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Music history comes alive. Forgotten favourites & undiscovered gems from the rock, soul & reggae archive and a few of the stories behind them. Your host is Simon Tesler, former publisher and editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great Sounds from the music archive. Yes, it's Christmas! This week, it's an alternative Yuletide special. No Slade, or Band-Aid or Wham here, thank you very much, but a collection of much less familiar festive songs. Hopefully you're in for a few surprises, including with this one. It's not quite the song you're expecting from Earth Wind & Fire...
"Hey Do You Remember Dancing in December". Yes, that's Earth Wind & Fire of course with a Christmas-themed update from 2014 of the timeless September, with new vocals from Philip Bailey, duetting with the old master tapes of EWF's founder Maurice White. Such a lovely revision of an old classic.
Now, you have to admit that American artists do a better job of celebrating Christmas in song than we Brits do. We just keep rolling out the same old saccharine songs every year. I mean, seriously, how many times do we need to hear Last Christmas or Merry Christmas Everybody. On the other hand, American musicians seem to enjoy adding an extra little alternative twist, and there's always something new each year.
One of the best festive Christmas albums was released by Ze Records back in 1981, when the label's roster of artists were invited to come up with their own distinctive Yuletide tunes. Perhaps the most memorable, for its name alone, is Christmas with Satan by James Chance & The Contortions. But unfortunately, the song itself isn't quite as great as its title.
Instead I'm going to kick off with the deliciously dry and deadpan Cristina and her own very personal tale of several nightmare Christmases, Things Fall Apart. Following that, Kid Creole himself, August Darnell celebrates Christmas on Riverside Drive, and then perhaps the best known track from the album, The Waitresses from Akron, Ohio, with Christmas Wrapping. First though Cristina and Things Fall Apart.
Great songs every one, and there are loads more besides on that album.... with the possible exception of Christmas with Satan. Now, even punks have been know to celebrate Christmas, here are three rather more supercharged tracks with a Christmas bent. Ina few minutes, Basement 5, the punk-reggae fusion outfit from the late 70s and early 80s led by photographer Dennis Morris, best known perhaps as the chronicler of the Sex Pistols and Bob Marley. A special mention for the rather good bassline by Leo Williams, who went on to become one of the co-founders with Mick Jones of Big Audio Dynamite.
After that, another punk pioneer, Poly Styrene, formerly of X Ray Spex, with Black Christmas from 2011. First though, a Christmas song originally recorded in 1996 by LA punk band The Vandals, but covered a year later by their good friends No Doubt, the ska-punk band fronted by Gwen Stefani. This is Oi To The World.
Let's cross back to the US for an early track from indie rock band Eels, the vehicle for singer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Oliver Everett. This is Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas. After that, we're heading down under for a track by Australian rocker Paul Kelly. He's virtually a household name in his home country, but not anything like as well-known elsewhere. I'm going to play How To Make Gravy that's become a sort of Australian Christmas anthem. It's a lovely song that takes the form of a letter written from jail by a prisoner to his brother talking about all the things he's going to miss on Christmas Day. And as an added bonus, the song also tells you how to make a mean Christmas gravy. First though, Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas by Eels.
Let's face it, Christmas isn't the happiest time for everybody. So we're going to stick with Paul Kelly's reflective state of mind now with two songs for people spending Christmas on their own this year. You probably know electronic rock band LCD Soundsystem for their breakthrough hit Daft Punk Is Playing At My House. What you might not know is that the LCD initials in the name actually originally stood for, not liquid crystal display, but Liquid Christmas Display, because frontman James Murphy formed the band to play at a friend's Christmas party in Brooklyn. How very appropriate then that I will be playing their track Christmas Will Break Your Heart from 2015. Murphy described it as a "depressing Christmas song" he'd been singing to himself for years.
After that a haunting track by one of the great wayward souls of rap and jazz Gil Scott-Heron. After his glory years in the 1970s and early 80s, Spirits, released in 1994, was his first album in 12 years, released midway through two deeply troubled decades in which he struggled with drug addiction and serious illness and a series of spells in prison. I'm going to play Spirits Past. But first, Christmas Will Break Your Heart by LCD Soundsystem.
Time to turn that frown upside down and ring in Christmas Day tomorrow. First up, the wonderful and much missed Sharon Jones, together with her band the Dap-Kings for Ain't No Christmas In The Projects. How is it possible, Sharon used to wonder as a child, that Santa Claus comes down the chimney to leave presents when there are no chimneys and no fireplaces in the high rise apartment blocks where she grew up. After that another track from The Ze Christmas Record, a glorious ode to family and America, by singer and record producer turned novelist Davitt Sigerson. And then to close the show, Julian Casablancas, former frontman of rock band The Strokes, with a track first recorded for a special edition of the American late night TV comedy show Saturday Night Live. That's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Today.
That's all for this week. I'm Simon Tesler. Thank you for joining me for another deep dive into the music archive. Next Wednesday is New Year's Eve! Wow! Join me again for another special In Memoriam edition celebrating some of the musicians who have left us over the past three months to join that Great Gig In The Sky. See you then! And in the mean time... Happy Christmas!