A few years ago, we had a compilation of Nashville-based indie rockers that included this assemblage of folks on a song called "I Think We Killed Santa." The spirit of that tune persists on this EP that dropped for 2022, which includes that song and five others. Things kick off with "Christmas In My Heart," featuring Mike Fuller, a kind of slow jam number with shout-outs to Elvis, Frank and Bing; "Christmas That I Want," with Cory Taylor Cox, is a retail worker's lament about the holiday, though it has the great line "These songs are all worn out except for the Kinks"; "I Like Christmas More This Year," with Cox and Invisible Thomas, notes that the "eggnog spiked with Everclear" is a big reason for the title's sentiment; "Tired of Christmas" with Mike Fuller covers missed hookups; and "Time Loop Christmas" with Zoe Swann turns the holiday into "Groundhog Day" with a similar conclusion. Lighthearted stuff that's fun to listen to.
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This Bellingham, WA record label specializes in garage/surf bands, and this CD had been previously compiled in 2000. We missed it then, but we have it now, reissued for 2006 with three additional cuts over the original. As we've compiled a number of surf-oriented Christmas tunes over the life of this site, we're not particularly surprised that several items, like Jon & the Nightriders' "Sleigh Ride," Urban Surf Kings' "We Three Kings," Death Valley's "Carol of the Bells" and "Little Drummer Boy" by The Bonesharks, have been done in similar ways by other artists elsewhere. But with 19 tracks to choose from, that's not necessarily a disqualifying point. Some of the more fun tracks on this CD are the Tacoma 4's "Christmas is a Drag" and The Boss Martians' "It's Christmas Time," the latter previously on the Santa's Got a GTO compilation, both in the non-Beach Boys car/surf vein; "Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto" by Frigg A Go Go, a straight rock version of the James Brown arrangement; "Hang On Rudolph," a witty appropriation of the "Rudolph" and "Sloopy" songs by The Ebeneezer Scrooge Appreciation Society; The Firebirds' "Living Doll," a plea for Santa to bring a girlfriend; and "Rocknuts," The Lunatics' version of "Nutrocker" done entirely with surf guitars. Also notable is "Sigue Sigue X-mas," an upbeat surf "Jingle Bells" with spoken word samples ladled over it from old TV shows, and yes, of course from "It's a Wonderful Life." "Jingle Bells" returns in a spaghetti Western version from The Bitch Boys, and the whole thing wraps up with The Surfites' "Santa Claus Goes Surfin'," a straight-up surf instrumental worthy of Dick Dale or The Surfaris. Doesn't appear to be in print, although Amazon has it via 3rd parties and the label had cut-price copies as of this update.
No sooner did I post my wildly belated review of Happy Christmas Vol. 3 than I discovered 2005 would bring us a Vol. 4, although the franchise has moved from BEC Recordings to Tooth & Nail this year. Nevertheless, the concept remains the same: Christian rockers and their best Christmas tunes compiled in one place, with the preachiness kept to a minimum. Emery brings Santa Claus into the equation with "(Ho Ho Hey) A Way For Santa's Sleigh," Anberlin puts a little crunch into the Spector classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," Relient K lends "I Celebrate the Day" from their own Christmas CD, Starflyer 59 throw in electronic bleeps and bloops on "Christmas Time Is Here" but otherwise keep the standard ballad arrangement. Aaron Gillespie and Kenny Vasoli combine for an original, "Yule Be Sorry," a hard rocker. Copeland's "Do You Hear What I Hear" makes another appearance here, Hawk Nelson covers Wham's "Last Christmas" and Mae does your basic hard rock version of "Carol of the Bells." Two religious-themed tunes wrap up the album, Number One Gun's "Of Two Bearded Men" and John Davis' India-influenced "God is Real (Jesus is Alive)," although the latter forgets to squeeze in the holiday. Another strong entry in this series.
