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Happy Beatles-mas!

25 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Beatles, Christmas music, Holiday music, Rubber Band, The Butties, The Fab Four

Now I know many of you are probably jingle-exhausted after months of a festive sounds dogging you every time you ventured out in public. But I can’t help bringing together two of my favourite things on this special day: the Beatles and holiday music. Only certified Beatlemaniacs could come up with something as kooky as this and make it work. Today’s bands fit the diagnosis and then some. Here’s what they do: they mash together a holiday standard with some classic from the Beatles catalogue. The point is meld the two as seamlessly as possible, typically maintaining the tune of the holiday song while putting it to a Beatles beat or adorning it with recognizable Beatles riffs. It’s easy to do but hard to do well, as our three fab yulesters musically demonstrate.

First up, The Butties from Syracuse, New York. Starting out in college in the 1980s they just kept getting together yearly, playing gigs and eventually recording some holiday tunes in a Beatles style. In 2005 they released an album of them entitled 12 Greatest Carols (the cover riffs on The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits). Our featured choice from the LP is their take on “Joy to the World” which incorporates “Please Please Me” in various ways. There’s the distinctive “Please Please Me” harmonica and rhythm guitar end-of-verse turnarounds. The vocal harmonies on this track are super and the harmonica runs are so Beatles but in other ways the synthesis doesn’t quite gel for me.

Number two on our docket is Danish Beatles cover band Rubber Band. Their 1994 album Xmas! The Beatmas also offers 12 Beatles-re-engineered Christmas songs. A lot of review attention at the time focused on the band’s reworking of “Last Christmas” to sound a bit like “Please Mister Postman.” The Wham!/Marvelettes mash-up didn’t grab me but there are other examples here where the synthesis works better. Like the creative combining of “Feliz Navidad” with “No Reply.” The latter adds some drama that the former sorely lacks. And then the decision to mix “Ticket to Ride” into “White Christmas was sheer brilliance. The distinctive guitar hook wraps around the tune like a warm blanket. The middle-eight break out to Lennon’s “Happy Xmas” was a nice touch too.

Rubber Band – Feliz Navidad (No Reply)
Rubber Band – White Christmas (Ticket to Ride)

All this is well and Beatlesy good but you haven’t heard anything till you hear the masters of this particular arcane genre, The Fab Four. They’ve got the accents and vocal tics down, the guitar sounds are spot on, and their ability to seamlessly stitch holiday song and Beatles classic together is unparalleled. Just listen to how they lay an “I Saw Her Standing There” backbeat onto “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” It’s like they were made for each other. Or putting “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” together with “Help.” Once you hear it there’s a ’duh’ moment that immediately follows. And for Beatles geeks check out how they combine “Good King Wenceslas” with Help! album deep cut “Tell Me What You See.” Genius! I first enjoyed these tracks on the band’s 2002 10-song collection A Fab Four Christmas but eight more were added for a revamped 2012 re-release now entitled Hark!

The Fab Four – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (I Saw Her Standing There)
Good King Wenceslas (Tell Me What You See)

Wrapping things up (pun intended), we turn to the actual Fabs themselves from their 1967 fanclub-only 45 release “Christmastime (Is Here Again).” Too bad they didn’t work this up into a fully proper song as there are some great melodic elements here.

Well there you have it, two great tastes that sound great together – traditional holiday tunes done Beatles-style. From everyone here at Poprock Record, here’s hoping you’ve had the fab-est ‘whatever-you’re-celebrating’ holiday season ever!

Reindeer Games

17 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

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Tags

Anthony D'Amato, Brent Seavers, Christmas Aguilera, Christmas music, Daryl Bean, Holiday music, Jane's Party, Jeremy and the Harlequins, Joel Paterson, Make Like Monkeys, Odds, Ronnie Spector, Scoopski, Shybits, Superchunk, The Essex Green, The Orion Experience, The Surf School Dropouts

Things got a bit out of hand for Santa this year at the Reindeer Games. It started with too much rum and eggnog at breakfast and, well, you get the picture. Still, this year’s annual musical celebration of the season is back, vibing all the key warm and fuzzies of the holiday: anticipation, desire, tradition and joy. Let’s take up each, in song.

