A Christmas Gift For You

2018

This year, I'm being lazy and returning to the three garage rock collections I spotlighted last year. Released more than 20 years ago by Midnight Records, a label and retail store in New York City, the series started with the magnificent A Midnight Christmas Mess (1984), continued with A Midnight Christmas Mess Again!! (1986), and concluded with It's Midnight Xmess Part III (1987).

As for my laziness, gimme me a break! The Midnight Christmas series is a very deep well, with more than half of its 41 tracks qualifying as essential listening for lovers of hip Christmas music - and the rest aren't too shabby. For collectors, the sad truth is that the Midnight Christmas albums have never been reissued in any shape, form, or fashion after their initial vinyl run was exhausted. Now, they've become something of a Holy Grail for those same collectors. Despite such scarcity, the Midnight Christmas albums arguably helped kicked off the annual deluge of punk, alternative, and indie rock Christmas songs that we now enjoy (or endure, depending on your perspective). Maybe this page will help raise their profile. In the meantime, let's rock!

Cheepskates, Christmastime With You (1984)
Led by singer/guitarist Shane Faubert, the NYC-based Cheepskates recorded two albums for Midnight Records, Run Better Run (1984) and Second And Last ‎(1986). As the latter album foreshadowed, the band then broke up, but Faubert quickly formed a new Cheepskates and subsequently released several more albums, as well as some solo sides, for a German label called Music Maniac. The Cheepskates' three contributions to the Midnight Christmas series are way kinder and gentler than most - closer to what we now call "sunshine pop" than garage rock - and "Christmas Time Without You" is the best. It's filled with wistful guitars, bittersweet harmonies, and downcast sentiments like "Christmas comes but just a year but it's never any fun," but things turn out okay. Faubert hopes to finds his way back to his lost love, and that seems to be enough. (That aforementioned German label reissued Run Better Run on compact disc in 1996 with several bonus tracks including both Cheepskate tracks from the first Midnight Christmas album, but not "Star" from the second. The CD is scarce these days, but it's now available for download.)

Das Furlines, O Tannenbaum Now (1986)
Before writing this article, the only song I'd ever heard by Das Furlines was this one, and I knew literally nothing else about them. But, Google exists, and now I know that Das Furlines were an all-female band from New York City that started out, amazingly enough, as a Monks cover band. (The Monks were an eccentric garage band formed by five American soldiers stationed in Germany, and this will eventually be an important point in our story.) Anyway, Das Furlines have quite a colorful history and can make claim to a pivotal role in the rise of alternative rock. Most significantly, they elbowed their way into that male-dominated scene, leading the charge towards the more inclusive world we inhabit now. Led by Wendy Wild (née Andreiev, now deceased), the self-described punk-polka band raised a lot of hell and recorded several (now very hard-to-find) albums. They got profiled on MTV by Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes (which makes perfect sense), got written up in People magazine (which doesn't), and reportedly appeared on the TV news magazine Entertainment Tonight (though in what capacity I can only imagine). Wendy Wild later played with Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones, and keyboardist Deb O'Nair joined the Fuzztones. As for "O Tannenbaum Now" from A Midnight Christmas Mess Again!! (1986), it sounds more punk than polka, with its insistent beat, morse-code-style organ, and noisy guitar - but the girls do manage to work in something resembling a yodel: "Ol' Saint Nick will be here quick, today-hee!" But, finally, here's where the Monks come in. It turns out that "O Tannenbaum Now" is actually an adaption of the Monks song "Oh, How To Do Now" from their lone album, Black Monk Time (1966). Who knew?

Justin Love, Here's What I Want On Christmas Day (1984)
Long Island rocker Justin Love started his career as Justin Trouble (and, no, I have no idea what his real name is), and he recorded a couple of albums and a few singles in the 1980's - though none for Midnight Records. He came across - visually and musically - as a cross between a young Jonathan Richman and a clean Johnny Thunders (if such a thing ever existed). Love's track from the first installment of Midnight Christmas is at once one of the more normal and one of the best in the series. It's a powerful, catchy rock song that means just about what it says. That said, the tag line is suspiciously self-aggrandizing. "Here's what I want on Christmas Day," Justin declares, "for love to blow me away." Justin Love eventually left New York City for Woodstock upstate, and he's better known these days as a painter, though he's stayed active a musician. He's also something of a global citizen with residences in Jamaica, Vietnam, and Thailand. (It's worth noting that several musicians have used the name Justin Love, one of them a currently popular heart throb. Good luck detangling that online mess....)

Plan 9, Merry Christmas (1984)
Of all the bands found on the Midnight Christmas series, Rhode Island's Plan 9 is probably the best known, and they were certainly one of the most committed the the neo-garage/psychedelic aesthetic. Over the course of two decades, Plan 9 actually built a career - formidable catalog included. Two of those records - Dealing With The Dead (1984) and I've Just Killed A Man I Don't Want To See Any Meat (1985) - were released on the Midnight label, while most others were affiliated with nationally-distributed Enigma Records. As for "Merry Christmas," it could be a great lost Seeds track, or even an early Doors demo. And, despite its innocuous title, "Merry Christmas" paints a foreboding holiday portrait. A man takes a walk on Christmas Day, sees the world for what it is - lonely, depraved, fatuous. "I hope this feeling doesn't last," he snarls. Of course, the whole thing ends up with a wild instrumental freak out, so maybe there is hope after all. (Two footnotes. First "Merry Christmas" was also released as a 7-inch single backed a non-LP version of "White Christmas." Second, Plan 9 took its name from the 1950's sci-fi cult classic Plan 9 from Outer Space, so it's hardly a shock that several other bands chose the same moniker. Again, good luck figuring that one out....)

Whooping Cranes, Celebrate! (1987)
I bought the Midnight Christmas series roughly when it was released, and, unless you lived in New York (and I didn't), most of the bands were a mystery - and that mystery was a tangible part of the albums' appeal. More recently, as I've researched the series online, I've been pleasantly surprised how much information about those bands has been preserved. That's not always the case, however, and when a band's name is also a popular species of wildlife, well.... The Whooping Cranes, I think, released just one single, "Hope" (1986), and one album, That's What I Need (1987), both on Zip Records (which we can safely assume is the band's own label). The liner notes of Midnight Xmess Part III identify them as a New York band (no surprise there), and "Celebrate!" is likely sung by guitarist Bob Lazaroff. The song itself is a cacophonous, headlong rush of conflicting images - alternately happy, thrilling, and frightening memories of the holidays - with each verse ending with a punch line of sorts. "Celebrate! Celebrate!" shouts Bob, then adding, "Christmas alone." Ooof!

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