Available as a disc or a download, this 2008 holiday album proudly proclaims that it was cut entirely with vintage Casio keyboards and video game sound effects. While the musos among us probably wouldn't be surprised -- they might even pick out sounds by model number -- one should not forget that Casio was a pioneer in bringing digital synthesis to the masses, filling discount warehouses throughout the Western world with their tiny keyboards that had some fairly big sounds. Indeed, "Casio bass" was often cited on 80s rap, R'nB and rock records, as the CZ models especially could shake the house when attached to the right amplifiers. So you shouldn't be surprised to discover that this disc, though evocative of instrumental electro-pop and dance music of the 80s, is well made and quite listenable. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" especially maintains the attitude of the original, even sneaking in a bit of Addams Family music near the end. The quasi-exotica version of "Mele Kalikimaka" features a guest shot from Ikey of The Mars Volta. The rest of the songs are familiar carols spruced up with patented Casio bleeps and bloops, wrapping up with a Chipmunks-inspired version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The whole thing at once might feel a bit samey-samey, but there's plenty to like on this disc.
OK, this is where I came in. This music originated as the stuff that started me collecting rock Christmas records. Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, the Cathedral Brass, and so on -- strictly Columbia House holiday collection stuff. With the advent of Pro Tools and the rise of the DJ as visionary artist rather than some guy with two record players, we now have this trend toward disassembling old swing 'n sway records and reassembling them into new club dancing ones with the help of beatboxes and rhythm loops. I will admit to a belief that Charles Brown didn't need to be fiddled with in this way, but otherwise this 2003 album is kind of fun in a faddish sort of way. (I wonder what the reaction would have been if my generation had access to this kind of technology -- would we have chosen to deconstruct our parents' music this way, and if so would there have been heavier repercussions from offended adults?) My suspicion is that within a few years this will be looked at in the same light as the Salsoul disco Christmas album. UPDATE: There's a volume two of this from the same folks as well, released in 2005. The folks at Verve Records did something similar with songs from their own catalog around 2008, and they even did the same album over again with the original versions of the songs -- Verve Unmixed.
This is a short number that sets the Yiddish folk song to the music for "Feliz Navidad" and then cranks up the tempo to full punk. It's the last cut on Ruin Johnny's Bar Mitzvah, and we're not sure whether it deserves a Hanukkah Alert or not, as it's not really a Hanukkah song. But it's good for laughs, as is the rest of the album, in which they portray a semi-obnoxious cover band with tunes like "Superstar," "Come Sail Away," "Delta Dawn" and "Stairway to Heaven," along with hidden cuts "Sloop John B" and "Seasons in the Sun." There's also a thrashed-out "Auld Lang Syne" on here, too. From 2004.
Keeping strictly to the requirements of the Truth in Packaging Act, this 2006 EP is composed of Christmas carols mashed together from original coin-op arcade sound effects. You haven't lived until you've heard "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" backed by the sound effects from "Donkey Kong." Many's the Christmas party that will come to a stop as revelers try to identify which games all the different bleeps and bloops come from. There's a bit of real percussion and synth used to tie the sounds together into something recognizable, of course. "Carol of the Bells" appears to be based on the old room-escape game "Berzerk," a blast of "Galaga" kicks off "Let It Snow," and, well, let me not spoil it any further, except to note there are versions of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Jingle Bells vs. Here Comes Santa Claus" on here too. Only on iTunes, as far as I know.
