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Well, the title surely dispenses with the need for a Hanukkah alert. These guys (and a gal) have been a going concern in the southern California region, playing traditional Jewish songs in the surf music style. (I love that the bass player's name is Steve Bacon, by the way.) For 2011 they tighten the focus of their schtick to the eight crazy nights of light, although a cursory look at their discography suggests they've put "Hava Nagila" on every one of their albums, including this one. They even slip a bit of it into "Shleppin' and Kvetchin'," which features a guest appearance by Duane Eddy (it's really his "Moovin' & Groovin") on those big low strings. Now I'm not Jewish, so I don't have a deep knowledge of the traditional Hebrew folk song repertoire, but I'm guessing that a number of the songs on here are either originals or have been renamed for entertainment's sake. For example, I doubt that "Czech Mate" is a traditional Yiddish song, at least under that name. Info at the website is a bit sketchy in regard to songwriting credits. But I'm pretty sure the title song is an original, which treads a little closer to the Beach Boys/Standells realm than the rest of the album, which is more like the kind of stuff Dick Dale does. Probably due to it being the only tune with vocals, unless you count the Jewish mother bit at the front of "Bubbie's Kitchen." And there's little doubt about the provenance of "Oh Hanukkah" or "Dreidel Dreidel." Eighteen songs may be a bit much for what is a one-joke concept, but there's plenty to like here.

Their 2009 entry "I Wanna Go Surfin' With Santa" was received well enough that this group went back into the studio for another bite at the apple. This year's entry is not a lot different, except it's more overtly a tribute to the Beach Boys. Also of note is the participation of guest artists Jonathan Paley of the Paley Brothers and Pamela Des Barres, best known as an author but formerly of the Frank Zappa-produced GTOs. I personally can't get enough Beach Boys, so this is aces with me.

Fans of the Double Crown label are already up to speed with the first two volumes, so here's another one for 2010. As in the past, the artists featured are from the label, mostly in the early 60's guitar combo sound that stretches from Duane Eddy to the surf music scene. Much of this is instrumentals, kicking off with The Razorblades' "Morgen Kinder Wirds Was Geben," as you might expect from a German band. The Excelsiors take a lot of delightful liberties with "Good King Wenceslas" and The Frankie Handwax Experience superimposes "We Three Kings" over Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression." Previously released items from the label show up here, like "Greensleeves" from King of Hawaii's Chrismas disc and The Barbary Coasters' "Secret Santa." Burt Rocket gets a little Joe Meek/Telestar on us with "Santa's Hot Rod," The Balboas throw in a vocal with "This Is Santa Claus," and also resorting to the microphone are The Polkaholics with "Sausage and Sauerkraut For Santa," a rock/polka hybrid. Tiki Joe's Ocean goes exotica on us with their version of "Jingle Bells," and OJ Watson and the Ludlow Ramblers do "We'll Be Home With Bells On," which is straight old-school country, and Peter Curry and Dick Chiclet wrap things up with a twangy "Old Anxiety," better known as "Auld Lang Syne." This is right in line with the previous two collections, and if you grab it from the mothership (assuming your local record store doesn't have the hard copy, that's the only place online that has it) there's an additional song downloadable from the site, "Silent Night Twist" by The Beechwoods, which is just a little sedate for twisting but more uptempo than the song is usually performed. The Balboas did a video, like to see it? Here we go:

These guys won't be having any trouble with the Federal Trade Commission with an album title like this one. Here we have a cool dozen classic Christmas carols rendered as surf instrumentals, except for vocals on "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," which lapses into a bit of "Small World" with different verses in different languages. The rest is straight 60's surf guitar soloing over good old-fashioned drums. The band even credits their source for vintage instruments in the liner notes, too. From 1996. UPDATE: Biographical information for this group is hard to come by, but the folks at Fat City Cigar Lounge seem to think they're a bunch of studio musicians from Amsterdam.

More surf music for Christmas, but with a twist; a lot of these tunes are apparently originals, unless I somehow overlooked the Percy Faith Orchestra's version of "Santa Drives a Super Stock Dodge:" "And I heard him exclaim as he headed down Vine/Merry Christmas to all, now hear my Hemi whine!" These guys apparently are trying to channel the Beach Boys and come pretty close on many of these songs. This album is a reissue of A Malibu Kind of Christmas, circa 1992; they changed the title but very little else to tie in with another album of theirs, Malibooz Rule. The group is John Zambetti and Walter Egan, the latter the author of a solo album produced by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and they have a website. "It's Just Not Christmas" evokes middle-period Brian Wilson after the breakdown but before "Smile," and many others, like "When Santa Comes to Santa Cruz," "And a Happy New Year" and "Santa Man" definitely touch on several Beach Boys hits. Non-originals include "Little Surfin' Drummer Boy," something that's been done before but the Malibooz throw in a little "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" vocalizing, and "Carol of the Swells" surfs up the carol about the bells. Then there's "Rudy, the Hodad Surf Dude," based on Rudolph's song, in which a stranded Santa gets a loan of a surfboard to salvage the holiday. And the album ends with "Christmas Wrap," another surf adaption, in this case "A Visit From St. Nicholas," who was, wait for it, surfing. Fourteen tunes was a little too many for a one-joke album, but there's plenty of good stuff here. UPDATE: Malibooz Rule has one more holiday tune, "Santa's Gone Surfin'."

This trademark 1963 Beach Boys Christmas song gets a good bit of radio play at Christmas, but it hasn't traveled well over the years, since the car culture it was based on hasn't maintained its place in the popular consciousness. Nevertheless, it was inspired for its time and is still fun to hear; I imagine Little Saint Nick drag-racing the sleighs in "Jingle Bells" and "Sleigh Bells," not to mention chasing after Chuck Berry's Rudolph. A full album followed a year later.

The first surf-oriented Christmas song, beating the Beach Boys to the racks by a year (1963). It uses the time-tested "tell Santa what you want" method of writing Christmas songs, but their way was influential enough to inspire the Turtles' update "Santa and the Sidewalk Surfer," more of a spoken-word novelty, and the spoken bridge to The Ravers' "Punk Rock Xmas." UPDATE: Thanks to Radio Rumpus Room (KFAI-FM Minneapolis St. Paul) for telling us the B-side of the original vinyl single was "Santa's Speed Shop."

A little South Pacific surf, a little boogie and lots of steel guitar and you have The Blue Hawaiians. And what could be more natural for a band like this one than to do a Christmas album? Lots of things. Nevertheless, this short (10 songs) but energetic album from 1995 has plenty to recommend it. Most of the tunes are instrumentals, except for "Jingle Jangle," "Blue Christmas," the title song and "Mele Kalikimaka," the official Hawaiian Christmas song. The band manages to maintain a tension between their trademark sound and the material, which also includes "Christmas Time is Here," "White Christmas," "Have Yourself a Quiet (Merry) Little Christmas" and a medley of "We Four Kings (The Little Drummer Boy)" in which the little drummer played on the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" in a former life.