Git them geetars twangin’ and join in the Christmas spirit: Here are a couple of rockabilly bands, featuring some excellent axwork. First up is the Reverend Horton Heat. Here’s what I said two years ago: The Rev is both the man and the band: Jim Heath on guitar and vocals; Jimbo Wallace on upright bass; [...]
Horror for the season
As below, more catching up… Dan also sent me a link for William Friedkin’s list of 13 Must-See Horror Movies. This would have made great sense to post around Halloween when he sent it to me, but Christmas can also be pretty scary. Have you been to the mall yet? And there are Christmas horror [...]
Observations on The Godfather
As I explained previously, I kind of checked out during November, which means that a few things fell through the cracks. For example, I’m still wading through e-mails — sorry! About six weeks ago, the great Dan Dorman sent me a note on The Godfather movies. Dan has been through some life changes of his [...]
Late for Hanukkah
Well, I didn’t get these in time, but it’s never too late for entertainment, right? A homemade video [Embedding disabled; click link] to accompany Tom Leher’s “(I’m Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica,” apparently written for and sung on Garrison Keillor’s “The American Radio Company” show in 1990. The video for “Chocolate Coins” by Smooth-E, a.k.a [...]
The novelty of Christmas
Golly, remember novelty records? I love them. For the past thirty years, you’d find them mainly on the Dr. Demento radio show, but one would occasionally break through to the radio, such as that damned “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” This piece by Sean Ross and this one by Rodney Ho look at [...]
A Rockin’ Christmas
I’m just throwing these up quickly, to keep things going. I’ve selected a couple of rockers. The Wee Turtles are a four-piece from Athens, Georgia, playing tight Sixties-style pop. The name is a Simpsons reference (involving Groundskeeper Willie). They released the album This Land Is Your Land in 2000; I don’t see signs of any [...]
Death to Princesses
I forgot to link to last week’s Spot-on column, all about the new movie Enchanted and the scourge of the Princess myth. Happily Ever After, In The Real World As Manohla Dargis wrote in her Times review: The movies like to promise girls and women a happily ever after, but it’s unusual that one delivers [...]
It’s Hannukah, Man!
It’s Hanukkah, O Hanukkah as well, when the Chosen People celebrate the Festival of Lights, so why shouldn’t they get some tunes? Brave Combo is the Texas-based polka band that made a name for itself by covering rock songs in different styles. They also do rumba, cumbia, samba, merengue, and other styles. In the early [...]
Have a Merry Mariah
In WaPo, Rachel Beckman tracks the magical appeal of Mariah Carey’s 1994 holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” As I noted last year, I grew to love this song, based on a cover version by My Chemical Romance and the song’s appearance in Love Actually. As a 12-year-old Jewish girl, Beckman resisted [...]
“There ain’t no Sanity Claus!”
So, back to business. It’s that time again, when I dip into my collection of holiday music. I refer you back to this post from 2005, which gives you a little historical context; then there was last year’s Xmasganza. This year will be a little more low-key. That first year, I posted 44 songs in [...]