Can't tell you a single thing about these guys, as they have one of the least informative websites in captivity, although there are a few laughs there anyway, which may be all that matters. UPDATE: Apparently these guys are a Boston-based parody band, with such hits as "Lay Some Pipe," "Italian Ice (Go Guido Go)" and "Drink Till You Want Me" to their credit. What we get here starts off as synthpop with attitude, a bit of rap, and some giggles. "Robert Goulet is Looped" is a comedy piece with a bad Goulet impressionist singing "Silver Bells, Christmas smells..." "Too Cold" has a bit of Beastie Boys' sound with gags separating the chorus, and it returns later as "Extra Cold." "Who's Been Naughty" demands a Christmas gift "the size of Jennifer Lopez's ..." well, you know. "Santa Copped a 'Tude" drops the synths for a Bob Dylan impression in a song about the jolly elf's travails with slacker elves and burglary charges. "It's Christmas Time Again" makes fun of the Beatles' Christmas fan club messages and "Merry Christmas" is an Elvis impersonation. Fans of blasphemy will enjoy "Come Back to the Catholics" set to "Happy Xmas," and they wrap up with a gospel tune, "On Your Knees." Parental Advisory for occasional lyrics, but otherwise pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, this appears to be completely unavailable anywhere in the current day. And don't go by the website's discography; all those albums are made up. According to Artist Direct, they've only released this disc and Meat the Stools, both in 2000.
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We've had holiday entries from these folks before, and for 2020 they give us a pensive tune they've variously tagged as "dream pop," "shoegaze," "electronic," and "psychedelic." It's more a winter song than a Christmas song, following the singer as he traverses the world to meet up with a lover. Good sentiment, if contraindicated in this pandemic year, but I think you'll enjoy this number, which will be available on Bandcamp on December 4.
The folks at Teflon Beast have produced Christmas songs before, see here, here and here, and for 2018 they plopped this EP on their Bandcamp site for everyone to check out. Unlike previous outings, which featured a lot more in the way of vocals and lyrics, this is, as the title hints, a collection of acid house-styled instrumentals with holiday-type festive titles like "Rudolph," "Yuletide," "Fancy Ornament," "St. Nik," "Jack Frost's Nuts," and the title track. As often happens with original instrumental music, it's not immediately apparent that this music is intended for the Christmas season if you're not squinting at the playlist while you're listening. But if you're in the mood for some synthesized sweeps, bleeps and bloops set to heavy rhythm, these guys have your number.
These guys (a duo based in Phoenix and Minneapolis) have had a Christmas single almost every year since 2012, and this is the 2017 entry, a melancholy duet featuring Tessa on second vocal. The lyrics don't follow a plot, they're more impressionistic, but this has a late-60s pop feel about it. It's free from Bandcamp.
These guys have been popping up the last couple of holidays with fresh original alt-rock-pop takes on the holiday, and this is 2016's offering. A nice midtempo ode to warm-weather holidays in the tropics, the time being December but the weather befitting July. As these guys are residents of Phoenix and Minneapolis, this apparently was a natural subject to broach. Come to Bandcamp and listen (and buy).
This Minneapolis group was on the Christmas tip last year with "Lights on the Tree," and for 2015, a remixed version of that song is the B-side of this pop-rocker that seems to be about aliens arguing with Earthlings about the nature of Santa Claus. A great number, grab it from Bandcamp or Amazon. And check out the lyric video.
Somehow I have managed to miss the first eight volumes of this series, and Vol. 9 was actually out in 2014, but so it goes. It's the last of the series, according to the Australian producers' final statement on their Bandcamp page, and as it's free you should hie yourself over there, assuming you haven't beaten me to it as so many others probably have. The RAB folks are essentially curators, as they put out the call to indie rock bands to contribute finished tracks, and the final running order is what it is. In this case, it's a fine rock Christmas souvenir. Thee Knight of Thrashe cue the Bo Diddley rhythm on "Santa Claus (Here He Comes)," Burning Yule breaks down the fourth wall with the power-poppy "Santa Are You My Dad," the Click Beetles get compiled once again with their "So Glad It's Christmas," and Leadfinger get a sort of Jefferson Airplane groove going on the deceptively titled "Another Long Summer." The JAC with the Christmas Crew get a "Sweet Toothache" from Christmas treats, Class Action goes all primitive pop on "It Must Be Nearly Christmas," Cal Walker & Iain Wilson channel Bill & Ted on "Gonna Have a Wyld Time," and Ernie O With Richie Poate get a kind of late-60s thing going as they tell a Christmas story on "Gunna Tell You a Lie." Netherwood Lane dip into the garage-psychedelic well for "Christmas Without You," the Kiss-Offs offer a Blondie homage on "Santa Darlin'," Lotti Loop does what their band name suggests on the electronic "Crank Call Christmas," Hotlunch hearkens back to Mott the Hoople with "8 Letters For Going Home" and the Kleber Claux Memorial Singers wrap things up with the drone-backed chant "Treve de Noel," a song about the World War I Christmas truce. Someday I gotta go back and listen to the earlier volumes of this series.
