Mr. Happy's 18th Annual Unusual Christmas Music Podcast

by mike - 2009-12-07 21:00:00 ( in culture, music, radio, holidays) [php version] rebuild

Seasons Greetings,

You can "tune in" via your favorite mp3 player to the show: radio show

What can you expect to hear? About 500 songs (over 24 hours of non-repeat music!) that fall into one or more of the following categories:

• musicians I like that happened to make a Christmas song (e.g. Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Thin White Rope, Julian Cope, Go-Betweens, Jazz Butcher, Wedding Present)
• musicians YOU actually heard of who made the odd holiday song (e.g. REM, Beatles, Run DMC, Cyndi Lauper, Ramones, Killers, Neil Young, Prince)
• songs that fly in the face of tradition and celebrate/mock something like consumerism (e.g. "X-mas at K-Mart," "Burn down the Malls," "I Hope I Sell A Lot of Records (at Christmastime)")
• songs that are seeped in tradition played in an unusual way (e.g. "We Three Kings" to an synth-pop, electro-dance beat, "Silver Bells" as an up tempo punk jingle)
• beautifully performed standards (e.g. "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" by Belle & Sebastian, "Coventry Carol" by Alison Moyet)
• truly original xmas music (e.g. "My First Christmas As A Woman" by the Vandals, "Santa Claus" by Throwing Muses which is an awkward yearning for the man in the big red suit)
• Christmas around the world (e.g. songs about Christmas In...Copenhagen, Fallujah, Haiti, Heaven, Hell, Hollis, Jail, Nevada, New Zealand, Paradise, Prison, Suburbia, Tunisia, Vietnam, Waikiki)
• holiday songs are not just for Christians anymore (e.g. "The Chanukkah Scoot" by Bunnygrunt, "Santa Doesn't Come to Little Jewish Children's Houses" by the Yid Kids, "What we do on Christmas" by Atom & His Package)
• not the barking dogs variety novelty record (e.g. Weird Al Yankovic, Mojo Nixon, Joey Ramone, Martin Mull, Monty Python, Dread Zeppelin)
• so bad it's hard to believe (e.g. The cast of the TV show Bonanza, RuPaul, Ted Franko, Wesley Willis, Debbie Dab, Bryan Adams )
• so rare, it took me years to track down, and even if it's not very good -- it's really, really hard to find (e.g. New Order's "Ode to Joy" from 1982 limited edition flexi-disc handed to Manchester, England club-goers upon entrance to a Christmas party)
• bands that have many Christmas songs (e.g. The Fall, Low, St. Etienne, Sufjan Stevens, They Might Be Giants, XTC, Yo La Tengo, Flaming Lips)
• and the wildcard -- "it sounded good at the time"

Sure. I know what you are thinking. "18 years and it still sounds that bad?" Yes, like a fine wine that's been opened year after year...it's basically vinegar by now. My motto is that there is something to offend everyone!

Cheers and happy holidays. Mr Happy

aka Michael

To tune in with iTunes (you don't need to use iTunes -- this should work with any mp3 player such as winamp, real, etc.)

1. copy the url: href="/
2. open iTunes
3. Under the Advanced menu select "Open Audio Stream"
4. paste in the above url
5. hit "OK"

At this point you should be able to see the show name, artist & song titles. Let me know if you need help configuring.

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