That holiday music machine Make Like Monkeys are now my go-to source for any and every kind of seasonal single. Need a Mersey-drenched bit of poprock to bring your holiday and dating into focus? Can do. “Please Don’t Let Christmas Come Without You Girl” sounds so Beatles-derivative beat-group circa 1964. And I love it. The Essex Green offer up an Everly Brothers-worthy slice of late sixties country rock, making peace with a “Green Christmas.” The heavenly guitars and layered background vocals on this track are all I need under the tree. Seasonal songsters Christmas Aguilera sound like they’re auditioning for a ‘I hate the holidays’ telethon what with all the disaster accompanying their yuletide plans in “All Wrapped Up.” But the subtext to all the apparent chaos seems to be a grudging, recognizable family kind of love. And the tune is a real winner too, chock full of hooks and harmony vocals. Proceeds from this help the campaign to end homelessness and poor housing in the UK. Daryl Bean delivers an eerie XTC-ish paean to the anticipation of the season on “Holidaze.” You’d swear there’s a Partridge in his pear tree.

Turning to desire Toronto’s Jane’s Party capture the youthful sense of really wanting to get that specific something at Xmas with “I Want It Bad.” And they deliver it with it a bit Motown swing. The Decibels’ Brent Seavers delivers a retro sounding classic holiday tune with “I Want You for Xmas,” complete with addictive ‘fa la la la la’s’ to really reel you in. I can’t decide if Frank Royster sounds more like Fastball or The Smithereens on his fab holiday track “Christmas is Fun.” Whichever, the song sounds like a slick bit of 1980s poprock magic. Turning to tradition, rock and roll traditionalists Jeremy and the Harlequins add a heflt of solid rock backing to “White  Christmas” to shake things up. I don’t know how much Superchunk owe to Dylan Thomas but their “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” is hooky and jangly and the that’s good enough for me. It’s hard to add much to that holiday rock and roll classic “Jingle Bell Rock” but premiere guitar instrumentalist Joel Paterson manages to inject some of his special, unique playing style into the song. Old dogs, new tricks indeed!

Feeling swamped by the crass commercialism of capitalist Christmas? This year don’t puzzle till your puzzler is sore about it. As the Grinch said, “Christmas, perhaps, is a little bit more.” Like hope, and peace, and joy. Berlin’s Shybits accent the hope on “Hope This Christmas,” a chaotic swirl of Futureheads meets The Spook School indie-pop seasonal goodnesss. The pop incomparable Orion Experience wield a serious joy stick on their seasonally-appropriate, all-you-need-is-love ode “Rich Man’s Holiday.”  As they sing it, you don’t need money when ‘your love is the greatest gift in the world.’ Then there’s the peaceful easy feeling that flows from Scoopski’s new Christmas classic “Your First Christmas.” The husband and wife duo sing about their actual recent baby, a stand in for the joy that every baby anywhere can bring to a hopefully peaceful world.

And yet is wouldn’t be the holidays without mixed feelings. It’s a tough season for so many. Some with or without family, with or without faith. Anthony D’Amato captures that holiday ennui on “Merry Christmas, I Guess.” Not sad, exactly. More lonely. All wrapped up in a musical pretty paper that sounds like the pedal-steel country blues. By contrast, The Surf School Dropouts won’t suffer in silence. They utilize their Beach Boys-vocals to call out to the jolly plus-size guy himself on “Help Me Santa.” Vancouver’s Odds have got a clever plan to deal with all the garbage this season produces, both emotional and physical. While the mall marketing people say ‘more! more!’ they have Santa telling voters to share the gift of love with ‘neighbour and your honey.’ We lost the legendary girl group pioneer Ronnie Spector this past year. Right to the end she was radiating joy and goodwill to all. In terms of her long career “Best Christmas Ever” is a fairly recent release but one that captures everything great about her enduring talent and style.

