tracks. Some of them may be on EPs, CDs, LPs, or online only. As far as I know, these are all online only...I don't recall seeing record names on a lot of these when I found them.

You may download the tracks individually or they are zipped for your convenience, along with CD artwork in case you want to make your own CD case for it. There are a few tracks I shared previously on the blog.

1. The Hopefuls-Holiday
2. The Holloways-It's Christmas, It's Christmas
3. Voluntary Butler Scheme-Wombling Merry Christmas
4. Air France-Hold On To Me, Baby
5. Aluminum Group-Christmas Presents
6. Verve Pipe-This Christmas Time
7. The School-Kiss You In The Snow
8. Little My-X-Mas Song
9. Noah and the Whale-To Cyril at Crunkmas
10. Project 86-This Time of Year
11. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone-Cold White Christmas
12. Shotgun Lover-Christmas Time in the City
13. The Details-Strings and Ribbons
14. William Fitzsimmons-Covered in Snow
15. Matthias Rowe-Northern Lights
16. Bigton Town Gulch Orchestra-Santa's Coming
17. Califone-There's A Star Above the Manger Tonight
18. Brent Green & Califone-Hadacol Christmas
19. Rick Malsick-Christmas Tumbleweed

BONUS TRACK
Valdy-Secret Santa

RAR FILE

Thank you and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Obligatory New Year's Eve Post

2007-12-31T21:38:00.000-06:00

First off, nothing to do with the actual topic, I went to the store tonight to pick up a few things. They have already removed ALL the Christmas stuff off the shelves in the seasonal section at Hy-Vee. Not that I should be too shocked here, I know. But to see Valentines Day stuff going up already really threw me for a loop. It's New Freaking Years EVE here, folks. I mean, I don't expect society to ever really observe the twelve days of Christmas, but can't they at least wait until after New Years Day to put that crap up? And yet they keep doing this year after year after year and that leads me to believe that people are buying the crap early enough to make them feel like it's justified to do this. So who ever buys this stuff early....it's all your fault!

Ok, I got that out of my system...on to the post...

I have four New Year's related tracks to share with you tonight. Starting from the more mainstream but rarely heard (at least in my parts....I understand some of you out there in the blogosphere live in areas with actual GOOD radio stations so you may get to hear stuff like this all the time) and going to the more obscure, I have selected four tracks to share.

First up really needs no introduction, and if it does, you're uncultured and please look into this man's music some more.

George Harrison-Ding Dong, Ding Dong

Next up comes from an import compilation I got from Barcelona, Spain. It has the generic title of "Holiday Magic" (yeah, try Googling that or searching for it on amazon.com, ebay or Alibris!) and it's a remarkable collection in that it compiles a lot of stuff that is not, as far as I have been able to find, on any other CD. The disclaimer on the back of the case reads, "Due to the obscurity of these tracks this collection contains songs that have been transfered from analog tapes and vinyl sources..." The compilation is much appreciated, but horrifically mastered in some places. One track cuts the song off and for a few seconds plays a bit from a completely different song before it picks the track back up. But I would not trade this baby for the world, it was hard enough to find.

I will more than likely be sharing tracks from this compilation in the future, but the first I'd like to share is from the Foundations. Now, I will be the first to admit I may be wrong on this. The track on Holiday Magic is credited actually to "Foundation" so if somebody is familiar with a different band from the Foundations that's called "Foundation" please let me know.

EDIT: It is likely NOT the Foundations, but another band called simply Foundation, that seems to evade Google or Wikipedia searches. As I suspected

Foundation-Alone on New Year's Eve

Next up is a My Space find by a band from Boston, MA called Laminated Cat. I really dig the sound of this track and I have to say their other tracks on their My Space page leave a little to be desired after listening to this one first, but I still will keep my eye on them to see what else they do in the future. They also have a version of "Silent Night" on their My Space page if you'd like to check it out before it's taken down.

Laminated Cat-New Years Is A Blast

Finally, I have a band from Lawrence, Kansas. This track was preformed live on the radio in the UK by lead band member, Christopher Tolly.

The Belles-New Years Resolution

Thanks for listening. And I hope to have a special present tomorrow for those of you who have been sticking with me through the true Twelve Days of Christmas tomorrow.

It's Christmas with the Lundstroms

2007-12-30T11:43:00.000-06:00

Today is a thrift store find from Mankato, MN. Thrift stores are usually horrific experiences for me. Crappy merchandise galore aside, the record bins are often among the most mistreated section in the store, and I swear there are NO policies on what they will take. (For example, I found some rare 70's Maranatha records in this same store that go for good money in mint condition on Ebay and they all had DEEP gouges in the records. I am not sure if they were there when donated or if some special kind of 'tard did that to the records as they sat on the shelf, but still...there are all kinds of records in those bins in unacceptable condition.)

So when I found this...I think it was for a quarter...in good condition, I couldn't pass. It was not only a Christmas record, it had actual ORIGINAL songs on it....not a cover version in sight. It's a 4 song 7 inch EP, 33 rpm. And not only that, but it was a CHRISTIAN recording with original songs on it! So, a record in a thrift store without a ton of scratches on it, original cover not damaged or written on in crayon, a Christmas record, a Christmas record with original songs, a Christian Christmas record with original songs....surely this was the rarest of rare finds.

And I also love it because I love any record where the mother's hair is bigger than the daughter's head. Good times, good times. You know regardless of songs on the album, you're in for a real treat when you see that.

And the songs are actually fairly well written and capable. Not really unearthed treasures that will make you wonder why they haven't been covered a thousand times by everybody and their brother and have become staples of Christmas radio, but listenable songs and rather enjoyable, and for a quarter...well...you can't really go wrong. I could spend more on that on a single download on line that turns out to be complete crap. And I am offering them up for free here, so none of you can complain at all!

Another curiosity of the record is the back cover lists "It's Christmas" and "Little Stranger In A Manger" as being on side one and the label on the actual record lists those as on side two and vice versa for the side two songs listed on the back cover. I guess I don't know the rule for collectors when this type of thing happens but I am going with the listing on the back cover. And I think "It's Christmas" and "Little Stranger In A Manger" are a bit stronger tracks, so they feel like side A tracks to me.

This was released on the family's own Lundstrom Records, and judging from the hair styles, right smack dab in the middle of the 70's.

Lundstroms-It's Christmas

Lundstroms-Little Stranger in A Manger

Lundstroms-The Messiah Has Come

Lundstroms-Born to Die

And here is a little info on Daddy Lundstrom...link.

And mom's hair shrank over the years (doesn't it for all of us???)

Christmas Quiet

2007-12-29T10:17:00.000-06:00

Today I'd like to share something a bit more personal, if you will indulge me. I make music under the name "Thelonious Octopus" and recorded tapes back in the early 90s and then I got some CDs together in 2005. It's something I do as the inspiration hits me, but maybe this year I will finally record the second Christmas CD I've been kicking around for a while.

But I'd like to share selected tracks from my first Christmas CD, Christmas Quiet. (For a limited time, I lowered the price on the CD if anybody feels compelled...)

I tried my best to select tracks off the beaten path for my own release, only throwing in a few standards and hopefully giving new and interesting interpretations on those tracks.

Without further adieu, I'd like to now share with you a few selected tracks. I hope you enjoy...

Thelonious Octopus-Christmas Quiet

Thelonious Octopus-See, Amid the Winter's Snow

Thelonious Octopus-From Heaven Above to Earth I Come

Thelonious Octopus-A Fantasy On A Silent Night

Thelonious Octopus-Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

Thelonious Octopus-The Savior Is Born

Thelonious Octopus-Silent Night