While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 22 - On the road

Today we're on the road all day: from Stockholm to Grandma Stina's in Vedborm. 600 km - a fair drive. So there's only one song it could be: Chris Rea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THcbQyFtCqg

I'm rather partial to Saint Etienne's version of this. Much more stripped down.Very English. Sarah Cracknell sounds as though she's driving on the M 25, not some Oklahoma freeway. I couldn't find it on Youtube, but here they are anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4--Lkb_Oldo

One of the great pop bands

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 21 - A very bleak Midwinter

So many fine musicians who have meant a lot to me have died in the past 12 months. Cesaria Evora is the most recent, but also Bert Jansch, Jackie Leven and Amy Winehouse.

Here's Bert back in 1974.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq7jXiOa9U4

And Cesaria from a year ago. She looks very frail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w46ogcfnvjk

I started looking at obituaries (bad idea) and saw that drummer Keef Hartley and Kevin Ayres sideman David Bedford were also gone.

Big Jackie's passing was a dreadful loss. Only 62 and at the height of his powers. Such a warm, wonderful, hilarious man.I can still remember having a beer with him, Duncan and Harry (Byrne)at a long defunct venue in Kungsträdgården.

A bleak Midwinter indeed.

Cooper's List

Here it is! The list that everybody is talking about. My friend Duncan's 40 best album of the year. To be honest I've never heard of most of these artists but if Duncan likes them, I know they will be good. If you know any three of the names on the list you are seriously hip.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/albums-2011-nowt-write-home-about#comment-512310

Lots of fine folk, Nordic jazz and ambient stuff. Explore! Enjoy!

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 20 - Snow!

One of the pleasures of Xmas is watching old movies on the box. Preferably a film you've seen many times before. In Britain it always used to be The Great Escape.

Here's one of the uncrowned Kings of Xmas, Mr Crosby, from the movie White Xmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm6rUykRVFY

Memories of happier, simpler times when a quartet of young people could just burst spontaneously into song on a train. Try this on one of SJ's trains and a jobsworth conductor would soon have you thrown off the train in the middle of nowhere.

Want some more songs about snow?

Of course you do!

Saint Etienne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlJRjXSGY

Frank Sinatra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3yi_DNiF0k&feature=related

Cocteau Twins, frosty the Snowman plus calvin and Hobbes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsUIDez0sZw

Incidentally, go onto Google, typed the words Let it snow and watch what happens.

What is the Swedish word for naff?

Kai says he wants turkey for Xmas. I'll show him the songs on this fine list.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2011/11/10-worst-christmas-songs-of-all-time/

The Xmas Shoes by NewSong is probably the sentimental C & W song I was looking for last week. Have a bucket ready if you are going to listen to it.

But when it comes to the bottom of Xmas barrels being scraped or indeed pinched I must reserve a special word of praise for Transylvanian twins the Cheeky Girls. You'll remember them of course for their fabulous smash hit Cheeky Song (Touch my bum).This Yuletide video however gives whole new nuances to the word naff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N06aTqbcf4Q

Naff. Now there is a uniquely British concept that it is quite impossible to translate into Swedish. Naff as in car-boot sales, Page 3 girls and Jimmy Saville.

Clearly in Romania it is a concept that they understand well and have taken to their Transylvanian hearts.

Dracula would be proud.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 19 - Xmas in Prison

I was thinking about depressing Xmas songs a few days ago and Philip in Malmö reminded me of this gem by John Prine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ2YL62Bmfg&feature=related

How strange to think that the man who recorded one of the greatest Xmas albums of all time, Phil Spector, is now spending every Xmas in prison.


Here's anöther old favourite, Asleep at the Wheel with a slighly more light-hearted view of Xmas behind bars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8P1THCn6IM

Orignally recorded in 1956 by doo wop group The Youngsters.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 18 - TOTP

Xmas is a time when it's easy to get nostalgic and think of Xmasses past. And one can't, as a Brit, do that without thinking about the Xmas edition of Top of the Pops and the Xmas number 1.As important a moment in the day as the Queen's Speech! Here are Wizzard presented by the late (and not particualrly great in my book) Jimmy Saville.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsrsvJFEawg

One brilliant little detail that was mentioned on a blog I read. Xmas songs often begin with the sound of sleigh bells. Here it's the ringing of a cash register.
A few minutes of sheer pop genius!