A dreamy tale of having the Christmas lights inspire a child's vivid dreams as he or she drops off to sleep on Christmas Eve. Loop Line had a previous Christmas single in 2012, and this 2014 release has a nice dramatic feel and an indie vibe as well. The band's discography is on display at Bandcamp, and the band states there may be additional music in 2014, so check in occasionally.
This Minneapolis indie rock band gives us a nice pair of modern power-pop songs for 2012. "We Know Santa's Real" is a mid-tempo affirmation of faith in the jolly old elf, and "I Want a Surfboard (For Christmas)" is a suitable homage to the Beach Boys in their 50th anniversary year. It's on Bandcamp, so stream it or download it.
This British synth-pop duo has several albums out, but this is their first Christmas album, released for 2012. Most of the songs here are originals except for "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and a very short "In the Bleak Midwinter." "Party Susan" kicks things off nicely in a guitar-driven rocker about a girl the singer only ever sees at Christmas time. "Lists for Santa" is what it sounds like, spoken word over a synth dance loop. "It's Really Christmas" is a mid-tempo pop song, heavy on the celeste and bells in evoking the joy of the season. The heavily vocordered "Robots Need Christmas Too" could have been an outtake from the horrific Star Wars Christmas TV show, but that's not a slam on the song, it's rather cute. It gets reprised as a different version, "Fishes Need Christmas Too," in which the industrial sound is more pastoral and gurgling. "Christmas in Vegas" takes a Pet Shop Boys approach to everyone's favorite Gomorrah in the western desert, "Little Miss Mistletoe" gets a guest vocal from Iuliiana as she spurns a holiday romantic advance, the group sings about a "Christmas Log Competition," and Depeche Mode turned around and said "huh" when they heard "The Bauble at the Bottom of the Tree." "NYE 1999" has the band not exactly partying as though it were the year in the song, and the guitars go to 11 for the song with the best title of the year, "The Advent Calendar Girl." Some of you are allergic to 80s-style sounds, but this collection is recommended without reservation.
This Bellingham, WA record label specializes in garage/surf bands, and this CD had been previously compiled in 2000. We missed it then, but we have it now, reissued for 2006 with three additional cuts over the original. As we've compiled a number of surf-oriented Christmas tunes over the life of this site, we're not particularly surprised that several items, like Jon & the Nightriders' "Sleigh Ride," Urban Surf Kings' "We Three Kings," Death Valley's "Carol of the Bells" and "Little Drummer Boy" by The Bonesharks, have been done in similar ways by other artists elsewhere. But with 19 tracks to choose from, that's not necessarily a disqualifying point. Some of the more fun tracks on this CD are the Tacoma 4's "Christmas is a Drag" and The Boss Martians' "It's Christmas Time," the latter previously on the Santa's Got a GTO compilation, both in the non-Beach Boys car/surf vein; "Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto" by Frigg A Go Go, a straight rock version of the James Brown arrangement; "Hang On Rudolph," a witty appropriation of the "Rudolph" and "Sloopy" songs by The Ebeneezer Scrooge Appreciation Society; The Firebirds' "Living Doll," a plea for Santa to bring a girlfriend; and "Rocknuts," The Lunatics' version of "Nutrocker" done entirely with surf guitars. Also notable is "Sigue Sigue X-mas," an upbeat surf "Jingle Bells" with spoken word samples ladled over it from old TV shows, and yes, of course from "It's a Wonderful Life." "Jingle Bells" returns in a spaghetti Western version from The Bitch Boys, and the whole thing wraps up with The Surfites' "Santa Claus Goes Surfin'," a straight-up surf instrumental worthy of Dick Dale or The Surfaris. Doesn't appear to be in print, although Amazon has it via 3rd parties and the label had cut-price copies as of this update.
