Xmas Misery Megamix — to the max!

It’s been a rough year for everyone. There were countless tragedies around the world, most Americans finally understood that our political system is broken (whomever they supported), more jobs and industries just disappeared (never to return), many of us had our personal sadnesses, and a bunch of much-beloved cultural icons kicked off.

And now it’s Christmas. In an ordinary year, the holiday is burdensome enough — with its many obligations and simultaneous message that “time has passed, another year is gone, the clock is ticking, kids!” This year the Yuletide means that the crapfest that was 2016 is finally at an end, but another crapfest is on its way, right after this short break….

So I think it’s only right to once again get control over the emotions that the holiday produces and turn the whole thing on its head. DIVE into the misery and enjoy it! You ain’t getting’ away from it, so why not listen to talented tunesmiths, great vocalists, and rockin’ bands commemorate the emotional overload that is the holiday season?

Thus, I draw your attention my “Xmas Misery Megamix.” I started creating this, with the help of many friends (all thanked in the individual posts), well before Thanksgiving of last year, since Xmas music now starts to crop up after Halloween. I have waited this year until we are only a few days away from the Xmas holiday (and its less oppressive, but still gift-driven, Hanukkah cousin) to revisit this trove of gorgeously depressing music.

The first post I did about this topic was a super-survey of the saddest ditties that mention the holiday or are identified with that time of year. The selection here ranges from pop and classic r&b to novelty records and punk songs. A special section is devoted to incredibly sad Xmas country tunes and one of my fave candidates, submitted by a friend, a well-known and well-loved Xmas carol from the 16th century that was written to commemorate a massacre of children.

The artists included here include the Everly Brothers, Lawrence Welk, Miles Davis, Tom Waits, Fear, Wall of Voodoo, and a host of country music legends. 

READ THE POST HERE.

After I wrote the initial piece I found a few more choice candidates and a few friends nominated their own favorites. Thus this second entry, in which (for no particular reason) the miserable-mas songs are done only by bands with one-word names. READ IT HERE.

In the third and final piece, I showcased the final two sad songs, jumping from James Chance and the Contortions to Willie Tyler & Lester. For some reason unknown to me, this shorter blog post was only a slight bit behind the very lengthy first entry in the series in terms of views. Perhaps all those Lester fans out there? 

READ IT HERE, and please accept my wishes of a hap… er, miserable holiday season!

The last two tunes in the Xmas misery megamix

On the last day before Xmas, I wanted to add a final “footnote” to my Xmas misery megamix (go here for the full dose) with perhaps the most unusual items. There are only two of 'em because... hey, it's Xmas Eve when I'm posting this and you don't have a lotta time, do you?

First, a skronk-y Xmas carol that is an epic of discordance and irritation – you'll either love it or hate it (it's entirely possible you'll have both reactions). I have friends who rave about James Chance's music, and I can't help but think that's because they saw him live. Experiencing him through recordings is still a confrontation of a sort, but it also can be sorta tiring – although here I note that he's backed by women backup singers, who lend a tiny bit of on-key-ness to the proceedings (esp in the final repeated refrain, “Are you weepin' and waitin'/for Christmas with Satan?”).

The song is a ten-minute opus called “Christmas with Satan” and it contains not just Chance's meditation on meeting the Horned One on Xmas day, but also horn-driven "skronk" riffs on various familiar holiday staples, including “Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town,” “Winter Wonderland,” “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer,” and “Hava Nagila” (who knows?). This aspect of the song makes it a nice one-stop-shop for those who want to cover the usual Yuletide territory quickly and with irreverence.

Take the trip, the fare is cheap.

And the piece de resistance (thanks to friend Rich Brown for this!) has to be Willie Tyler and Lester's sad little December ditty – it's less an Xmas song than an end-of-year song about going home and seeing the family.

It's a somber affair, but the best part is that Willie didn't forget his little wooden pal (who he's been touring with for something like five decades!) – Lester duets with him on the tune and even gets a little Stylistics-like trill (around the 1:23 mark). I can think of no better way to seal off my “Xmas misery megamix” for 2015 than by giving you this song that I believe Willie wrote himself.

