Various Artists (AKA Some Christmas Elfs). Won’t Be Home For Christmas. Hemifran Records

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album_2017-50_xmasHo, ho, ho. It’s that time of year again and you can’t go to the shops without your ears being hammered by the usual festive suspects – we won’t name them but you know who they are. Over the past couple of years however there’s been a groundswell of Christmas songs that one can actually listen to and enjoy and this compilation from Hemifran Records is the best we’ve heard in a while.

Label owner, Peter Holmstedt, decided it was time to put out a decent collection Christmas songs, “I’m a big fan of compilation albums, and I had the idea of reaching out to singer songwriters I know and admire, and asking them to write a song with a Christmas hook…I was interested to hear what interpretations they would come up with and I was delighted at the response.” What he ended up with was 18 songs which hover around the season, some more so than others, for the most part devoid of sleigh bells (Keith Miles, Citizen K and The Refugees are the guilty parties but we forgive them) and certainly with none of the enforced jollity or fake sentiment that seems de rigour for a listen under the mistletoe.

Opening with a song about a bi-polar cousin visiting and threatening to kill you bodes well for the album and Elliott Murphy’s Five Days Of Christmas is darkly humorous but the remainder of the album consists of that spirit of Christmas that seems to affect so many folk these days – loneliness and past memories. So, aside from the rockabilly swagger of Fayssoux’s Christmas Ain’t Christmas and the jiving This Christmas from The Refugees, we’re well into Joni Mitchell River territory here. As such, Annie Gallup offers up her tale of a long and lonesome journey enlightened when the passengers began to Carol on Christmas On The Train, a song that reminds one of The McGarrigles, while Jude Johnstone’s piano ballad, I Guess It’s Gonna Be That Way, hits all the Mitchell buttons as does Janni Littlepage’s chilly Now That Winter’s Come. The guys here can also hit those buttons with Kenny White’s Christmas Day another lonely travelogue and Paul Kamm’s Where Are You Going Tonight a nice folky evocation of chilly winter nights. And while Keith Miles and Jack Tempchin go down the smoochy ballad route (successfully one must say) there’s some grit on the road when Bob Cheevers unveils his growling and bluesy The Spirit Of Christmas which roams around homeless folk hunkered down just trying to survive the season.

Finally, Citizen K conjures up a Brian Wilson like production on his I Won’t Be Home For Christmas while My Darling Clementine deliver probably our favourite here, Miracle Mabel. It’s their own update on their own nativity tale and it’s wonderfully done. Slyly resisting the bible (that book with Cain and Abel), they celebrate their own child in a perfect facsimile of a Christmas song. It deserves to stand up alongside Christmas staples such as watching It’s A Wonderful Life.

So, if you’re looking for an “alternative” musical accompaniment to your Turkey dinner, seek no more. It’s here and it’s a bit of a Christmas Cracker with a hidden song at the end.

Hemifran

 

A Blabber’n’Smoke Christmas

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Slugg at Santa

Ho ho hum. It’s Christmas so the shops and the airwaves are full of jingle belled songs spreading the cheer. Let’s admit it, most are awful and even the better ones are dulled by repetition. So Blabber’n’Smoke has spent some time on the old interwebs thing to try and find some Christmas songs that are a wee bit off of the beaten track. Enjoy.

Otis Gibbs

American Gun

Daniel Michaelson

Cam Penner

Viv Albertine

Robert Earl Keen. Most folk will be familiar with his song  Merry Christmas With The Family. This is just as good.

Wild Billy Childish

Erin McKeown

The Felice Brothers

Joseph Spence. Cerys Matthews seems to like this on a lot.

This went the rounds some years ago claiming to be by Nick Cave and Tom Waits. It ain’t.

It’s Christmas so we need an orphan song

Some power pop

And some hokum

And finally, as television is so important to Christmas here’s a TV special from the good folk in Glossary

 

 

Kimmie Rhodes. Miracles On Christmas Day.

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So it’s that time of year again when cashpoints ring and Christmas music comes tumbling out of everywhere. Here at Blabber’n’Smoke we’re a little bit curmudgeonly when it comes to these seasonal offerings. With the exceptions of the granddaddy of all Christmas albums, Phil Spector’s a Christmas Gift To You and John Fahey’s The New Possibility there’s not a Christmas album that we’d really sit down and listen to. In fact with the vast majority of them we’d rather stuff our ears with stuffing and hunker down with the turkey and hope it all goes away.
So here we have Texan singer and songwriter Kimmie Rhodes’ Miracles On Christmas Day. First thought on reading the bio and finding out that it was originally released in November 2010 and that it is re-released next week is either that this is cashing in or an astute awareness that this time last year most of us in the UK were snowbound. No matter, what does it sound like?
Well, for a Christmas album it’s not half bad. Of the 12 songs nine of them are composed by Rhodes and she certainly captures that child like sense of Christmas wonderment so beloved of Hollywood and TV admen. Semi devotional and glistening with sparkling guitars and keyboard songs like the opening Miracles On Christmas Day and The Toymaker’s Hands drip with seasonal sentiment and as such wouldn’t really be listened to outwith the Christmas window. Indeed it does beg the question of what to do with a Christmas album as one is unlikely to grab one from the shelf mid summer and stick it on. However, as Christmas songs go these are immaculately played and Rhodes actually manages to fit in a few that veer away from the template. Wake Up Sleepy Town is a superb Tex-Mex ballad with Joel Guzman of Los Super Seven doing his best Flaco Jiminez impression. Her version of Patty Griffin’s Mary is given a powerful interpretation while her rendition of What Child Is This with wintry sound effects and set to the music of Greensleeves is very evocative. Listening to this reminds us that while many folk might never have known of the late Bert Jansch his version of Christina Rosseti’s In The Bleak Midwinter is now a staple of many family Christmases due to its inclusion on numerous Christmas compilations.
So who would buy this? Kimmie Rhodes fans for sure. For anyone else that’s looking for some music to get into the spirit it does conjure up a Christmas feeling and it’s a million miles better than the usual retreads.
website

Wake Up Sleepy Town

An alternative Christmas

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Well its that time of year again and the cash registers are ringing and the shops are full of the usual Xmas musical suspects. It seems that Christmas and music have been entwined for years with the race to have the number one chart topper and everyone and his uncle putting sleigh bells on their songs.

If, like most sensible folk, you’re fed up with chestnuts roasting and reindeer prancing then there is some respite. The good old internet has a way of finding odd, alternative, rude and occasionally brilliant Christmas songs with various blogs leading the way. In addition various  artists and labels  toss off a few seasonal titbits for one’s delectation.

So here’s a few. Why not  google” Christmas blog” or somesuch  for more and make your own “Now That’s What I Call Christmas” compilation to accompany the turkey.

Some of the downloads require an email address as a sign up to newsletters etc , for example Jason Lytle , ex of Grandaddy has a mini Xmas album for download, but the blogs wrap it up. Big Rock Candy Mountain are posting several mp3s of excellent old country, jazz and rock Xmas songs. For two bespoke compilations head over to A Truer Sound , much better than you can buy in the shops.

In the meantime here’s one of my favourites.

Culturcide – Depressed Christmas