
Tomorrow will be taken up in my house with preparations for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, so I don't expect to have time for another post on this week's theme. So here are three artists I wanted to get to this week who have nothing else in common. Mance Lipscomb : Police Station Blues [ purchase ] When I listen to acoustic blues from before World War Two, I often wish I could take modern recording equipment [...]
Raise your hand if you like ska, punk, or ska-punk music? If you did, then the songs here are for you. It's just a little something to cheer you up as the temperature (especially here in Chicago) drops. Right now, all I want for Christmas is a Chicago Bears win over the New England Patriots today. Here are the links to Day 1 , Day 2 , Day 3 , Day 4 , Day 5 , Day 6 , Day 7 , and Day 8 of this series. [...]

Once again we will post the same Chanukah songs as we have done in previous years (although apparently I missed last year...oops). Thankfully I've picked up a few more along the way because it seems few Jews out there want to do any new covers for us. If you know of anything post it here or send it my way. Happy Chanukah to all my Jews! So on this 6th night of Chanukah I give you some tunes to keep you warm ( just like on the first year of this blog ). [...]
Considering the greatest songwriters, TV writers, and screenwriters are all Jewish (okay not all of them...but a lot) one would think we would have a few festive songs for Hanukkah. But in the past century we've only been able to muster up a good half dozen. In fact, the humorous songs about Hanukkah are not only more common...they're actually much better.Happy Hanukkah, Hebroes and Hesistas!
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, eight maids a-milking... and a whole bunch of Christmas MP3's. While I'm stuck here in cold and snowy Chicago, I'll be dreaming of sunnier and warmer places that I think of when I hear these songs. MP3: The OC Supertones - Joy To The World Eek A Mouse - The Night Before Christmas Jacob Miller - Wish You A Merry Christmas Silvertones - Bling Bling Christmas [...]

It's crazy to think about it but Christmas is right around the corner! However, while most blogs are geeking out over their best of the year/decade lists (umm... it's not over yet, dudes) I've been working to collect a couple X-mas mixes for the holiday season. If you are anything like me you can't handle getting too deep into Christmas music until the date looms a bit closer, so I figured I would start slow. Today I've got a mix of pretty snazzy original Christmas songs by some great artists. Start easing yourself into the holiday spirit and next week [...]

Thankfully we have a few more Chanukah tunes than last year to share with you, hopefully more pop up this holiday season but I will not hold my breath. Also why are there four different ways to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Hanukah, Hanukkah??? So on this second day of Chanukah I will give you the gift of covers. The tunes for the most part are not along the line of the usual songs I post here but given the limited choices out there I'll take all I can get. The Save Ferris song is not a literal cover, more [...]
(Each day until Christmas, A to Z will be posting a Christmas/holiday-themed MP3 in honor of the festive season, in hopes of warding off the seasonal blahs. Check back every day for a new nugget of so... Continue reading "Xmas Jam Countdown: "Christmas Wrapping" by the Spice Girls, Save Ferris and Waitresses" >
I've never spent Christmas in the Caribbean or anywhere warm. Perhaps that is why I've always been drawn to ska and reggae versions of Christmas songs. As a a fan of both skiing and snowboarding, we generally head towards the mountains around the holidays if we go anywhere at all. So for all of you cold weather people (including me on this snowy night in Chicago) here are some holiday songs to warm you up a bit. MP3 | The OC Supertones - Joy To The World [...]
It's your favorite band from 10 Things I Hate About You playing your favorite song by Dexy's Midnight Runners! Although the short lived, mid-90's ska-punk act Save Ferris produced only three releases, they managed to provide us with some quality music. This cover of "Come on Eileen" is a more fanatical, neon-colored, lighthearted, black-and-white checkered version of the 1982 UK chart-topper. Which makes it a better version, in my opinion. Nevertheless, props to the the early-1900's-city-rat-styled orginial .

The first thing I thought of when I saw this week's theme was, "Time for some ska". My first introduction to ska music came in 1979. It sounded like this: Madness : One Step Beyond [ purchase ] I loved what I was hearing. I sought out all the ska I could find at the time, which led me to the Specials, Bad Manners, the English Beat, and the Selector. As I learned about the context for this music, I learned that [...]

Some pointless reminiscing today, brought on by a late night viewing of Deep Rising on Encore Action. The 1998 film is no great shakes, just one of a multitude of movies employing James Cameron's " Lifeboat with monsters and machine guns" formula from Aliens , with nothing save a higher gore quotient and Famke Janssen in a wet t-shirt to differentiate it from the pack. It's a Big Dumb Movie from a Big Dumb Era, but watching it gave me a twinge of nostalgia for that [...]

I was going to lay this thing to a well deserved rest after the Pogues song, but I've found a few more novelties over the past month that I want to share, and I don't really feel like sitting on them for another year. I swear this will be the final post that contains any festive music this side of next December though. Between this place and all of the other blogs going into festive overload, if you're anything like me, you're probably getting a little sick of all of the Christmas songs by now. I only [...]

dear lovely readers. this post comes to you wrapped in Please, Please Open This Before Christmas. Please Rejoice, Dance, Sing, Frolic even. Please Break It Down . because your insane blogger here at NfT let the insanity level rise a little too high over the last week and a half (almost two weeks, oh, my god!) and found it beyond impossible to sit down and shed a little self-importance and write for the good of other people. sigh, sigh. but now - here i am, just a few days before the holidays - and i'm getting into [...]