The more I watch this video the more I love Lester's hat and the way his tiny little wooden hands move to accentuate lines in the song.

The "Xmas misery megamix" can be found here. Happy Holidays to all

The holiday approacheth... and there *is* listenable music (plus: bonus Xmas misery!)

I posted a few weeks back about the misery that accompanies the Yuletide each year – the salesmanship (on many levels), the creation of an American mythos of the holiday, and the music... oh yes, the music. I of course first and foremost want to draw your attention to my “Xmas misery megamix” here, but I also wanted to add a few “footnotes” and draw some attention to some older pieces you'll find on this blog.

First, there's the question that some folks might've asked themselves after reading my celebration of the imaginative ways that songwriters have celebrated/chronicled the emotional underside of the holiday: “well, what DO you like in terms of Xmas music?” Four years ago I celebrated three brand new (well, they were then) Xmas songs. I still love all three of these tunes – one by Tim Minchin, one by the mighty “Sherwin Sleeves,” and the last by Andy Ditzler (with a no-budget music vid by Funhouse deity George Kuchar). Watch them here.

Each year there's generally one new Xmas song that I do enjoy, usually because it's catchy or amusing. This year I'd nominate a tune by “Loose Tapestries,” the band headed up by the Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding and Sergio Pizzorno (of Kasabian). The gent doing the midsong rap is none other than actor Idris Elba. The whole thing is damnably catchy (even if the video is unashamedly “Gilliam-esque” – perhaps to promote Terry's new autobio?):

I also direct your attention to another blog post I put up in 2011 (a busy holiday that year!), concerning Jewish comedians doing songs about Xmas: the Albert Brooks (his track wasn't a song but it was a 45!), Marty Feldman, and Jerry Lewis. I uploaded to YT the Feldman and Lewis songs. Listen to 'em all here.

Now for a few “footnotes” to my Xmas misery playlist. First, a “glitter” pop band doing a Fifties-sounding “I'm sad during the holidays” ditty. I didn't want to include “Blue Christmas”-esque items in the misery megamix but was intrigued to find this sucker after I wrote the piece. The band Mud were best known for their hit “Tiger Feet” (in which the singer praises his gal's “tiger feet” – I have no idea....). Here the lead vocalist does his impression of a classic r'n'r singer (in 1974) as he laments his upcoming solitude:

For a lovely statement of purpose, we have the British indie band Denim (whose leader formerly ran Felt – material jokes should be inserted here). Their Xmas tune was the wonderfully mopey “I Will Cry at Christmas." The song has the singer rejecting his lover, so he's not as innocent as the title suggests. Catchy, poppy misery:

And because everything I've offered up thus far in this entry is pretty damned upbeat and catchy, here's a song that is mostly gloomy atmosphere, Suicide's “Hey Lord” from 1981. This is some heavy Yuletide depression, truly the antidote to (I summon its sprightly soul again) Andy Williams' “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”:

Please do check out my original, extremely entertaining Xmas misery megamix post here.

As the merry-bells keep ringing, Happy Freakin' Holidays to you! 

Thanks to Steve Korn and Merry Brosnan for two of the musical suggestions above.

Confessions of a Humbug-aholic: the Christmas Misery Hit Parade

Halloween is now over, and I'm not the only one who laments its end and the onset of the Yuletide season. The latter is represented by a non-stop barrage of television ads, promotions in e-mail, picturesque store displays, and garish red and green products that bear the likenesses of Santa, Jesus, Rudolph, the Three Wise Men, Frosty, or the Virgin Mary.

And the music. Oh god, the music. Some of it is sublime, some amusing, but the vast majority of it is pure mulch. I've written about this before on this blog but the most irritating part of the whole Xmas music debacle is that the “selling season” is the only time older musical artists are played on the radio, on store loudspeakers, and all over the streets of the city — but you're only going to hear a handful of songs that fit the season and provoke either grimaces or sad memories. That's the true key to the marketing of any holiday, making the public feel an obligation to purchase or making 'em feel lonely and wretched.