No sooner did I post my wildly belated review of Happy Christmas Vol. 3 than I discovered 2005 would bring us a Vol. 4, although the franchise has moved from BEC Recordings to Tooth & Nail this year. Nevertheless, the concept remains the same: Christian rockers and their best Christmas tunes compiled in one place, with the preachiness kept to a minimum. Emery brings Santa Claus into the equation with "(Ho Ho Hey) A Way For Santa's Sleigh," Anberlin puts a little crunch into the Spector classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," Relient K lends "I Celebrate the Day" from their own Christmas CD, Starflyer 59 throw in electronic bleeps and bloops on "Christmas Time Is Here" but otherwise keep the standard ballad arrangement. Aaron Gillespie and Kenny Vasoli combine for an original, "Yule Be Sorry," a hard rocker. Copeland's "Do You Hear What I Hear" makes another appearance here, Hawk Nelson covers Wham's "Last Christmas" and Mae does your basic hard rock version of "Carol of the Bells." Two religious-themed tunes wrap up the album, Number One Gun's "Of Two Bearded Men" and John Davis' India-influenced "God is Real (Jesus is Alive)," although the latter forgets to squeeze in the holiday. Another strong entry in this series.
This link to Vimeo.com had just this in the subject line: "Mistletunes potential." You bet. It's yet another epic Mojochronic mashup, this time of Motown hits overlaid with Christmas carols, but only those by Motown artists. The video is more than seven minutes, so strap yourself in if you click on this.
And we'll only stand down when radio stations stand up and give us some more rockin' Christmas tunes. Welcome to 2006 and the first Mistletunes disc to be available to the public. We did this by creating an iMix (in a truncated form, unfortunately; 4 million songs and I managed to find nine that iTunes didn't have). Anyway, on with the show:
"Merry Xmas Everybody," Camp Freddy -- Don't know these guys, but they did a killer take on the old Slade chestnut from the early 70s, the golden age of British rock 'n roll Christmas chart singles.
"My Girlfriend (Forgot Me This Christmas)," The Click Five -- An entertaining original from this modern rock band. The title pretty much sums up the plot of this holiday rocker.
"She's Coming Home For Xmas," The Beautiful Losers -- This American/Japanese duo amalgamates folk, pop and rock in a way that should bring back the late 60s and early 70s for you folks who still remember that era.
"Hang On Rudolph," The Ebineezer Scrooge Appreciation Society -- Love it when folks do mash-ups the old-fashioned way, in this case singing the lyrics to "Rudolph" over "Hang On Sloopy" and, for good measure, "Louie Louie."
"Chanukkah's Da Bomb," Chutzpah -- We always look to include at least one ode to the Jewish holiday, and what goes better together than Hanukkah and hip-hop, eh? Matisyahu, eat your heart out.
"Frosty the Snowman ," Borigua Boys and DJ Mattox -- From a bargain collection of reggaeton Christmas music, and sung in Spanish to boot. You can almost hear Frosty melting in the Caribbean sun from the very start.
"The First Noel/Mary Mary," Sarah McLachlan -- And why wouldn't we take this opportunity to swing from the southern seas to the frosty wilds of Canada with Sarah? Especially since it's getting a little less frosty up there lately (Al Gore, white courtesy phone....). The India-style riffing and percussion starting in the middle is a nice touch.
