Wednesday 31 December 2014
Happy 15!
Happy 2015! From the CaGG Team: thanks for visiting this blog, commenting on our posts, making songs, trading mixes, enjoying the weird and wonderful world of Christmas songs. Hope to see you back in November. Until then:
Thursday 25 December 2014
Merry Christmas! With Tim's 2014 Holiday Tantrum
Wednesday 24 December 2014
Vim Cortez - Christmas Is For Lovers (Too)
Tuesday 23 December 2014
The Blues Are Still Blue Christmas Compilation 2014
For the tenth year in a row The Blues Are Still Blue Presents:
The 2014 Christmas Compilation (download here)
02 Allo Darlin - Only Dust Behind
03 Naive Thieves - Holiday In The Sand
04 The Avett Brothers - Winter In My Heart
05 Cat Power - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
06 The Explorers Club - Christmas Must Be Tonight
07 Chris Farren - I'm Not Ready For Christmas (Ft. Mae Whitman)
08 Mr. Little Jeans - Dear Santa
09 Gabrielle Aplin & Hudson Taylor - Just Like Christmas
10 Good Lovelies - Under The Tree
11 Belle and Sebastian - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
12 Duover - Ms. Claus Lament
13 Jens Lekman - I Don�t Know What To Do With This Information
14 Kashka - In The Snow
15 Kate Miller - White Winter Hymnal
16 Pondertone & the Blue Grass Boogiemen - Christmas Just Ain�t Christmas
17 The Rosebuds - When It's Cold
18 The Liminanas - Christmas
ADVENTUROUS & DIFFERENT XMAS MUSIC
Merry Christmas, Baby Yeezus
Monday 22 December 2014
Julian Casablancas does SNL
This is a cover song of a SNL oldie with Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, Christ Kattan and Horatio Sanz.
Check The Cool Wax Christmas Mix 2014
Track list:
Twas The Night Before Christmas :: Art Carney
Santa's Supersonic Flying Rocket Sled :: The Hollyberries
Must Be Santa :: The Sweetback Sisters
Is Santa Claus Real? :: The Ray Gelato Giants & The Fielding Primary School Choir
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town :: The Jackson 5
Kadoka, South Dakota :: The Living Sisters
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! :: Dean Martin
Christmasville USA :: Chaise Lounge
White Christmas :: Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
What Christmas Means To Me :: Stevie Wonder
Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) :: Elvis Presley
Merry Christmas, Baby :: The Beach Boys
Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer :: The Ventures
Tomorrow Is Christmas Day :: Buck Owens & Susan Raye
Mr. And Mrs. Santa Claus :: George Jones & Tammy Wynette
Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas :: Eels
Super Sunny Christmas :: Redd Kross
Winter Wonderland :: Sleeper Agent
Wake Up! It's Christmas! :: Scarlett & Disher
Tiny Tree Christmas :: Guster
The Happiest Christmas Tree :: Nat King Cole
Sleigh Ride :: Andy Williams
(It's A) Happy Holiday :: The Shells
Seasons Greetings :: Robbers on High Street
Sunday 21 December 2014
Greetings from Moscow
Saturday 20 December 2014
The velvety vocals of Roses And Revolutions
Incriminating clawmarks on her back once again
Beard & Glasses are actually releasing a new album tomorrow. You can follow the band on their Facebook page.
Friday 19 December 2014
Superfresh: Pondertone with The Blue Grass Boogiemen
Superfresh: The Gasoline Brothers' 2014 Christmas song
This one's superfresh: a hypnotizing 11:11 minute rendition of 'Oh Tannenbaum'. Play it loud, do a funny little shoestaring dance in your living room, and you'll be just fine.
JINGLE BELL ROCKS!
Thursday 18 December 2014
Throwback Thursday: XTC
�On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a partridge in a pear tree ... � Yes, Virgin enters into the festive spirit with this seasonal offering, �Thanks for Christmas� by The Three Wise Men. The song was penned by well-known writing team Kaspar/Melchior/Balthazar, the Far East's answer to Holland/Dozier/Holland. Production was by The Three Wise Men and the Good Lord himself. (released Nov 21st Virgin VS642) Not surprisingly, the release hits the decks shrouded in mystery, intrigue and much speculation. The �What's On In Bethlehem�-style sleeve may well proclaim �The Three Wise Men�, but this non-de-plume cunningly conceals the identity of one of Virgin's top pop groups! Not that we're telling you which band. Could it be Culture Club, Human League, Heaven 17, China Crisis or even Slapp Happy? Over to you! Just good clean Virgin fun to keep you guessing right into the New Year. It's certainly countdown to Christmas party time. Cheers!