My pal Tim is singing in a carol concert this evening at the English church here and he asked if I'd like to come. But I'm afraid the whole ex-pat scene is anathema to me. I see myself as an ex-ex-pat. In fact, more of a XXX-Pat.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 17 - Xmas Tree

I just had to have a song about Xmas trees. I took a look at Paverotti and pals doing Oh Tannenbaum and then decided to go for something much wackier. It's Fred Schneider from the B52s with his side project The Superions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yaCYIKwavY

The Xmas tree, that great Yuletide icon, has actually not been around that long in the Anglophone world. When Queen Victoria was a little girl it was something outré for posh people. Then of course she married Prince Albert, he imported the Teutoni tradition and it spread like a forest fire both in Britain and actoss the Atlantic.

A few more songs

The Magnetic Fields
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEDyGaqx4PA

Holly Golightly, (her tree is burning down and she sounds like Lonnie Donnegan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acf7rqpICmQ

Canadian singer-somgwriter, T. Nile,has a song called The Ballad of Jack Pine which I can't find on Youtube. So here's another of her songs, also about trees. She's rather good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVqdIWockc8

The Superions are a seriously wacky bunch. No Rock Lobsters perhaps but there's a more than a soupcon of that B52 craziness. Ever wondered what Je t'aime, moi no plus would sound like if redone as a sleazy, low-rent Xmas song? Now you know!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYr8RNzbHVw

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 16 - Xmas Twee

I suspect that not many of you will like this catchy, if somewhat twee, little pop song. And as for all the snogging in the video! Philip in Malmö wrote that he wanted to puke when I posted Sofia Karlsson. Yinkies!He'll need to get a bucket ready I fear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URCNMEbgd_w

I do like it though. Good subject to write a Xmas song about too: coming back home at Xmas time and meeting old friends and old flames.

It's Tim Wheeler from Ash and his girlfriend Emmy the Great who've just put out a Xmas album: This is Xmas.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 15 - Kleenex Xmas

Xmas is a time when it's easy to get a bit over-emotional. I was wondering what was the saddest Xmas song I could find. This one, The little boy that Santa Claus forgot, which was popularised by Vera Lynn in the UK, has to be one of them.A wonderfully restrained version by A Girl Called Eddy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlCsOj_itss&feature=related

But there have got to be other songs that really get one grabbing for the Kleenex. I haven't found it yet but somewhere out there I'm sure there's a real country and western tearjerker. You know the kind:I'm drunk as a skunk, my dog just died, my woman has left me, my kids are hungry and and there's no booze left in the fridge. But find it I will!

Then again, perhaps I should look eastwards? The Finns probably do gloom-laden Xmas rather well.I'm sure that there's a Finnish tango by Olavi Virtu that would reduce me to tears. My reindeer just died, my woman's left me, the sauna has broken down, Sweden just slaughtered Finland at ice hockey and there's no booze left in the fridge.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 14 - I saw Mummy kissing ......

And now for some snogging under the Xmas tree.

In Jamaica Mum kisses a dreadlocks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqMvlajzlGk

In Iceland it's a "Yule lad", one of the sons of the ghastly, child-eating troll Gryla:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWUicYOKjwU&feature=related

In Finland it's the Joulupukki
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKqYrLPZ6zw
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSO39EGzH9s

In Denmark the Julemanden complete with marimbas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7xVAi2_II&feature=related

Pere Noel in the Francophone world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qj1QPhtXKQ

And in Norway it's Nisse that's the lucky lad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHIhAiEHgrk

Here in Sweden the yummy mummy kissed a member of Abba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT-WHsKn-VY

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 13 - Sweden

It's the Santa Lucia celebrations here today so I felt I had to go for something Swedish. Rooting round the Tube I found this old favourite by Stina Nordenstam. One song you definitely won't be hearing in the shopping malls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPsWT_3ypmo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLCB77D5C6C46180DB

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 12 - A child's Xmas in Wales

Time for a visit to Wales! My mum came from Dyfed (Pembrokeshire)so I wouldn't forgive myself without something from the valleys.Here's bass baritone Bryn Terfel singing a Welsh carol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsjCwTOuPhM

Here's another real Xmas treat for you: a Welshman who became very popular on the other side of the Atlantic.Dylan Thomas reading his wonderful prose poem A Child's Xmas in Wales. Such a wonderful, hilarious evocation of childhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjCJd9Bc-qA

My brother, Don, who lives in New York reads it aloud every Xmas as part of his Xmas family tradition.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 11 - Zat you Santa Satchmo?