"Get Behind Me Santa," Sufjan Stevens -- From his Christmas box set, seeing the obsession of Christmas music collectors and raising us five discs of holiday music. The antique carols are a little precious, but then so is this and we ran with it anyway.
"I Wanna Kiss You This Christmas," David Carswell and Megan Barnes -- Shambling, jangly power pop from the Team Mint Christmas collection.
"Christmas," Cowboy and Spin Girl -- A melodic holiday rock shuffle from this duo I found pretty much by accident on iTunes.
"Christmas in the Trailer Park," Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadors -- This guy is chock full of red-state novelties, and this one is a bit more rock than country, so enjoy yourselves.
"Jingle Bells," Richard Cheese -- The king of 80s new wave parodies set to cocktail lounge arrangements finally went all Christmas for the kiddies. I shouldn't say more, it's a one-joke arrangement but it's a good joke.
"Jingle Bell Rock," Pas/Cal -- From A Very Magistery Christmas, this is a rare attempt to do the song in a different arrangement than the familiar one.
"Snow Plus Christmas," The Pearlfishers -- I found this Scottish band on a German website, improbably enough. These guys throw together bits and pieces ranging from Pet Shop Boys to Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys on their album, A Sunflower at Christmas, and this is one of the upbeat numbers.
"Nuttin' But Spam," Robert Lund -- A 21st century take on the old novelty "Nuttin' For Christmas." Co-written by Manitoba M. Parsnip, Deadbeat F. Busybody and Mastered B. Goggles. (Kidding.)
"Calling on Mary," Aimee Mann -- Regular Mistletunes fans may notice that Aimee keeps showing up on our collections, but she keeps bringing the goods. This original song is from her first full CD of Christmas goodies.
"Christmas Tree on Fire," Holly Golightly -- An impossible-to-resist tune about a char-broiled Tannenbaum, on Valentine's Day yet. White Stripes fans may recall Holly from a guest shot on the Elephant album.
"Father Christmas," The Features -- Not the Kinks classic, this band delivers a great original stomper of its own for the holiday.
"Last Christmas," Jimmy Eat World -- The Wham song gets an intense reading from this popular band.
"A Great Big Sled," The Killers -- A fun original from this hip little combo, featuring a guest vocal from Toni Halliday. And who can disagree with this lyric: "Little boys have action toys for brains?" One look at the cover art from this collection and you'll probably apply that sentiment to some big boys too.
"Christmas Ain't Christmas," Smash Mouth -- The soulful O'Jays holiday tune gets a romping, stomping bar-band treatment from this bunch of romper-stompers.
"Merry Christmas Baby," Bootsy Collins -- Yes, the leader of Bootsy's Rubber Band himself. Here he takes the classic blues tune that arguably started the whole rock Christmas genre and turns it out all funky and stuff.
"Christmas in Fallujah," Jefferson Pepper -- Normally we like to go out on an uptempo note, but this wartime lament seemed like an appropriate way to wrap things up this year.
Available as a disc or a download, this 2008 holiday album proudly proclaims that it was cut entirely with vintage Casio keyboards and video game sound effects. While the musos among us probably wouldn't be surprised -- they might even pick out sounds by model number -- one should not forget that Casio was a pioneer in bringing digital synthesis to the masses, filling discount warehouses throughout the Western world with their tiny keyboards that had some fairly big sounds. Indeed, "Casio bass" was often cited on 80s rap, R'nB and rock records, as the CZ models especially could shake the house when attached to the right amplifiers. So you shouldn't be surprised to discover that this disc, though evocative of instrumental electro-pop and dance music of the 80s, is well made and quite listenable. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" especially maintains the attitude of the original, even sneaking in a bit of Addams Family music near the end. The quasi-exotica version of "Mele Kalikimaka" features a guest shot from Ikey of The Mars Volta. The rest of the songs are familiar carols spruced up with patented Casio bleeps and bloops, wrapping up with a Chipmunks-inspired version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The whole thing at once might feel a bit samey-samey, but there's plenty to like on this disc.
