A Christmas Gift For You

2020

Butch Walker & Taryn Manning, Christmas All Over Again (2008)
Both Butch Walker and Taryn Manning would go onto bigger things. He first gained some fame in the Atlanta-based rock band Marvelous 3, and he would go on to write, perform, and produce for a cornucopia of artists including Green Day, Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Cee-Lo Green, Avril Lavigne, the Donnas, Pink, and Katy Perry. She is a talented, powerful singer, most notably with her band Boomkat, but she's best known as an actress, most notable at this point for the 2005 film Hustle & Flow, and later quite visibly in the TV shows Sons of Anarchy, Hawaii Five-0, and Orange Is the New Black. But here, both were still scrapping, and their recording of Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" was one of the first covers of what has now become a standard in the hipster holiday repertoire. While hardly revelatory, it's certainly enthusiastic and enjoyable, but it quickly disappeared from the face of the earth - until now.

Vibrators, I Hate Xmas (2000)
One of the seminal English punk bands, the Vibrators are best remembered for their 1977 single "Baby, Baby," which, in retrospect, doesn't sound very punk at all. In the early days, they produced a handful of singles and a couple of albums. Their debut, Pure Mania (1977), is considered a touchstone. And, while their star faded fast, the band persisted for many years. In 2000, they produced a really great holiday single, "I Hate Xmas," released on CD in a very limited run. It's a classic, acerbic, and very English take on the holidays, slagging off the Queen, country, and family, while asserting singer Knox Carnochan's rebuttal: They never heard me play this guitar! To be fair, "I Hate Xmas" was compiled once, on Cashing In On Christmas Volume 6 (2014), which appears to still be available on vinyl. All the same, it's unavailable for download or streaming, so let's enjoy it together.

Urchins, Christmas Crush (1995)
There's an oddly rare benefit CD called A Jersey Shore Christmas (2003) featuring some of the biggest names in New Jersey rock history: Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny. Alongside them, you'll find all sorts of bands you've never heard of, most of them in much the same working class blues/rock vein. And then there's the Urchins. I can't tell you much, but they hailed from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and were an alternative guitar pop band fronted by comely vocalist Karen Bradbury. They managed to record just one album, Yummy (1995), but they are probably best remembered for their 1993 debut single, "I'd Like To See You," which got a little airplay back in the day. They also contributed a couple of songs to a 1995 promotional compilation called Turn It Up & Pass It On, Volume 5. One of those songs was the otherwise non-LP "Christmas Crush," an edgy, titillating song for which they even made a video. Much later, "Christmas Crush" was finally released commercially on A Jersey Shore Christmas, even if it wasn't distributed nationally. As the song makes clear, Ms. Bradbury has a thing for Santa Claus, and she's hatched plans for a Christmas Eve seduction. "Milk and cookies on the floor lead him to my bedroom door," she explains, adding, "I'll bring the toys."

Mike Nicolai, Fahrenheit 12/24 (2006)
A Minnesota-to-Austin transplant, Mike Nicolai has been a cranky, beloved fixture on the local scene for a number of years. His smart character studies and woebegon tales are set to music ranging from contemplative folk to hard-and-fast jangle pop. A long time ago, Mike released an understated, dry, endlessly amusing holiday album called Christmas Is For Losers on a long-defunct digital platform called LuLu. Ten years later, when Mike finally got around to putting it on Bandcamp, it was more of a reboot than a reissue - several new songs, new artwork, with two songs dropped altogether. The album includes a song called "Christmas '01," which Mike wrote shortly after 9/11 and literally sung over the phone. On the initial 2006 album, however, the song is called "Fahrenheit 12/24" and features a full band arrangement. Sadly, this is recording is omitted from the 2016 reissue, so I am presenting it here. "Fahrenheit 12/24" is an uproarious take on what might happen to a mysterious, bearded guy flying an unidentified aircraft over post-9/11 America. It's not pretty, up-to-and-including torture. Thankfully, Santa gets the last word, and that word is freedom. (Learn more about Mike, the song, and the album at Adios Lounge, in an interview conducted when Christmas Is For Losers was reissued.)

The Bell Peppers, I Can't Wait For Xmas (2013)
This indie rock band from Manchester, England, described themselves as a "rock 'n' roll, rhythm 'n' blues, surf, beat combo," and they consisted of two left-handed guys named Mike Bell and Dom Pepper. Or, at least, that's what they say - and that's about all we know. But, they put out a fair amount of music in a fairly short time, largely through Bandcamp. "I Can't Wait For Xmas" was their first formal commercial release and, apparently, their last. According to their Facebook page, they "half planned" a holiday EP - even releasing a video of Merry Xmas (War Is Over) in 2011 - but this irresistible slice of glam rock is all we ended up getting. The music seems to have stopped around the same time, though the band continued gigging and posting on Facebook through about 2017. "I Can't Wait For Xmas," meanwhile, disappeared altogether - which is why I am happy to gift you a copy!

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