Louis Armstrong had quite a few Xmas hits. This one from 1953 is a real humdinger. Sheer Yuletide joy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOfbz9KUZ-w

To my shame I had never heard it before this week. I must pull my Xmas socks up.

If you don't know it, here's another Satchmo Xmas classic from the same era that has been covered by many artists, Zat you Santa Claus?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjtYgGN3z6U

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 10 - Drummer? A bummer!

If you've got a small baby who's trying to sleep, the last thing you want is a small kid playing a drum. Canadian band Heavy Blinkers' witty riposte to The Little Druumer Boy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxyL88693x0

Here's Nicole Atkins with a new version of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsasoW1Pfc&ob=av2e

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 9 - Santa Super Stud

Time for a sizzling soul classic: Clarence Carter from 1968, originally featured on the compilation Soul Xmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTfosvGdTY

Santa is not so much some doddering old codger from the North Pole. He is The Man. An Ultimate Lurve Machine who not only carries a sack but is great in the sack.

An interesting sub genre of Xmas songs!


Here's a good cover version by BB King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMfhaGNoSfw

It's also beem covered by Bon Jovi, The Black Crowes and several others.

Music nerds will know that he horn riff was sampled by Run DMC in their magnificent Xmas in Hollis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR07r0ZMFb8

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 8 - Joulu - Xmas in Finland

That jolly Finnish Santa, Juha, sent me a Xmas album by Rajaton last year and this year they seem to be releasing another one. I'm not complaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EDGbKX2zcc

On the topic of Xmas in Finland,the film Rare Cargo adds a rather different twist to the Santa saga. He's a savage beast that eats naughty children!

http://www.lostateminor.com/2010/12/03/rare-exports-a-finnish-movie-about-santa/

However, just look at other traditions and one realises that Xmas hasn't always been so cosy. Krampus in Austria spanked naughty kids and the monstruous troll Gryla in Iceland sent her sons,jólasveinar ("the Xmas lads") into town to find mum a tasty Xmas snack. A nice plump child!

Must do some research on our modern image of Mr Claus.I wonder how much Coca Cola had to do with its creation.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 7 - A wassailing we will go!

Today it's time to go wassailing in the company of the royal family of the English folk world, the Watersons. Here they are with the Malpas Wassail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE2BsU-dVdI

A real roots gem. The Brits (and Finns!)among you will all know about the ancient tradition of wassailing which is the ancestor of modern carol singing. There were two kinds.

Firstly, the poor of the parish going to sing for the local gentry in the hope of getting some figgy pudding and a glass of punch. If these were not forthcoming, this could sometimes end up in a punch up.

Then in Somerset and the southeast there would be orchard wassails where the locals would sing for the trees to drive away evil spirits and ensure a good harvest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing


For the real hard-core Wassailologists among you here is a 1977 BBC programme about the tradition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5_Z2gw_wek

And here are a few other wassails for your enjoyment.

The Albion Band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR4SCIGXuw4

Steeleye Span

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwwEmQmSWs

Kate Rusby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZjQTCaJCEY

Finally a real surprise, Blur doing a wassail!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk4LSrugwRY

Not too bad either.

To my knowledge, their arch-rivals, Oasis, never recorded any.

They'd probably have commented: Wassail the fuss about?

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 6 - Xmas in Hell

The Satanists among you have probably been feeling a bit left out so far with his advent calendar. Time to put that right. Here are the mighty Tap celebrating Xmas down below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KneOdEDwDEc

It's strange to me how utterly mainstream metal music has become. These days Ozzy would be as welcome a Xmas guest as Cliff Richard. And quite right too. He's a very charming fellow. But it's a far cry from the days when he was eating bat sandwiches and sacrificing virgins in sleazy pubs in darkest Birmingham.The tabloids were up in arms about what a threat this new music was to the morality of young people. Nowadays grandparents take their grandchildren to see Slayer and Metallica.