OK, this is where I came in. This music originated as the stuff that started me collecting rock Christmas records. Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, the Cathedral Brass, and so on -- strictly Columbia House holiday collection stuff. With the advent of Pro Tools and the rise of the DJ as visionary artist rather than some guy with two record players, we now have this trend toward disassembling old swing 'n sway records and reassembling them into new club dancing ones with the help of beatboxes and rhythm loops. I will admit to a belief that Charles Brown didn't need to be fiddled with in this way, but otherwise this 2003 album is kind of fun in a faddish sort of way. (I wonder what the reaction would have been if my generation had access to this kind of technology -- would we have chosen to deconstruct our parents' music this way, and if so would there have been heavier repercussions from offended adults?) My suspicion is that within a few years this will be looked at in the same light as the Salsoul disco Christmas album. UPDATE: There's a volume two of this from the same folks as well, released in 2005. The folks at Verve Records did something similar with songs from their own catalog around 2008, and they even did the same album over again with the original versions of the songs -- Verve Unmixed.
This is a short number that sets the Yiddish folk song to the music for "Feliz Navidad" and then cranks up the tempo to full punk. It's the last cut on Ruin Johnny's Bar Mitzvah, and we're not sure whether it deserves a Hanukkah Alert or not, as it's not really a Hanukkah song. But it's good for laughs, as is the rest of the album, in which they portray a semi-obnoxious cover band with tunes like "Superstar," "Come Sail Away," "Delta Dawn" and "Stairway to Heaven," along with hidden cuts "Sloop John B" and "Seasons in the Sun." There's also a thrashed-out "Auld Lang Syne" on here, too. From 2004.
Keeping strictly to the requirements of the Truth in Packaging Act, this 2006 EP is composed of Christmas carols mashed together from original coin-op arcade sound effects. You haven't lived until you've heard "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" backed by the sound effects from "Donkey Kong." Many's the Christmas party that will come to a stop as revelers try to identify which games all the different bleeps and bloops come from. There's a bit of real percussion and synth used to tie the sounds together into something recognizable, of course. "Carol of the Bells" appears to be based on the old room-escape game "Berzerk," a blast of "Galaga" kicks off "Let It Snow," and, well, let me not spoil it any further, except to note there are versions of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Jingle Bells vs. Here Comes Santa Claus" on here too. Only on iTunes, as far as I know.Can't tell you a single thing about these guys, as they have one of the least informative websites in captivity, although there are a few laughs there anyway, which may be all that matters. UPDATE: Apparently these guys are a Boston-based parody band, with such hits as "Lay Some Pipe," "Italian Ice (Go Guido Go)" and "Drink Till You Want Me" to their credit. What we get here starts off as synthpop with attitude, a bit of rap, and some giggles. "Robert Goulet is Looped" is a comedy piece with a bad Goulet impressionist singing "Silver Bells, Christmas smells..." "Too Cold" has a bit of Beastie Boys' sound with gags separating the chorus, and it returns later as "Extra Cold." "Who's Been Naughty" demands a Christmas gift "the size of Jennifer Lopez's ..." well, you know. "Santa Copped a 'Tude" drops the synths for a Bob Dylan impression in a song about the jolly elf's travails with slacker elves and burglary charges. "It's Christmas Time Again" makes fun of the Beatles' Christmas fan club messages and "Merry Christmas" is an Elvis impersonation. Fans of blasphemy will enjoy "Come Back to the Catholics" set to "Happy Xmas," and they wrap up with a gospel tune, "On Your Knees." Parental Advisory for occasional lyrics, but otherwise pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, this appears to be completely unavailable anywhere in the current day. And don't go by the website's discography; all those albums are made up. According to Artist Direct, they've only released this disc and Meat the Stools, both in 2000.
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