It’s almost a wrap here at this annual Reindeer Games. Let’s go out looking for that star that will help lead us where we need to go in the days ahead. My new favourite one-stop-shopping seasonal music provider Make Like Monkeys can provide the accompaniment with “Star.”

Merry ho ho to all and to all a goodnight!

Top photo courtesy Kevin Dooley.

Merry melodies!

21 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bears, Candy Butchers, Christmas music, Freedom Fry, Holiday songs, Mojochronic, Over the Rhine, Pop Etc., Spirit Kid, The Futureheads, The Primitives

treeI grew up in a totally secular home where Christmas was largely understood as a kind of socialist event. A little something for everyone, and something thoughtful (rather than expensive) was the gift-giving philosophy. Holiday tunes rather than Christmas hymns were de rigueur. My mother had a stack of 45s that would come out every year– Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, Rolf Harris – you get the picture. So, for me, it can’t be Christmas without some merry melodies!

FH XmasThis year’s mix runs the gamut from power pop to new wave to mash ups to folky acoustic. Coventry’s own The Primitives kick things off with their trademark mix of hooky power pop on “You Trashed My Christmas” from the Elefant Records special holiday album. Love the use of the bells! Then to Sunderland, UK where The Futureheads keep the energy up on their “Christmas was Better in the 80s.” There is something about the vocal delivery of this band I love. This song sometimes exudes the sonic feel of their first album but also develops in different directions with kooky abandon, pushing the boundaries of traditional holiday fare. Then we tamp things down a bit with the pleasant melodies of Cleveland’s own Bears on their “I’m a Snowman.” While technically just a winter themed number, who can resist the fun organ sounds and sweet harmonies? Not I. Rounding out this first batch of tunes is the eclectic West Coast poprocker Spirit Kid with his new wavishy “Santa Claus is His Name.” This song is an interesting mix of old and new influences – in many ways, a very late 1970s take on 1950s motifs worthy of David Edmunds.

FF HSOk, let’s shift gears here in round two. Ohio-based Over the Rhine seem to be channeling Jennifer Warnes in full Leonard Cohen mode on their winter themed “Snow Angels.” Lovely piano and an understated vocal give this a haunting and lasting quality. In the ‘something completely different’ file, check out Mojochronic’s unusual and very effective mash-up of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” with the Police’s “Roxanne,” interspersed with dialogue from the original stop-motion animated movie. Mike Viola’s Candy Butchers bring us back to familiar territory with their poprock ode to seasonal forgiveness on “Give Me a Second Chance for Christmas.” Just listen to these holiday-coated hooks! Viola is a master of the poprock form. The Franco-American duo Freedom Fry return to the holiday music scene with their great Holiday Soundtrack EP. Their reinvention of the traditional classic “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as a hooky keyboard-based instrumental is pure ear worm brilliance, while their time shifting “Next Christmas” vibes a very Simon and Garfunkel melodic warmth, particularly in the chorus. Wrapping up this season’s musical presents is a brand new acoustic Christmas contribution from Pop Etc. “All I Want for Xmas (Just My Baby)” is a swinging pop gem, sure to become a regular addition to your seasonal playlist.

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/11-snow-angel.m4aSnow Angelhttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/01-give-me-a-second-chance-for-christmas.mp3Give Me a Second Chance for Christmas

To have readers who make the bands I write about just a little more popular by checking them out, buying their songs, telling their friends, etc. is really the best present I could ask for this holiday season. So don’t disappoint me – I’ve been good. Visit The Primitives, The Futureheads, Bears, Spirit Kid, Over the Rhine, Mojochronic, the Candy Butchers, Freedom Fry and Pop Etc. today!

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