And all this after Halloween, the most enjoyable of all holidays, because it is so irresponsible and lacking in obligation. Xmas is fun for kids and a burden for adults (unless they're parents, who now exist *through* the progeny). Halloween, on the other hand, is for extroverts and introverts, exhibitionists and voyeurs, those who are religious (and thus welcome the lapse into bad behavior) and those who know religion is the biggest marketing ploy of all.

The marketing push for Xmas now begins right after Halloween (and in some stores slightly before it). It used to be that Thanksgiving was the portal into Xmas — why else would Santa be shamelessly plugging Macy's at the tail-end of their wondrously overblown annual parade/store promotion? The “door busters”/Black Friday mindset is now a deeply entrenched part of the holiday. It is supplemented by department stores and other emporia du crap staying open 24/7 on the week before Xmas — something that never happened when America was prosperous but somehow became a habit right after the financial crash of 2008.

From Nakaryah's Photobucket

• nakaryah's

But even if you're able to set aside the horrifying Xmas marketing and the sad memories that are part and parcel of the Yuletide season (and the nearly-as-oppressive New Year’s Eve holiday that follows), you're left with that one major factor: the music. The mass media embraces, for a short time only, a finite amount of old culture — great dead recording artists, classic lit (of the Dickens variety), and a small handful of old movies and Xmas episodes of series from the pre-Norman Lear/pre-Three's Company days.

Halloween, on the other hand, spotlights rockers who've played with horror elements in their music or performance. The range of films is anything at all that could be frightening or scary, from murder mysteries and psychological thrillers to monster flicks and horror movies. There's no dictated “playlist” and there seems to be a broader outlook on what the holiday can embrace in terms of entertainment.

Both Xmas and Halloween can inspire memories. But would you rather be forced to recall heart-tugging memories of relatives who have died, lovers who have left, and kids who have grown up – or that ridiculous time you wore some silly-ass costume and had a ball? (or just stayed home and watched your all-time favorite horror/monster movies)

When it comes down to it, I choose joy over sorrow — and marketing. Mark me down as being in the Halloween camp. But since we're now firmly in Xmas territory (although the fact that the holiday begins so fucking early is now a running gag on both sides of the Atlantic), I wanted to remind ya what Xmas is really all about, by sharing the all-time best Yuletide misery tunes.

I've classified them into little groups, but I'm sure I still missed some gems (feel free to comment and add your own personal fave if I missed it). At the end of the piece, I thank those of my Facebook friends who reminded me of some prime Xmas misery or intro'd me to things I'd never heard before.

Let it be known that I do think “Have Yourself a Merry Little Xmas” is indeed a grade-A primo wrist-slashing piece of Yuletide sorrow (“… if the fates allow…” is the masterstroke). “Blue Xmas,” “I'll Be Home for Xmas,” “The Christmas Blues,” and “Please Come Home for Xmas” are equally gloomy and grim for the holiday. However, you know those — it would be like including the over-played (and barely tolerable) “Grandma Got Run Over by a Raindeer” to illustrate kooky Xmas tunes. I wanted to reach for the 100-proof Xmas misery ditties.

There are also songs that are just so treacly sentimental that they make YOU, the listener, miserable. There are dozens and dozens of these, but a particularly creepy one is “Shake Me I Rattle (Squeeze Me I Cry),” sung from the point of a “dolly” waiting to be bought by a sad, poor little girl (thanks to Roy Edroso for this misery “starter” kit). Here the Lennon Sisters act it out on — where else? — The Lawrence Welk Show.



The biggest subgroup of holiday-unhappiness ditties target that gift-giver emeritus, he of the beard, stomach, and creepy-ass laugh. Some of the tunes are lyrically miserable, but they are just too damned upbeat — thus I’m not including “Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me” and Dwight Yoakam’s “Santa Can't Stay” on this list. I will, however, start off with one of the truly weirdest tunes that appeared in the Dr. Demento universe several decades ago, the tune for fucked-up kids that hope to find parts of St. Nick underneath their beds:

One of the more peculiar depressing tunes about Santa is “The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot” by Nat King Cole. In this case Santa was a dick to a small child (because “he hasn’t got a daddy” — single moms raise disappointed children!).


