Here's a quick post, my final one for Christmas 2009. Dan Bryk ( official MySpace wiki AMG ) is an Ontario-born musician, who moved from Canada to Raleigh, NC in 2003 with his partner Erin McGinn (they married in 2008, two years after this song was released). The reason I mention those specifics of his biography should become apparent when you listen to this song. The Besotted family has a tradition called (I swear) "scooterpooping," which is where you leave the house with a modest amount of money and a [...]
I'd planned to post this song as part of the 2009 Christmas mix (theme: colors) but I haven't gotten around to compiling them yet, so I'll just post this one track while I'm watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street . That's a 1978 special wherein Big Bird has to find out how Santa gets down chimneys, and Bert and Ernie reenact "The Gift of the Magi." The first voice you'll hear on this song is Alaina Reed-Amini , who played Olivia until 1988, and who died one week ago. A lot of [...]
Here's the second part of our unit on prison Christmas songs . I've put a lot of these songs into my annual Christmas mix CDs -- see here and here . (And, of course, John Prine would've made it onto the Country mix if I hadn't had far too much to fit onto one CD.) Most of these songs deal predominantly with the idea of spending the magical day behind bars, but one or two just mention it as a springboard for other lonely sad Christmas ideas. Almost all the songs are first-person prison [...]
John Prine recorded "Christmas In Prison" for his third album, in 1973, two years after he recorded "Paradise." In the interest of actually getting something posted today (sorry for the slack over the weekend) , I won't tell you all about each individual track, but there's a decent amount of variety here, so be sure to get 'em all. As always, I recommend the zipfile. Also, there are a lot of covers on YouTube. ( 1 2 3 4 5 should get you started.) [...]
And here's Travis (previously 1 2 ) to tell you about his favorite Christmas song of 2009: On a whole, 2009 was not a great year for many people. One of the few bright spots is that Mark introduced me to the first new Christmas songs to enter my top 10 list in a long time. Since I put my list on this blog last year, Mark has graciously offered me the opportunity to write about the new song, " George Bailey [...]
Remember last year when I talked about Suburban Sprawl's free annual Christmas compilation? Well, 2009's is up , but here's a look back at two tracks from the first two years. Kevin Mahler ( MySpace ) doesn't ONLY write Christmas songs about pirates, but I wish he would. I'd buy that album. (He's also contributed songs to later editions of the compilation, and those are all good too.) His MySpace genre classification is "Country/Rockabilly/Emo" which sounds ridiculous, but those categories aren't too far from these two songs. The first song is "Pirate At [...]
Holiday music doesn't always have to be sung by a choir or even sung by Andy Williams for it to really hit home. A prime example would be Automatic Slim and His Sensational Band. That's ... No related posts.
Here's what I'd hoped Bob's Christmas album would be like. This is a recording from his XM Radio Show Theme Time Radio Hour , where Bob reads the entirety of " A Visit From St. Nicholas. " ( via ) (If you visit the via link, you should consider downloading at least the two-part Christmas show, if not the entire archive -- Bob's music collection is great, and he's got a fun take on musical commentary too.) Bob's got a great storytelling voice, like the old cowboy poets. In a parallel universe somewhere, Bob's [...]
Okay, here's a weird one for yas. You know how Bob Dylan put out a Christmas album this year? Sure you do. Well, waaaaay back in the 1960s, Bob was one of the biggest things ever. Impressionists loved to add him to their stable of characters. Impressionists also loved to do Kennedys. Hence, here are the two Bobbys together at last. A lot of people out there assume this is a parody of Simon and Garfunkel's "Silent Night/9 O'Clock News." And since the album this was eventually released on came out [...]
Here's the reason I did the whole Elvis thing over the last couple of days: a whole bunch of holiday Elvis "tributes." I didn't include any impersonators here, since I don't as a rule collect those, and the thought of wading through that slush to pick out one good thing to post here made me shudder. (I do like El Vez's take on "Feliz Navidad," though.) So let's get started, shall we? I haven't mentioned "break-in songs" yet on any Silly Sunday posts, but you can click here to read a little bit about the [...]
Here's the second Christmas Elvis-styled post. I know it may not be fair to post this as a Presleyan thing, but if I didn't tell you it was someone else, and you were a casual music fan, you might be fooled. Jack Scott ( official Myspace wiki AMG ) was a Canadian-born rockabilly performer, who had 19 hit singles in 41 months, a record surpassed only by The Beatles. Yet today nobody knows who he is. (You can click on any of those links if that applies to you, of course.) [...]
