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Happy Birthday Baby Jesus

Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus (1995) is the CD reissue of two 10-inch vinyl LP's released by über indie label Sympathy For The Record Industry - Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus (1993) and Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus: The Second Coming (1994) - plus "some stuff that's new." Captured at the height of post-modern, alt-rock mania, the Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus bands fairly ooze irony and drip sarcasm. Nary a single cut has a sincerely festive perspective on the high Christian holiday. Now, that's hardly a bad thing - I love a good piss take, and the Christmas holiday is a worthy target - but pointedly out-of-tune caterwauling can wear a bit thin after an hour-and-a-half.

The thing is, I really want to like this album better. I mean, the song titles alone are pretty entertaining. "Little Drummer Bitch" (Red Aunts), "Last On Santa's List" (Fireworks), "Christmastime Is For Sinners" (Mono Men), and especially "Merry Christmas, Fuck You" (Jet Boys) merit a belly laugh before needle ever touches vinyl - or laser strikes aluminum, or electrons speed through cyberspace, or whatever. But, well, a lot of these songs aren't very good. Alternative music, particularly the sort that Sympathy For The Record Industry trafficked in, is often as much about politics, posture, and attitude as it is about craft. Sometimes the point is to irritate you, and I'm okay with that. But, musicality counts for something, and a large slice of Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus borders on unlistenable.

Sympathy For The Record Industry was based in Olympia, Washington, and they considered themselves to be far outside the realm of "mainstream alternative" rock - and, by the way, what a rich phrase that was. By the mid-90's, that strain of music was dominant, but the bands on Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus had little in common with Smashing Pumpkins or Stone Temple Pilots, let alone Blues Traveler or Alanis Morissette. In fact, the liner notes declare - in big, bold, red font - "Fuck The World Of Alternative Music." That was actually the label's registered trademark! Sympathy For The Record Industry did not want to, in record industry lexicon, move units. Their records were designed to provoke and annoy the general population - while amusing disaffected young adults.

Happy Birthday Baby JesusNothing For Me

But, lest I damn with faint praise, the highlights on Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus are unique, memorable, and plentiful. I rated more than half the tracks as essential listening (see below) - songs I look forward to hearing every Christmas season. Strangely enough, the highlights tend to be the songs played well, or enthusiastically, or both - not shrugged off with post-modern ennui.

To start with, a number of notable bands turn in solid - if less than spectacular - performances on Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. These include my beloved Muffs ("Nothing For Me"), San Diego's monomaniacal Rocket From The Crypt ("Cancel Christmas"), and Tuscon's almighty Supersuckers ("We'll Call It Christmastime"). There's even a couple of rip-roaring, quasi-traditional instrumentals by the intrepid Man Or Astroman ("Frosty The Snowman") and gonzo surf revivalists the Bomboras ("Little Drummer Boy"), and they go a long way towards leavening the musical loaf.

Hands down, though, the two very best tracks are El Vez's wacky "Feliz Navi-Nada" and an ebullient, if profane, take on "Christmas Is A-Comin' (May God Bless You)" by the Shitbirds. In the former, El Vez - who specializes in comically mashing up Elvis songs with unexpected rock classics - fuses Jose Feliciano's Hispanic classic, "Feliz Navidad," with Sex Pistol John Lydon's solo debut, "Public Image." It's one of his best-ever concepts, and it's a distorted remix of a track that appeared the same year on his album Merry MeX-mas.

The Shitbirds' "Christmas Is A-Comin'" is just a hoot, really. The band was based in Los Angeles and featured a young Elinor Blake who, as April March, would go on to create an impressive catalog of indie rock and neo-lounge music - much of it inspired by classic French pop, believe it or not. "Christmas Is A-Comin'" begins with a montage of strange archival sound clips - until Elinor loses patience. "Enough! Enough!" she screams, and the band kicks into an under-two-minute pop punk deconstruction of the traditional carol. What Elinor does to the lyrics can't really be described, but it involves cigarettes, dung, and the Pope.