  
The songwriter’s imagination goes to strange places when pondering the toy-making factory of St. Nick. The misery-epic “Death of an Elf” by Reverend Glen Armstrong is astoundingly grim:

And then children like the kid in the Nat Cole song grow up and take their revenge on Santa. There’s the wonderfully titled “Millie Pulled a Gun on Santa” by De La Soul. This is one of my all-time favorites, though: Ray Davies vision of a street corner Santa being attacked by angry poor kids. (“Give my daddy a job because he needs one/he’s got lots of mouths to feed/And if you’ve got one I’ll have a machine gun/ so I can scare all the kids on the street…”):

The next one probably belongs with the unhappy family Xmas tunes, but its raw r&B sound makes it perfect for the Santa-is-a-mean-fuck-up subgenre, “Santa Came Home Drunk” by Clyde Lasley and the Cadillac Baby Specials:

The sorely missed Tiny Tim came up with the single most depressing image of Santa in his absolute masterpiece “Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS.”(“He won’t be yelling out ‘Ho-ho-ho-ho’/But he’ll be screaming out ‘No! No! No! No!’…”) It’s a disturbing song, a bizarre one, an endlessly funny one (most likely because you can’t figure out if Tiny is kidding — I don’t think he was), and perhaps the ultimate expression of our twisted relationship with the man who comes down people’s chimneys and wolfs up their cookies. Tiny, we miss you so…

The nexus of the Xmas holiday (at least they keep telling us) is the family unit. The bulk of the miserable Xmas songs have to do with the lack of family and loneliness on the holiday, but there’s just as much misery that can be doled out by one’s relatives. 

Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family” is the best dysfunctional-family-at-Xmas song ever, but it’s still too chipper a vision: the sweet, fucked-up family that Keen describes is us, and they’re charmingly tacky. (The song gets major credits for being the only Xmas song I know of to mention tampons.)

Commander Cody’s “Santa's Drinking Up Our Xmas” is more in line with the family misery that gets communicated in song. Consider it the first great country ode to holiday pain in this list (more to come!):

And because it has the single most spiteful title in the whole canon of Xmas music, I have to include Sufjan Stevens’ “Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day? (well, you deserved it!).” Stevens came up with the words of a bickerer who is the exact opposite of the guy in the Ramones song “Merry Christmas (I don’t want to fight tonight).” His character is happy he’s made his partner miserable for the holidays:

The blues are the ultimate expression of sadness in song, and so there needs to be one unhappy Xmas blues tune on this list. Thus, Victoria Spivey tells us how low-down miserable Xmas can get in the  “Christmas Morning Blues”:

Blues masters have other things to be unhappy about, but country-song writers have a laser-focus on Xmas misery. There are songs in which people try to ignore the whole thing — as with Dolly Parton and company singing “Hard Candy Christmas” in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (a stunningly poorly-made movie musical).

Although it isn’t the single saddest Xmas-sucks country tune, the award for best title has got to go to “Please Daddy (Don't get drunk this Christmas).” Here the ever-pure John Denver warbles this timeless tale:

The “coal miner’s daughter” gave us one of the most perplexing sad-ass country tunes, “Christmas Without Daddy.” I’ve listened to this sucker more than once trying to figure out where daddy went — did he leave Mom and the kiddies? Is he in prison? The military? Is he dead? (She says he’s “so far away” and the son is writing him a letter, but then again, kids have been known to write to dead folk.) The songwriter supplies no answer, but it’s still a downer of a tune:

Ernest Tubb altered his big hit “I’m Walkin’ the Floor Over You” for the holidays as “I'll Be Walking the Floor This Christmas.” The best line? He’ll be “decoratin’ the tree with tears…”:

Arguably the all-time king of sad country songs, George Jones gave us “Lonely Christmas Call.” It’s a letter from a sad husband and dad, asking his departed ex to come back for the holiday. (“Why not show consideration/to the ones whose heart you’re breaking?/Give them your gift of love/this Christmas day…”)

The above are all great tunes, but the gut-punch best is definitely Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December.” It’s beautifully written, is about the eternal subject of lack of money, and isn’t just about the holiday. The narrator has been laid off and hopes that, if the family can survive the month of December (“the coldest time of winter”), they can move to a warmer climate where he can get a new job. It’s so non-sentimental and clear-minded in its point of view it’s emotionally wrenching:

A really great example of how Xmas music has been depressing since the get-go is the “Coventry Carol.” Intended to commemorate the order from King Herod to kill all the male children under the age of two in Bethlem, it’s a gorgeous-sounding carol that tells of the needless, horrid slaughter of innocent children. (Suddenly your losing your lover during the holidays doesn’t sound so bad, eh?) Here’s a beautiful version by Allison Moyet:

And continuing the massacre theme (I rarely get to write that phrase), next up is a discussion of Xmas songs revolving around the Vietnam War. Proving that the ridiculous phrase “EVERYTHING is on the Internet, Granddad!!!” is indeed ridiculous, I was unable to find a posting of one of my personal Nam-era faves that references how bombing in wars is sometimes stopped on Xmas Day (and then picked up as soon as the calendar changes). 

The song is “The Rest of The Year” written by David Buskin (of Buskin and Batteau) and recorded most prominently by Mary Travers. This song was on YouTube, but was taken down, so I mention here, because it is both beautiful and sad.

But onto a record you can hear online: “Christmas in Vietnam” by Johnny and Jon, surprisingly hails from relatively “early” in the war (1966) — although we all know the Vietnam quagmire was being ramped up during JFK’s presidency and during LBJ’s first years.  The song is a fascinating “news story” that contains the bluesy line “I’m in a foxhole, baby!”

Now the final, most sublime Xmas-misery songs.  And yet *another* note about a song that is NOT online, “My Most Miserable Xmas Blues” by Charles Brown (which accuses the listener, the singer’s lover, of making this Christmas “the most miserable Christmas” of his whole life — Brown’s pronunciation of it as “mis’able” makes it even better). I love the song to pieces, but can’t present it here, because no one has uploaded it to YouTube.

Again, I will try to dispense with songs that have depressing lyrics but are just too upbeat melody-wise (a great example is “Christmas Will Just Be Another Day” by Brenda Lee). What are we left with? Sheer unmitigated seasonal misery, like Aimee Mann's “I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas”:

Some early Seventies soul, the Emotions with “What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas?” The jingle bells are a ridiculous touch that play against the whole arrangement, but I guess the producer felt it “lightened” the depressing lyric.

Sometimes, during the year, when it's decidedly not Xmas, I begin to sing the next number to myself. Wall of Voodoo's amazing story song, “Shouldn't Have Given Him a Gun for Christmas.” (“He put two slugs in the neighbor’s door/and kicked apart the manger scene/The plastic baby Jesus he blew to smithereens/I can’t think of all the nine-year-olds who won’t be seein’ ten/Or how he went-a caroling to the doors of now-dead men!”)

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band gave us the lovely rocker (yes, I'll include upbeat tunes when they're nasty rock) “There's No Light on the Christmas Tree,” which concerns a killer being executed on Xmas Eve. There are indeed some sublime Xmas misery ditties about the Big House, including “Christmas in Jail,” the 1956 rocker that boasts beautifully deadpan delivery of the lyrics by the lead singer:

The always sublime John Prine went a similar route with his catchy “Christmas in Prison”:


Now, we come to the home stretch: the crème de la crème of sad Xmas songs. Tom Waits has written some of the most memorably depressing songs of the past few decades — to the extent that he has been impersonated for a novelty tune called “Christmas Sucks.” Tom's own Yuletide masterwork is the memorably downbeat “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis.” It gets to the essence of the holiday in a few short minutes. A smiling, happy facade concealing all kinds of sad truths.