It wasn't Culture Club or Slapp Happy, the vocals gave it away immediatly: this was XTC. Andy Partridge, singer for XTC, said:
�I have a soft spot for Christmas songs. For this I wanted the female staff at the Virgin Records office to sing it and we'd put it out under the name �The Virgin Marys� but they thought it would be sacrilegious, so the band did it under the name �The Three Wise Men�.�
Kotzen und Gluhwein
Wednesday 17 December 2014
Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada Christmas compilation VI
It gives us great pleasure to present the sixth edition of Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada, our seasonal compilation, which, as ever is given in the hope that it will provide an antidote to hearing the same old Christmas songs year after year, while at the same time celebrating some of our favourite Canadian artists.
(LINK)
Favourites (so far): Michael Feuerstack, Kristian Noel Pedersen, Jim Guthrie, Chic Gamine, Machu Picchu, Kim Gray
Higher Hands
Hot Sauce Committee
Santa�s going to ride his sleigh, sleigh, sleigh And bells are going to jingle all the way, way, way Cause I just want a la la la latte Peppermint, Peppermint Schools are gonna go on break, break, break Sugar cookies gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake Baby I just want a la la la latte Peppermint, Peppermint
The Girl with the Replacable Head
Common Linnets
'Let Me Sleep' by Pearl Jam
Tuesday 16 December 2014
Merry Christmas you c**t
This is of course a cover of this infamous Breakdowns track:
Los Angeles Police Department
Read an extended interview with Ryan Pollie/LAPD HERE
THE NEW ANNUAL KILLERS CHRISTMAS SONG
Felice LaZae
Christmas in Prison
(via The Mad Mackerel)
Monday 15 December 2014
Christmas drones
Michael Anderson aka Mkl of Drekka has worked together with Sarah E. Duvenant en ��rir Georg to create an alternative Christmas album as Ronja's Christmas Witch. On their self-titled album they present twelve Christmas dreams full of drones, folk and ambient. It's haunting and yet intimate. You can listen to this album here: Ronja's Christmas Witch
Also Firetail made a nice drone version of "Little Drummer Boy":
Little Droner Boy
Merry Xmas and drone on...
New Christmas Classics (2)
Our friends over @ Lie in the Sound picked up on this (see HERE). It got me thinking, maybe it's not just one track off of Low's Christmas album (1999), it's the WHOLE album. That album is a certified classic, or at least getting there. Read a nice story on the background of that album HERE.
Taking Down the Tree, mentioned by Lie in the Sound and covered by Small Signals:
was covered some more. By Tracy Thorn, for instance (nice video), Chad Zigweid (here, thanks Brigitte)
Just Like Christmas was covered by (among others) Snow Patrol (here), Ingo Star Cruiser (here, ) David Bazan (here), Dan Croll (cool Brazilian brass version), Glenn Richards & Holiday Sidewinder (here), Sunturns (here), The Sugarpills (here), Zipliss Ellipsis (here), Cutaways (here), Vigilantes of Folk (here), That Melancholy Dream (here), Antonin Koutny (here), Star Matters (here, they changed 'Stockholm' for 'Portland'), Woozy (here, nice version), Kill it Kid (here, jolly fiddle version), The Murder Barn (here), DIY Scarves (here,) NJ Gebhard (here) and lots of other artists. Like Hotel Glockenspiel (here) (thanks Stubby)
Long Way Around the Sea was covered by Pedro the Lion (here), Beau Jennings & Andy Smith (here), Zach Malm (here), Joy (here) and Paal Flaata (it's on Spotify).
If You Were Born Today was covered by JP Haynie (here), The Beautiful After (here), Nancy Wallace & Jason Steel (here), Jimmy Eat World (here), Christmas Friends (here).
One Special Gift was covered by Rough Shop (here) and Insomniac (here).
The other three songs on Low's Christmas album are covers (Silent Night, Blue Christmas, Little Drummer Boy).