Here's the first in a series of posts about Elvis and Christmas. It's easy to focus on the overrated, bloated, sad old Elvis from the mid- and late-70s, but he was an innovative performer and he LOVED Christmas music. Elvis released two Christmas albums. The first was released in 1957 and charted six consecutive Decembers, till 1962. The second was released in 1971, and is the source of today's track. This is Elvis's take on the perennial Charles Brown classic "Merry Christmas, Baby." (I posted it last year as part of a [...]
The Asylum Street Spankers ( official Myspace wiki AMG ) are an Austin-based group of bluesy, folkie swingers. This track uses each verse of the song to highlight a different side of their musical versatility. Besides the country verse I excerpted as a hidden mystery track here , they also take on lounge crooners, oldschool ska, and Mr. Tom Waits. And they acquit themselves admirably in each style. The whole album is, yes, this good. Make sure to click on the buy link down there -- if you like this track, [...]
This Christmas season, a lot of Santas are concerned about H1N1 , but I think it's important that we all focus on the other meaning of the word "infectious." And Bootsy Collins ( official Myspace wiki AMG ) has the remedy for my complaints. This is a track from his 2006 holiday album, which features guest spots from Famous Flame Bobby Byrd, Bootsy's brother Catfish, Charlie Daniels, Snoop Dogg, Buckethead, and George Clinton hisself. The kids on this track are Tyreka and Tyesha Grissom, who met Bootsy at [...]
Hey hey, folks, it's December again. And though I'm crazy busy now, and going to be even crazier busier in a few weeks, I'm going to try to post every day till Christmas again this year. (I do have a wedding to plan though, so no promises.) I'm working on rezipping and reupping all of last year's posts, but it's not done yet. When it is, I'll post links here. It's only been six weeks since I promised not to mention Dr. John for a while , but that'll have to do. Here is his upbeat take [...]
First, I need to get some housekeeping out of the way. Here is last year's Halloween post , with links to all of 2008's spooky stuff. This year, in addition to the stuff this week, I've posted 20 versions of "Season of the Witch" and ten more versions of "I Put A Spell On You." If the stuff I've put up this week is too goofy, and not horrific enough for you, why not try this post, with a cowboy ghost story ? Or this post about crazed murderers ? (Speaking [...]
Howdy, all. Today's spooky guestpost is by my good friend, The Chromium Swan ( his previous guestpost is here ). He sez: Every holiday is at least, in part, an excuse. An excuse to party, an excuse to travel home to friends or family, or even an excuse to listen to seasonal music. Halloween is my excuse to listen to today's featured song ... Haunted House , by Jumpin' Gene Simmons ( wiki [...]
Here's a second helping of Donovan's atmospheric classic ( click here to see Volume One ). In chronological order, here are ten versions. As always, I recommend the zip, but you can cherry pick. (I have many more versions, but they are mostly either terrible, or jambands, which -- sorry! -- tend to run together to me. If you wanna hear more, comment down below.) Zipfile Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger (1967) 1 2 Vanilla Fudge (1968) 1 [...]
It's less than a week to Halloween, so hang on to those hats and glasses -- we're going to hear some spooky, kooky, ooky things between now and then. Here's my favorite song ever about horror films. With a title reminiscent of " The Eggplant That Ate Chicago ," and a group of accomplished musicians and singers, Rose and the Arrangement ( Dr. Demento loves them ) serve up a delicious platter of horrendous rhymes and a catchy earwig of a tune. This was on the first Dr. Demento compilation I ever got, and it's a [...]
Although the last two full length albums (Feels and Strawberry Jam) saw the band dipping its toes in the shallow reef of the pop ocean, as a rule, Animal Collective albums require a good deal of patience to fully appreciate. And while you're still not going to convince your friends with A.D.D. that Animal Collective = the meaning of life, there is a good chance that a whole lot of people are going to finally see the bandwagon this time around. Merriweather Post Pavilion reminds me [...]
She'll Grow Back
Music Under Fire
Colour Me Impressed
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
Out This Week 2/14
[listen] Diplo ft. Usher - Climax
[Listen] – Sleigh Bells – “Reign Of Terror” (Full Album Stream)
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