The vision of owning a used car lot is the grace note. (“I'd just drive me a different car every day/depending on how I feel...”)

A good part of the strength of garage rock was its raucous, unpolished sound in an era when the Beatles and Beach Boys were releasing gorgeously crafted pop-rock “teenage symphonies" — thus the main reason the notion of Little Steven's Underground Garage makes so little sense, since he decided the perfectly polished, million-selling hits belong with the raucous items by more obscure acts, just because he says so.

There was also the refreshingly short duration of the songs. Here the Sonics from Tacoma, Wash., offer up their feelings about Xmas in less than two minutes. Brevity is indeed the soul of Xmas-misery wit.

And because punk was built on the shambles left by garage rock, we have Fear's exceedingly succinct summation of the situation:

It's not like the notion that Xmas is a dreadful drag is anything new. This brilliant piece (also very concise) from 1962 skewers the holiday beautifully. Vocalist Bob Dorough wrote the lyrics (“It's a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy/Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the folderal/Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all/What I call/folderal/Bitter gall... folderal”). He composed the melody with some guy named Davis.

Hard to beat the conclusion of Dorough's lyrics (“Merry Christmas/I hope yours is a bright one, but for me, it bleeds...”). Leave it to the beautifully blended voices of the Everly Brothers to supply the fell blow that demolishes the holiday, “Christmas Eve Can Kill You.” (“And Christmas Eve can kill you/When you're trying to hitch a ride to anywhere/The icy air I'm breathing's all that keeps me on my feet/I feel like I've been walking all my life...”)

And because I have to leave you with one dram of hopefulness after this death-orgy of Xmas-music (which is actually just more *honest* than the music you normally hear; Andy Williams' “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is a horrific but tuneful deceit from any angle), I turn to the much-loved “Fairytale of New York.”

The strength of the song is its mixture of beauty and ugliness (something that those from Eire are masters at). The fact that the music is beautifully arranged, gorgeously sung (ah, Kristy...), and so wonderfully evocative of dreams that are promised and the reality that is delivered makes it perhaps the perfect urban Xmas song.

I can think of no better place to close out than with a rollicking, boisterous, emotional Xmas song that contains the charmingly romantic lyric, “You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot/Happy Christmas your arse/I pray God it's our last.” What more can you add?

Thanks to these Facebook pallies for reminding me of, and in some cases introducing me to, some of the songs found above: Doug Brod, Rich Brown, Nick Bruel, Zach Crowell, Roy Edroso, Ed Edward, M. Faust, Tony Gordon, Greg Gutbezahl, Judy Hennessey, James Marshall, Arnold Neimanis, Garo Nigoghossian, Suzu Renaud, and Louis Sessa.

For your holiday (or anytime) viewing: the comedy special "AD/BC: a Rock Opera"

The guiding principal of the Funhouse for the past two decades has been: if I find something amazing, I've got to share it. Thus, as my Xmas present to readers of this blog (and for whatever reading you do here, I thank ye kindly), I want to spotlight a brilliant creation courtesy of some of the shining lights of British TV comedy.

The program is AD/BC: a Rock Opera (2004), and it's an absolutely spot-on parody of the rock operas of the early Seventies. It's the story of the Nativity, as told by rock composer “Tim Wynde,” played by the great Matt Berry. Berry and Richard Ayoade wrote the music and lyrics, and Ayoade directed. For their pedigree, I merely have to note that both were in the supporting cast of The Mighty Boosh and later were stars of The IT Crowd. Ayoade recently directed the critically lauded Submarine, and Berry is currently starring in the great sitcom Toast of London.

Berry has made a habit of playing hammy, pretentious characters, and that serves him well here as the Lloyd Webber-like composer who also plays the innkeeper. The show is not only a letter-perfect parody of the corny “hipness” of the rock operas, but Ayoade has also wonderfully captured the visual tropes that appeared in the film versions of these works (there are wonderful recreations of the camera language and edits from Jewison's JC Superstar and David Greene's Godspell catalog of would-be “cool” effects).