Did I miss other covers? Lemme know. Low, the new Mariah.
Computer Perfection
Sunday 14 December 2014
Vulfpeck
Emmer & Lennon
Official release tomorrow. From the bio:
'Produced by Tony Visconti, the single has been given all the Xmas trimmings, sleigh bells and a boys-choir against an atmospheric background with a rich, definitive vocal from Julian.
Fitting the British pop music tradition of Xmas songs with a social commentary, �Sleep For England� presents a narrative that transcends age, race and class, inspired by the classic alternative Xmas songs such as; Jona Lewi�s �Stop the Cavalry�, �2000 Miles� by the Pretenders, Father Christmas by the Kinks and Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon, to name but a few.
Die Hard Christmas
Saturday 13 December 2014
Dent May
Friday 12 December 2014
Mr Little Jeans
The Mockers
Ronny Hammond's Christmas Mix Volume 10
XXX-MasS Vol.10 (2014) ''FuNKy oR NicE'' .. (Xmas Mixtape) by Santa Mothafunkin Claus (Xmas) on Mixcloud
Daisy Digital's It's Coming On Christmas
With a new song by Slow Club (beautiful) and lots of soft sighing girls (!). Alas, Daisy Digital didn't put up any tracks to stream and/or download seperately. But some songs were released earlier, like these two covers:
Proceeds of the comp go to Coppafeel.
Thursday 11 December 2014
Belgian anarchistic punk features death, Tintin and Santa
Everybody needs a bit of anarchist Walloon Christmas music in their lives, right? The band Ren� Binam� gives us some nice crunchy guitar to bite into in a song entitled �Le P�re No�l est un Bordure�, referring to the made up European nation of Bordurie from the Tintin books. They call it a �Syldavian folk song�, referring to the made up European nation of Syldavie that fights with Bordurie, presumably modelled on Eastern Europe, giving the song some boiled cabbage infused punk cred. And if that wasn�t clever enough, the song is also a play on words of the cult Christmas French film �Le P�re No�l est une ordure� ('Santa Claus is a bastard�), which I highly recommend.
Ren� Binam� - Le P�re No�l est un BordureTangarine
Christopher Lee and other atrocities
Ever worse, these porn stars coming all over the spirit of Christmas:
But this is probably the sh*tt*est version of a Christmas classic ever, by the cast of MTV 'reality'-show Geordie Shore (the UK version of Jersey Shore)
Christmas Mixes
This year a new Christmas mix: pop artists (using the term broadly) doing traditional Christmas carols. There�s not much by way of irony going on here, though the levels of sincere religious sentiment obviously vary. I suppose the Staple Singers, who were primarily a gospel act, are more sincere than the Crash Test Dummies, whose vocals might startle grandmother a little. Many of the artists, of course, give the carols some interpretation that relate to their genre. I have avoided the insufferable wispy songbirds who breathe through their sensitive versions of Silent Night. What songbirds are featured here do not breathe their carols, and Silent Night is covered by The Temptations, who are not wispy at all. As far as interpretative chops go, I particularly love The Gaylads� delightful soul version of We Three Kings from 1970. One might be pedantic and question whether Go Tell It On The Mountain is really a Christmas carol, in the traditional sense of the word. It is really a spiritual, but I see no reason why these should not also form part of the canon of carols. So should Mary�s Boy Child, written in the 1950s, What Child Is This, from 1962, and arguably even When A Child Is Born, from the 1970s. If it refers to the religious element of the feast of the Nativity, then it�s a Christmas carol. If it doesn�t, then it isn�t. But where would that rule leave the traditional English carol from 1850, Here We Come A-Wassailing, which makes no reference to the birth of Christ? As always, this mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-baked covers. Password in comments. Feel free to add to the comments! Next Thursday: a Christmas pop mix.LINK!
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Noel Interdit
Tuesday 9 December 2014
Echosmith, Swear and Shake
thanks Elves Bells
More poppy sounds, this is a just released Christmas original by Swear & Shake, a Nashville based indie-folk band. Cool tune.
Monday 8 December 2014
Judith Owen & Harry Shearer
We wish you a Merry Krishna
The Hard Ground
Folksy Irish band The Hard Ground re-recorded this gorgeous track for Christmas 2014, all proceeds to go to The Irish Cancer Society.