Not everyone is of the metal persuasion. In that case you may prefer this delightful jazzy version by Judith Owen;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCjZJenyN8

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 5 - Indie Xmas

It wouldn't do if all the artists featured here were just a bunch of old fogies. And let's face it there are a lot of fogies crawling out of the woodwork at Xmas. All whinging about how much better Xmas was in the good old days before they invented television and mr Dickens was still writing. Me. for example!

Here'a young band, The Very Most, from Boise, Idaho who came to my attention thanks to their marvelous,toe-tapping version of Away in a Manger. They've just released a new Xmas CD too, so dash off and buy it. Now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DiwP_der1Y&feature=related

They seem to have quite a few pals on the British indie scene and this is a cover of a song by the Pride of Wales, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. Amazing how they can turn a mere fragment into such a fine version.

Kieron and other indie kids among you will know that this song has also been beautifully covered by Scotland's Teenage Fanclub.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0rCuLRv34

If you aren't a fan of the Fanclub, you must have been living on a desrt island for the past 30 years.

And finally, as it's so short, you may as well listen to the original version too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP8UIocMYyw&feature=related

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 4 - Ding dong

Here's Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band doing one of our family's favourite carols. Kai sometimes torments us with his version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtKVi3Ippu0

Maddy will be familiar to all you folkies as the singer of Steeleye Span. A quick wiki revealed that she was born in Blackpool, now runs an arts centre in Cumbria and that her father, Alan Prior, was the co-creator of Z-Cars!

The Carnival Band are an early music group who she has done a whole series of albums with and frequently tours with at Xmastime. Clearly they have a lot of fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carnival_Band_(folk_group)

Here they even throw in a few corny Xmas cracker jokes.

Reading Potter last nght, I noticed that they pull crackers at Hogwarts. That must be a nightmare for a translator to explain. A strange tradition unique to the Anglo-Saxon world and integral to the British Xmas.

I tried to bring some Xmas crackers back for Kieron a few years back. I didn't get further than security at Heathrow. Those Crackers of Mass Destruction were not going on any plane! Just the sort of fiendish weapon that I am sure is used by terrorists to carry out a hijack! Reduce the crew to tears of hysterical laughter with the jokes, force the pilots to wear silly hats and then redirect the plane to Christmas Island.

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 3 - Maybe Santa Baby

‎Eartha Kitt recorded Santa Baby with Henry René and his orchestra in 1953.
A Xmas classic was born.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg

(Incidentally, in this clip the "friends" are some drag queens who have edited themselves into the original.)

She reprised it in the film New Faces in 1954 which was a filmed version of a Broadway sketch show to which Mel Brooks contributed.

Since then it seems it has been covered by every female singer who has done a Xmas album. Such a good song that it has survived regardless. However there's a live clip of Eartha doing it live where she comments:

"I used to have a lot of fun with this song - and then Madonna sung it"


James Follette recently wittily reworked it as Santa Brother:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciM1CqVPp-w

And here's a satirical swipe at Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_rZYQCjwY

Read more about Eartha on wiki. What an amazing woman she was!

While shepherds moshed: A Musical Advent Calendar: Day 2 - Family Matters?

Well, if you thought I was going to stick to songs about Santa and Rudolf and Xmas carols, you were wrong. Some of the best Xmas songs are anti-Xmas. And of course, for some poor souls, having to spend a couple of days with their extended family is a prospect to be faced with gritted teeth.

Here's the very talented Jill Sobule with a cover of a Robert Earl Keen song:Xmas Texas style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUwezGMnxt8

To my shame I'd never heard of Mr Keen before yesterday.Doubtless good old boys of my acquaintance will consider this a terrible omission.I intend to put it right. Here's his version of the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P37xPiRz1sg

Not much snow in Houston.Nevertheless, this Xmas song has been kind to him. So much so that he wrote another song as a sequel and a book with the same title.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Christmas_from_the_Family

Back to Jill, who I've been a fan of for many years. One of those very talented artists who ought to be far better known, but is still just playing small clubs after all these years. Not something that I'm complaining about. Her biggest "hit" was I kissed a girl. Long before Kate Perry started snogging the ladies.

Quite a few years ago Ulrika and I saw her at Cirkus with Lloyd Cole in their short-lived, under-rated band the Negatives. Talk about a dream team.Two idiosyncratic talents together on the same stage. Well, they are both household names in Kärrtorp!