Dec. 1: KITT the Amazing Car of Tomorrow Saves Christmas, Glen Ballard and Brock Walsh. (Thanks to Alf Kremer for hipping me to this treasure.)
Dec. 2: It's the amazing Internet Musical Advent Calendar Day 2. Maybe you weren't ready yesterday for KITT the car to drive you full-speed into the holiday season. Perhaps you'd like to ease into it like those famous slackers in Pavement. I've got just the song and video for you.
Pavement, "Gold Soundz" -- The song mentions December and uses the word "advent," and the video has them in Santa suits.
Dec. 3: Sparks, "Thank God It's Not Christmas." Here's one for the humbugs: "Caroling kids, caroling kids / A trifle premature, in tones so rich and pure and crystalline / Call for the day, the popular day / It's fast approaching now / But will the mood allow one dissent?"
Dec. 4: Low, "Santa's Coming Over"-- A 2008 single that was not on the Duluth band's classic Christmas EP, it mixes beauty, innocence and creepiness in a way that only Low can.
Dec. 5: "California Christmastime," from the cast of the TV show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." I wasn't going to post this one because, as a guy who grew up in the Fog Belt of San Francisco, I don't like it when the rest of the country talks about California as though the whole state is always hot and sunny. But then I cracked up at the part where they sing "California Christmastime, let's get together and sing songs by Sublime." The late, great Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne wrote songs for this show. I'm not sure if he wrote this one, but that joke about Sublime sounds like a Fountains of Wayne joke, doesn't it?
Dec. 6: The Shades, "Prancer's Got Some Red Spots." A 1960s girl group from rural Indiana sings a song about one of Santa's reindeer coming down with the measles. That used to be a common thing (for humans. I don't know about reindeer.) Happy 50th anniversary to the MMR vaccine, 97% effective at preventing measles!
Dec. 7: I don't know about you, but when I think about Christmas, I think about reggae, and when I think about reggae the first names that come to mind are Bryan Adams and Pee Wee Herman. "Reggae Christmas."
Dec. 8: The Free Design were a sibling vocal group of the late 1960s who had only limited success in their own time. I guess they were too square for the hippies and hipsters, but too weird for the squares. Still, their wildly creative arrangements earned them fans decades later among record collectors and musicians like Beck, Stereolab and Belle and Sebastian. This is a Christmas radio show the group did for the U.S. Air Force. Apparently group leader Chris Dedrick's draft number was coming up, so rather than wait to be called and sent to Vietnam, he enlisted in the USAF to join its band. The Air Force decided to get him and his group to do a little promotional work as part of a misguided effort to burnish the service's reputation among young people. And of course they called it "The Now Sound of Christmas":
Dec. 9: This one's for the Dr. Who fans. It's credited to the Go-Go's, but it's not the ones you're thinking of, not the recent inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Apparently there was a UK act called the Go-Go's in the 1960s. If this single is any indication, they're not going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame any time soon. The Go-Go's, "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek."
Dec. 10: Here in Minnesota, there's nothing we like more than finding the local angle in any big story, so for the Amazing Internet Musical Advent Calendar here's Leif Garret singing about spending the holiday at Hazelden/Betty Ford Center in Center City, MN. Sounds like he's been through some stuff in the many years since he was a teen idol. Let's wish him well. Leif Garrett and the Crush Ups, "Betty Ford for Christmas."
Dec. 11: Minneapolis musician Mark Mallman is one of my favorite Twitter follows. I admire his positivity and empathy. I don't think this attitude comes naturally to him. He has to work at it. And he inspires me to work at it, too. Mark Mallman and Lazerbeak, "I Believe in Peace on Earth."
Dec. 12: Here's a Magnetic Fields song from the "Distortion" album on which every song sounds like a hangover after a Christmas party: "Mr. Mistletoe."
Dec. 13: The lovely melody and arrangement here only partly disguise the fact this is a foul-mouthed Christmas song about families driving you crazy at Christmas time. The video is funny, too. Stella Donnelly, "Seasons' Greetings."
Dec. 14: John Cale, "A Child's Christmas in Wales" -- I don't understand what this song is about. Cale is Welsh, but I don't think it's autobiographical. It takes its title from a famous Dylan Thomas poem, but doesn't share much with it, as far as I can tell. The first lines of the song are "With mistletoe and candle green / To Halloween we go." That doesn't sound like Christmas to me. But then, they do things differently in Wales. And it's a lovely song. Here's a live version Cale did with a small orchestra.
Dec. 15: Christmas is coming. How does Chicago blues pianist Detroit Jr. feel about it? He feels OK. "Christmas Day."
Dec. 16: The Reverend Glen Armstrong was a Detroit poet-musician-provocateur, known in the 70s and 80s for his band the Dirty Clergy. Reportedly, he used to play shows where he'd do things like perform Hamlet's soliloquy to the tune of "Land of 1,000 Dances. Here, he pays tribute to the Manson Family member who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford. "Even Squeaky Fromme Loves Christmas."
Dec. 17: If yesterday's Squeaky Fromme song didn't do it for you, here to get you in the holiday spirit is a new song called "It's Christmas, Motherfuckers." It starts with a man singing, "I've slept with several hundred dark-haired Eastern European men." What are the holidays, if not a time for excess? https://loganlynn.bandcamp.com/album/its-christmas-motherfuckers
Dec. 18: This guy feels the spirt! Here's Detroit soul singer Lee Rogers with "You Won't Have to Wait till Xmas."
Dec. 19: Blues belter Rose Graham really wants to pull your sleigh. I, ahem, assume there's some sort of double meaning there. "Black Christmas."
Dec. 19: Blues belter Rose Graham really wants to pull your sleigh. I, ahem, assume there's some sort of double meaning there. "Black Christmas."
Dec. 20: Sun Ra is probably best known today for his Space-Egyptian stage outfits and his Afrofuturist jazz, but he cut a lot of doo-wop records earlier in his career. Here's Sun Ra Presents the Qualities, "It's Christmas Time."
Dec. 21: Today is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the official beginning of winter, and that can only mean one thing: It's time for the Snow Miser song from "A Year Without Santa Claus." Here are O.G. L.A. death rockers 45 Grave doing their scrappy version.
Dec. 22: Replacements, "Bundle Up (Jungle Rock)" x Apparently, the Mats liked to cover "Jungle Rock" by Hank Mizell, a very silly rockabilly song where a guy sings about seeing a camel doing the jitterbug with a kangaroo, and things like that. I recently listened to one of those expanded Replacements album editions with lots of extra tracks and it seemed like half of them were renditions of "Jungle Rock." It was ridiculous and frustrating, just like the Mats could be at times. Here's yet another version where Paul improvises some lyrics about Santa's elves shooting up dope. Sorry for the poor sound quality. Replacements, "Bundle Up (Jungle Rock)"
Dec. 23: In 2021, it's pretty hard to explain the appeal of Max Headroom, who was hyped (misleadingly) as "the first computer-generated TV personality." To be honest, it was pretty hard to explain it in the 1980s, too, but Max was popular enough to have his own holiday special, which is where we got this clip, "Merry Christmas, Santa Claus (You're a Lovely Guy)."
Dec. 24: This year, I made a list of songs I might use for the Amazing Internet Musical Advent Calendar, and I kept adding to it as I found more. Some of you very kindly sent me links and I added those to the list as well. And so, here we are at the last day of Advent and I still have a good number of songs I haven't used on this list. I have some lovely songs on there, and some weird ones. I really enjoy sharing the weird ones, as you may have noticed, but I also enjoy the lovely ones, like this short song from the Welsh band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. It's simply called "Christmas Eve."
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