[Full disclosure: As a student at Catholic school I was forced to memorize songs from Godspell, so I felt tormented by that show; I actually do enjoy the wildly-dated-even-when-it-was-new excesses of JC Superstar, but take great delight in the precision with which the tenets of both shows are gutted here.]

The cast is simply sublime: Berry as the innkeeper, Julia Davis (Hunderby, Nighty Night, Jam) as his wife, Julian Barratt (of the Boosh) as the villainous “Tony Iscariot,” Ayoade as Joseph, Matt Lucas (Little Britain) as God, and, among the chorus, Noel Fielding and Rich Fulcher of the “Boosh” and Graham Linehan (creator of Father Ted and IT Crowd).

It is fun, it is super satire, and it is incredibly silly. What more can you ask for in comic entertainment?

Catchy, beautiful, and very unusual music for Xmas Eve

It's everywhere this time of year – Christmas music that is. As I write this, only 24 hours remain until the holiday is here and then it's GONE, so I will get straight to the point – if you are looking for non-brain-damaged, unfamiliar Yuletide- (and Solstice-)themed music, songs with a brain, a heart, and in many cases, a “demented” soul, look no further than the following four recommendations.

First of all, there is the sublimely strange melange of music served up by the DJ known as KBC on his “Bitslap” podcast. His themed episodes are all wonderful, but one of his specialties is uncovering VERY rare and often uniquely oddball Xmas music. So feast on the offerings available on his podcast, found here. As of today he has four current Xmas shows and a number of items from years past.

Now we move on to the music-videos of three tunes I really do love, for different reasons. The first is a non-mawkish but beautifully sentimental item composed and performed by the Australian musical comedian Tim Minchin. Tim is an atheist whose Xmas tune celebrates the holiday from a secular perspective, arguing that the real crux of the season is being with family and friends. It's a smart and sweet tune.

On to the seasonal cheer. I've written a few times before on this blog about Sherwin Sleeves, the brainchild of writer-performer Sean Hurley. Sherwin is a man of many talents and a sublimely gravely voice. That voice has been featured in two very wonderful Xmas stories, the first being “The Christmas Skater,” a beautifully written piece of radio that can be heard here.

The second seasonal adventure is one that I have just listened to today for the first time. It is the innovative, award-winning play Whisper, Pray, Make Room, which finds Sean as a modern-day Scrooge who happens to work as a talk-radio host. The "ghosts" reach him in the voice of his callers. As I've noted before on these pages, Hurley is a really top-notch writer whose works are true Internet treasures. Check out his terrific "radio theater" stories with Sleeves at his Atoms, Motion and the Void site.

Oh, and here is Sleeves' extremely catchy Xmas tune, which appears at the end of Whisper... (but was written before the play was created). It's short and is worthy of repeat plays.

And finally a song that belongs not to Xmas, but to the original holiday that occurred around this time of year, the Solstice. Singer-songwriter Andy Ditzler's tune is a wonderful earworm with a chorus that's catchy as hell. The reason I recommend it heartily is not only that the song is upbeat and joyous, but because Ditzler was lucky enough to have an underground legend, Funhouse favorite George Kuchar, shoot his music-video.

Funhouse viewers and readers of this blog will know that I LOVE George's work (and that of his brother Mike), and this music-vid (shot while George was teaching at the San Franciso Art Institute) has some imagery that only he could've come up with. Santa, dinosaurs, and Halloween decorations – the nine-year-old in me cheers.

Speaking of those of other faiths, if you'd like to hear three novelty Xmas items recorded by Jewish comics (Jerry Lewis, Marty Feldman, and Albert Brooks), then check out my Xmas-music entry from last year.

Three Jewish comedians on the topic of Christmas presents

So these three Jews walk into a department store… no, no, that’s very politically incorrect. However, since I want to salute the holiday without trotting out the same tunes you hear ALL the time, and I certainly don't want to go anywhere near the religious content of the occasion, which (let’s face it) has nothing at all to do with what goes on around this money-centric country anyway. The Yuletide is all about the gifts, and so there is no better subject to be tackled by comedians in search of an Xmas single. (When people did release singles, that is. I am old.)