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus

Check This Shit Out!

The rest of the highlights on Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus are by bands little known at the time and largely forgotten today. This includes great original songs such as "Bob Kringle" by the Creamers and "There's Nothing I Want More For Christmas This Year" and the Chubbies, two female-led bands with phallocentric names. And then there's "Christmas Will Be Magic Again" by International Language, a side-project of Pooh Sticks mastermind Steve Gregory. It's a real unicorn on the album - cheery power pop, including a passage stolen from 70's bubblegum smash "Beach Baby" by First Choice.

Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus has some great covers, too - all of them iconic Christmas rockers. The Devil Dogs assay Roy Wood's eccentric classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" with straightforward enthusiasm, while New Bomb Turks blow through Darlene Love's eternal "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" at warp speed. My personal favorite, though, is the Humpers' incendiary take on Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run." The Humpers were a rootsy punk band from Long Beach, California, and I always laugh when singer Scott "Deluxe" Drake introduces Billy Burks' guitar solo by hollering, "Check this shit out!"

And then there's the Junkyard Dogs' "Brand New Bike," which isn't quite an original or a cover. It's an original set of lyrics set to tune of "Santa Claus Is Back In Town," written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Elvis Presley. The most interesting thing, however, is that the Junkyard Dogs were the Supersuckers in disguise, performing acoustic country and blues music. Everyone involved used a pseudonym, though singer Eddie Cheddar is obviously Supersucker Eddie Spaghetti. The band released just one album, Good Livin' Platter (1994), plus a few odd tracks like "Brand New Bike."

El Vez, Merry Mex-MasPooping all over history

So, the three Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus editions are far more than artifacts of the mordant 90's - if less than the unqualified post-punk Christmas classics I wish they were. In the years following their release, music and technology changed immensely, and weird-ass Christmas records by disaffected youth became commonplace - meaning, it's hard to imagine what an unusual thing these records were in their day. Back then, punks and alt-rock geeks rarely took the time to do a piss take on Christmas, let alone cobble together a whole double-album of the stuff. That they did is a good thing, even if it sometimes hurts to listen to it.

Trivia fans, no doubt, will want to know what vintage LP covers were employed (parodied, ripped off, whatever) by Sympathy for the Record Industry to create the cover art for Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. The three editions, respectively, are derived from Lawrence Welk's Jingle Bells (Coral, 1957), Christmas With Patti Page (Mercury, 1956), and Christmas With the Mexicali Brass (Crown, 1967). The amusing, scatological, occasionally informative CD booklet includes all previous artwork plus a weird paste-up of Nat King Cole's Christmas Song (Capitol, 1963). Pooping all over history is part of the fun!

Consumer Notes

The vinyl and compact disc editions of Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus are long out-of-print. Happily, it was reissued for streaming and download in 2012, and you can find it at Amazon, Apple, and most everywhere. If you are looking for hard copies - and you should - I recommend Discogs, my favorite spot for music collectables. [top of page]

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • Bob Kringle (Creamers, 1990)
  • Brand New Bike (Junkyard Dogs aka Supersuckers, 1993)
  • Cancel Christmas (Rocket From The Crypt, 1993)
  • Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (New Bomb Turks,1993 )
  • Christmas Is A-Comin' (May God Bless You) (Shitbirds, 1993)
  • Christmas Will Be Magic Again (International Language, 1995)
  • Christmastime Is For Sinners (Mono Men, 1994)
  • Feliz Navi-Nada (El Vez, 1994) Top 100 Song
  • Frosty The Snowman (Man Or Astroman? 1994)
  • I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday (Devil Dogs, 1993)
  • Little Drummer Boy (Bomboras, 1994)
  • Nothing For Me (Muffs, 1994)
  • Run Rudolph Run (Humpers, 1993)
  • There's Nothing I Want More For Christmas This Year (Chubbies, 1995)
  • We'll Call It Christmastime (Supersuckers, 1994)

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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