In this spirit I offer three Jewish comics from different comedic backgrounds supplying their takes on Xmas. First, the rarest track of the three, one I personally uploaded to YT, Marty Feldman’s “A Joyous Time of the Year.”

This is included in a CD release called “I Feel a Song Going Off” that is made up of the contents of a 1971 Marty LP called The Strange World of Marty Feldman, plus extra tracks which may or may not have been singles. Marty was a true original who did Keaton-precise physical comedy (see his “Loneliness of the Long Distance Golfer”), but he was also extremely funny as a manic character comic (watch this sketch). Here is his Xmas ditty:



A few years later, Albert Brooks released this single written by him and Harry Shearer. Interestingly, Albert was not a dad when this came out, but had children later in life. It’s a nice and nasty piece of business that comes from the period when Albert was a wonderfully abrasive comic presence (see my article on his transformations as a comedian and filmmaker). From 1974, “A Daddy's Christmas”:



And finally, since we never heard from him this past Labor Day (or since), I’ll close out with the “unkillable Jerry” (French variant title of one of his comedies). Here he laments the crappiness of his gifts with a song that is a lot more listenable than “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” or “I Ain’t Getting’ Nuttin’ for Christmas (’Cause I Ain’t Been Nuttin’ But Bad).” Herewith Jerry’s “I Had a Very Merry Christmas” — whatever you think of it, it’s worth it just to hear his pronunciation of the name “Minnie the Mermaid” (and, yes, I uploaded this one too -- these things need to be heard!):



Thanks as always to Jim G. for his diligent work unearthing the rarest comedy LPs found on the Net. His hard work is invaluable.

Have Yourself an Atheist Xmas: "Nerdstock"

The Yuletide resounds with weighty, sometimes oppressive sentiments, so it is important to just settle back and have a good time. I can think of no better way to do this than to view the British TV special called “Nerdstock”.

The show, which is properly known as “Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People,” has taken place annually for the last three years in London. This week on the Funhouse TV show, I’ll be featuring a review of, and show short clips from, the DVD record of the first “Godless” event in 2008 (from the indie label Go Faster Stripe). Comedian Robin Ince hosts and organizes the program, taking care to balance the bill among standup comics, musicians and scientists. The intention is to create a “rationalist” celebration of the season that drops the supernatural religious aspect of the holiday in favor of a calm, optimistic view of this planet and those bright lights around us. And yes, the comedians are free to be downright sacrilegious — what fun would a rationalist holiday be without that?

Comparing the reviews that exist online of the live events, the Go Faster Stripe DVD, and the “Nerdstock” broadcast, it becomes evident that the last-mentioned was abridged and sorta carefully edited for telecast, and is thus missing some of the more lacerating (read: seriously atheist) comedians including Funhouse fave Stewart Lee (his former partner Richard Herring does a very sharp routine on the 2008 DVD, but is noticeably friendlier and fuzzier on the 2009 telecast), and one cult figure who appeared at the event (comics genius Alan Moore). Also not on TV special is Ricky Gervais, noted atheist celeb, who has done a number of these Godless gigs, since he is a friend of Ince’s (Ince served his opening act as his standup career began to skyrocket).

In any case, the show is well worth your time, because I can’t imagine it for a single second being aired in America, where we theoretically have “separation of church and state” — except in the minds of Xtian fundamentalists. Please do partake of ”Nerdstock”, and if you’re interested in the further adventures of host/producer Ince, check out his inteview podcast, cohosted by comedian Josie Long, called “Utter Shambles.” Ince and Long interview a mix of comedians and the occasional scientifically minded individual. Their guest list so far has included “alternative” comedy god Alexei Sayle, Stewart Lee, Mark Steel, podcast duo Richard Herring and Andrew Collins, and the one and only mystery man of Northampton, Alan Moore. Listen here. And here again is the "Godless" "Nerdstock" special: