THIS BLOG'S ABOUT MY FAVORITE 7" SINGLES. ALL KINDS, ALL GENRES. AND ANYTHING ELSE: INFO, STORIES, CHARTS, CLIPPINGS, ETC. EVERY SONG IS CONVERTED FROM MY VINYL COLLECTION TO MP3. AND NOT ONE THAT I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND YOU SEEKING OUT. ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WHO DON'T WANT THEIR MUSIC HEARD HERE – JUST LET ME KNOW, AND DOWN IT WILL COME. CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE.
Ricky Nelson
Listen: Lonesome Town / Ricky Nelson
Somewhere during their DATE WITH ELVIS / STAY SICK period, The Cramps were doing ‘Lonesome Town’ live. It was around then that I’d joined Island Records and rang Lux and Ivy to update them with my new contact info.
Ivy and I got into a long conversation about all kinds of trivia, which was not uncommon. She and Lux were always the most interesting and intriguing people. We would sometimes stay on the phone for hours.
As we were winding it down, I asked would they like any records from the label.
“What do you have?”
“There’s Robert Palmer, U2, Anthrax, Grace Jones, Julian Cope……”
“Hmmm. I’ve never heard of any of those people. Do you have any Ricky Nelson records?”
that Song is based on "Please give me something" by Bill Allen 1958. The Cramps did it first as "Baby Blue Rock" (you can hear that on the DO-CD "How to make a Monster"), then they changed the Lyrics to "Twist and Shout" and finally it became "Drug Train"
Lux once mentioned in an interview that he was never really happy with the sound of the first two Studio Albums (Songs The Lord Taught Us - 1980 March & Psychedelic Jungle - 1981 May) and I agree! The Ohio Demos do document the Sound, that they had, much better!
Lyrics: Well this city's so mean, that the dogs don't bark, but there's a rock 'n' roll scene, that's waiting in the dark, where the cheap perfume, goes straight to your heart. Oh but something's wrong, with everything in the place, hey what's wrong with this picture, can you find the mistakes, we come in last, in the human race. Oh do the red light rock, down at the horror house, it's an electric shock, that? makes your veins pop out, works? on your nerves, to make you twist and shout. Well I fell asleep dancing, to a rocking beat, yeah I fell asleep dancing, to the noise in the street, but when I woke up this morning, I was still on my feet. Oh do the red light rock, down at the horror house, it's an electric shock, that makes your veins pop out, works on your nerves, to make you twist and shout.Read more at www.youtube.com
(Above) "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2" (1912) by Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French/American artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.[1] A playful man, Duchamp challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal art and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks, while moving quickly through the avant-garde circles of his time.
Duchamp once said, "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act." (Wikipedia)
(Above) "(Almost) Nude Lux Descending an Ivy"
"Lux is really into Duchamp. He has read every biography and autobiography written. I think if Duchamp hadn’t died in Lux’s lifetime, I’d think that Lux was reincarnated as Duchamp." --Poison Ivy, 1995
WizardOLivonia— April 11, 2010 — The Cramps featuring a classic performance by Lux Interior vocals, Poison Ivy Rorschach lead guitar Nick Knox drums, Mike Metoff guitar. Recorded on location at St. Andrews Hall with camera by Brother Crimewave during the "Smell of Female" tour in 1983. Produced by Dan Boyd for Wizard of Livonia. Rest in peace Lux!
I did the camera and audio setup, also the strike and have archived it for 27 years. Had to go to another venue since I had a rare two shows in one night to VJ and do closed circuit.
Brother Crimewave aka Calvin Dean ran camera. After I was done at the other place I raced over just as the Cramps were coming off stage. I'm not sure how we managed it but word was that the Cramps never let anyone back stage yet we were invited back by Lux and we hung out for a few hours shooting the shit, drinking listening to stories etc. So I never felt slighted missing the show. BTW Lux was very glad we recorded the show and was asking about how it turned out.I know everyone wants to see the entire show and yes it is in the vault but someday I may want to do some restoration of the audio and picture and release tt as a DVD so putting more out there now would be working against my long term goal. Lux's unexpected passing prompted me to release a few clips last year and with the specter of human frailty looming on us all and the availability of modern restoration tools I may do this sooner rather than later.
Big Star's Alex Chilton, the musician whom your favorite band is probably ripping off right now, died two weeks ago. What follows is an oral history of Alex's very brief and extraordinarily stoned time in an Alabama college town.
Alex Chilton was born in 1950 in Memphis, and he died two weeks ago, March 17th, in New Orleans. In between, Chilton, an undeniably gifted man, rather deliberately drifted through four-plus decades of a music career in which he served as both a pioneer of blue-eyed soul and a sort of conscripted, yet bemused uncle to indie rock. Of course, this counts the years when he preferred to be neither, when he purposely walked away from the music business, took his damaged spirit elsewhere, and washed dishes instead.
Chilton sang "The Letter" and "Soul Deep" as a member of the Box Tops. He produced the Cramps' debut album. With fellow Big Star bandmate Chris Bell he co-wrote"Thirteen," my favorite song in the whole wide world, and "In the Street," subsequently used as the intro theme for That '70s Show. But for a whole generation Alex Chilton is best-known as the titular subject of a Replacements song. Which is both kind of ironic and fitting, considering the Replacements were never exactly household names themselves.
I knew Alex when I lived in Tuscaloosa, Ala., but do not misread "knew Alex" as "was friends with Alex." As I've written elsewhere, he would come by my house without so much as a pretense of visiting me. He just wanted time with my cassette deck so he could make new mix tapes for his continuing travels.
While in grad school I made extra money booking bands at a number of off-campus bars. And sometime in 1987, I arranged for Alex to play his first fraternity party, but I was more than tentative in approaching him with the idea. There is something doubly damaging about being rejected by someone whose records you've not only played but sung along to hundreds of times. So I'm certain that I began the pitch with the amount of money (about three times what the bar would normally guarantee) the fraternity was offering him.
Surprisingly, Alex accepted the gig and, based on his usual modus operandi, I didn't expect to see or hear from him until maybe 30 minutes before his scheduled start time (the man did not believe in sound checks). But just a few nights before the frat party, my phone rang at an hour when a ringing phone makes you think, "Who died?"
It was Alex. He had never ever called me before. In fact, I didn't even know that he had my number.
And the reason Alex was calling so late just three days before the most lucrative night of his Tuscaloosa career was to ask, What do you think those frat guys want to hear?
Well, Alex, I said. They know who you are and they asked for you specifically, so they realize what they're getting into. I think anything you play will be fine, though it might not hurt to break it into two sets to make the night last longer.
What about cover songs? he asked. Don't frats like cover songs? What about that "Pablo Picasso's not an asshole" song? Do you think they'd like that?
Obviously I am not the only one from that college town with stories to tell. If there are a million Alex Chilton stories around the world, there are likely hundreds in Alabama alone. Because in the late '80s, after the Box Tops and Big Star but before the Box Tops and Big Star reunions would put enough money in his pocket to make fraternity parties a thing of his past, Alex would pass through town three, four, maybe five times in a year. In Tuscaloosa at least, Alex Chilton was revered, despite, or maybe due to, a mercurial nature that seemed to tip-toe between mischievous and merciless; people felt honored just to buy him weed. Here's how some Tuscaloosans remember him.
* * *
George Hadjidakis[1]: I was thinking about that very first show he played at the Varsity and just how everybody was just so hyped up for it. There was definitely a sizable group of people in Tuscaloosa who were really fanatical about him about that time. I just remember that for at least a month before that show it was like there were Chilton parties every night.
Will Kimbrough[2]: Alex was in the Deep South a lot, probably making the most money there. He didn't get the romanticized cred of the Replacements or Husker Du or Black Flag, but he got in his car and drove all over the place. He was in the car and Doug (drummer Garrison) and Ron (bassist Easley) were in the van. That was his choice, you know. It seemed like Alex was the lonely guy who didn't want any company.
Sam Baylor[3]: Yeah, the first time I met him he asked me what my sign was, and that seemed to be very important to him.
Another thing that was odd about Alex was he made Doug and Rockin' Ron drive themselves around. He drove himself, but he would make them drive themselves around. He didn't want any company, didn't need any company. He was a cynic from years of being involved in the music business. It seemed like he didn't really want or need friends, you know.
He was an unusual character, very cynical and sarcastic. Some might have thought him rude, but I read it differently. I thought he was real. And honest. And sometimes people can't take real and honest.
Kimberley Mathews[4]: I was able to hear Alex Chilton play in a variety of different clubs over, I guess, a five- or six-year period in the late '80s and early '90s. A couple years after I had seen Alex play the first time, he played the same club, and it was right after the show, and I was walking back from the bathroom, and the Varsity had this little room — it was like their green room for musicians — and the door was open, and he was in there all by himself. And I walked by and I thought, Oh, I should say something to him.
I had just walked by the room, and then I just took two steps back. And I felt really dumb. I'm one of those people that usually thinks of the perfect thing to say after the moment has passed. And I said, "Hey, I really liked your show." And he smiled. I expected some smartass remark because of kind of how he is onstage, but he said, "Thanks. Thanks a lot."
I said, "I really, really like your music," like a total groupie, you know. And I thought, Well, that's really dumb. But he said, "Thanks. Thanks a lot." And he smiled, and he paused, and I couldn't think of anything else to say and he didn't say anything else, but he was nice, you know. He was polite. He didn't make fun of me, and he wasn't sarcastic. So that was really surprising to me.
Cass Scripps[5]: We were lucky enough — I guess it would've been spring of 1988 — to book Alex to come and perform at our fraternity house. It was the Friday night of one of our biggest parties of the semester, and me and Howard, my roommate and running buddy at the time, were just beyond excited. Everybody in the fraternity house was all excited, but I think that they were excited because we were so excited. I don't necessarily know that they fully understood exactly how huge it was to have Alex Chilton come and play at the fraternity house, but we certainly did.
So Alex gets there, he loads in, he sets up, and he's pretty much ready to go hang out wherever they're staying until it's showtime that night. And one of the things I certainly remember about Alex is that he wasn't a huge man in stature, and his vocal presence certainly reflected his size. He spoke in a very low, sort of monotone vocal style, but it was awesome. He said: "Hey man, do you know where I can get some pot?" And my eyes light up and I was just like, "You know, I think I know a guy. I can probably help you out with that." And so he told me where he was going to be staying, and me and Howard go and find the guy. We were like kids on Christmas morning. We had scored one of our musical heroes some weed, and we thought this was going to be great.
So we go over there, we knock on the door, we go inside, we're talking to him, and there's that kind of anxious moment. You've brought somebody what you think is the prize, and then there's that moment of silence and that tension in the room of like, Well, here it is, and wondering what's going to happen next.
Then after a thick silence for about 90 seconds or maybe even two minutes, he hands back the bag and shakes his head and just says, "Nah, I can't smoke this."
Me and Howard were both just absolutely dejected.
SB: It was the first time Alex had ever played a frat party in his life. It was at the Phi house, and he showed up and the crowd was already enormous there, and so he was sort of intimidated by it and I remember winding up saying, "Okay. I'll take care of you, Alex." And I hoisted his Deluxe Reverb over my head, told him to stay right behind me, and bullied my way through the crowd to the stage. And I got him on the stage, and I got his amp on the stage. And within like two minutes he was playing the gig.
So after the gig the crowd had cleared, and we went back to the Dill's Motor Court and we hung out in his hotel room and he was frantically searching the channels on the TV looking for cartoons, and cussing out the TV because there were no cartoons on it. And I was like, "Come on, Alex. It's like 3 in the morning. There's not going to be any cartoons."
I'm not going to throw in what we might've been smoking at that time.
WK: He loved old Epiphone guitars, and I had an old '60s Epiphone acoustic guitar with a pick-up stuck in it. And the next day he came by our room. We were all staying at the Dill's Motor Court. and I was rooming with Sam Baylor, and Alex drops by.
Now he dropped by to see Sam because he wanted to smoke pot. But he also wanted to see my Epiphone. And so he said, "Can I see that Epiphone of yours?" And I said, "Sure." And he pulled it out and starts playing it, and so we're in a hotel room with Alex, and he's playing my guitar, and it's pretty cool.
And then he goes, I've got this kind of halfway written song, and he played a song that came out on High Priest a year later or something. It wasn't "I'm in Love with a Girl" or "Back of a Car," but it was cool to have Alex kind of running through this song. I mean, he didn't ask our opinion or anything. He just played it for us.
And then he got stoned and got a joint to go, and he got up and got in the Ford Explorer he was driving around in. And I went out there to say bye, and he rolled his window down, and he played me a song off this cassette he had. I think it was by Jesse Belvin. But he told me how this was on the radio when he was a kid. To me it sounded like some old record. I'm not an aficionado of that kind of stuff so I said, "All right. Cool." And then he did what he did with most people who he had more than a passing conversation with — he asked me my birthday. And as he was pulling out he said, "Wow, Will. We're almost astrological twins."
So that was the longest visit I ever had, when he paid us a visit, smoked our pot, and then gave us some astrological pointers. By that point we were — I don't know — as familiar as we were going to get. I don't think he thought too much of what we were doing or anything like that. Who knows? It doesn't matter.
Wade Gilmer[6]: Of course he was my hero, but I was living in Atlanta — this would've been 1990 or so — and it was on a weekend so I showed up at George's house for a Chilton show, and I had no idea that Alex Chilton was staying there with George. So I walked in, and here's Alex Chilton sitting on the couch, and George said, "You know Alex, don't you?" And I said, "Well, yeah. How's it going?" And we shook hands and sat down on the couch and he looked at me, and he said, "Hey, you remind me of the guy who turned me on to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band." So that's how we started our conversation.
So I produced some marijuana and said, "Hey Alex, you want to smoke a joint?" And he was like, "Sure." So we sat, smoked a joint. And George came in and he said, "Hey Alex, have you ever seen this Cramps video of them playing at the State Hospital in California [The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital]?" And Alex said no, so we put the tape in, and George kind of leaves the room, and so it's just Alex Chilton and me sitting on the couch, passing this joint around. And I got so tickled because neither of us said a word. We just sat and watched this video, which is just absolutely brilliant.
I saw him a couple of times after that, and he like nodded his head, and it was a real cute kind of thing. He didn't ever really say anything. He just kind of nodded his head. There was definitely recognition.
GH: The last time he played in Tuscaloosa he was playing on a Friday night, and the Cynics were playing on Saturday night, but they came in early so they could see the Chilton show. And he would stop over by the house, you know, when he was playing, and the Cynics were all over there. And Alex came in, and I think Gregg [Kostelich, Cynics guitarist] was the only one who knew who he was because I just introduced him as Alex. And we were talking about music and stuff and after a while Michael [Kastelic], the singer, goes, "So, are you in a band too?"
WK: Once, when I opened for him, he stood in front of me while I played "Thirteen," and he stood in front of me while I played a version of "The Dark End of the Street." I was probably playing from the Gram Parsons version, and he's from Memphis so he knew the James Carr original version, and he also knew ["Dark End of the Street" songwriters] Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham well.
So there's three factors involved. Number one, he walked out and stood right in front of me, and those were the days when I played almost all the time with my eyes shut. You know, terrified, early 20s, playing in front of people. He stood there and watched, and I opened my eyes at one point in the middle of his song "Thirteen," and there he was. And I was like, Fuck me, man. He's going to hate me forever. Because by that time I knew Alex was like, you know, not going to play more than one or two Big Star songs and was just scoffing at the whole notion that it was some kind of great band. That was his whole stance on it: Would you just lay off the Big Star shit, please, and let me play these Slim Harpo songs?
So anyway, I play that song and then I play "The Dark End of the Street," and afterwards he came up to me and told me that if I played a certain extra minor chord in "Dark End of the Street" that it made it especially scary and darker.
And so I took that as like, Oh cool, you know. He heard me play his song, and he's talking to me about this, and he's my idol of the decade.
You want your idol to pat you on the back and tell you you're cool. Maybe coming and telling me the scarier way to play "The Dark End of the Street" was it. In fact, I think it was.
KM: A few years later, after I got engaged, I saw him at the Ivory Tusk. And we used to show up early so we could get right in front of the stage. So we staked our claim in front, and we were standing there having a beer and smoking a cigarette, and he was hooking up his microphone and stuff, and he saw that I was smoking, and he asked for a light. And so I pulled out a lighter, and he noticed my engagement ring,and he looked at me kind of quizzically. You know, he kind of cocks his head and cracks that kind of funny grin, and he says, "How old are you?"
And I said, "25." And he goes, "Man, you're too young to get married." And I said, "Well, I don't think so. You know, we've been dating five years." And then we had a little conversation and he said, "Well, okay. All right." And, you know, he didn't make fun of me and he didn't make a smart remark.
And I said, "Boy, I'm really looking forward to the show," and I think I gave him a few songs that I wanted to hear, and he played one of them. So the two times that I met with him were different from what other people have told me when they tried to speak with him. And I don't know why that is. I don't know if it was because I was a woman. Maybe because there wasn't anybody else around. I'm not really sure.
It seemed to me that when he was talking with other people — because I would see him, you know, onstage — he kind of had a different rapport about him, a different way that he would talk to people. You know, when guys sit around and talk it's always like they're trying to one-up each other with a wisecrack. And maybe he didn't feel like he had to do that with women.
I have to say this, though: Although he was polite and nice, he didn't, you know, make a conversation go longer than it needed to. He wasn't out to make any kind of connection to a fan or anything like that. It just happened to be, probably, that I had a lighter, and he needed a light.
CS: A year or two years later I was a talent buyer for a venue there in Tuscaloosa, and after they had loaded in and set up I was back in the back talking to Alex, and he's smoking his cigarette, just hanging out in the back. And I ask if everything was all right, and he's just like, "Hey man, do you know where I can get some pot?" And needless to say I was a little bit gunshy at that point since it didn't go well the last time. I was wondering if I should even try again. But I said, I think I know a guy, and this time I called the guy and sure enough it was like crazy, kooky, over-the-top sort of pot, and I brought it over to where Alex was staying, and his eyes lit up when he saw it, and he was just like, "Oh yeah. This is great. This is great."
So it was one of those yin and yang stories. I failed the first time but the second time he seemed quite pleased. It was quite the redeeming moment.
SB: The last time I saw him he was happy and smiling.
GH: I certainly will miss him. I'll just plain ol' miss him
* * *
[1]George Hadjidakis owned the late, lamented Vinyl Solutions record store in Tuscaloosa. He is now a private rock 'n' roll citizen living on a small pension.
[2]In the late '80s Will Kimbrough was best known as the "Will" of Will & the Bushmen. Along with Sam Baylor he wrote "Dear Alex" (see below) Kimbrough is currently a Nashville-based solo artist and guitar slinger for hire, and some of his most recent compositions may be found on each of Jimmy Buffett's last three albums.
Cramps, the: Interview (june 1980 ZigZag) – Lux trembles with glee at the memory of a night in Bristol, where they played an old church "It was in the cellar, there was no floor. So they had this tarpaulin where the floorboards used to be. You could see the church through the holes and there was the Lord's Prayer behind us, it was great." That night Lux was compelled to indulge in some of his notorious onstage lunacy and got hold of some wires hanging down to swing out over the punters. He made it back onto the stage by walking on their shoulders. "They were all going, step on my shoulder, hurt me!"
Interview (4 jan 86, NME) "Nick's been to every Raiders game this season," beams Lux. "The Raiders are more rock'n roll than 99 out of 100 groups today. Wherever they go people are frightened to death of them…" Ivy "They're a bunch of hoodlums. There's a cliché about sport; it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. But their motto is just `Win, Baby!'" Lux "The truth of the matter is they just want to go in and destroy the other team… Their uniform is silver and black with skull and crossbones. Anyplace they play they can sell out the stadium because people know there's gonna be fights. When the Raiders play, they say `Your mother's a fuckin' bitch you fuckin' asshole!" They scream at other players, they antagonise them. It's not like morale- building, good natured sports, it's way beyond." Lux "I feel like I've been surfing, I've listened to enough surf records. I think there's something more deviant about surf records than really had to do with surf music. All the best surf music was made in our part of town, a whole way away from the beach. That becomes suspect in my mind because all these records are so, like, Manic. Maybe the girls in their bikini's caused all this manic activity. But I think it had to do with something more involved than that." He trails off mysteriously. "Ecstasy is really great!" proclaims Lux. "Have you ever taken ecstasy? It's LSD, heroin… it makes you lurve your fellow man. Can you imagine a drug that makes you lurve your fellow man?" his beatific grin quickly evaporates into a mock responsible expression following a warning glance from Ivy. "Yeah," she says "It'll give you Parkinson's disease." Lux says "It's too bad they're not legal cos anybody can make `em and anything can happen."
Clipping - "I wish I could make my new stuff sound as different as the Cramps are to Status Quo, but I can't." Frank Black.
3 reviews of Flamejob – The Cramps also ritually abuse `Route 66' in a way that makes the Stones sound like the safe old English drips that they are, treating it with the same reverence as their version of `Heartbreak Hotel' – that is, with all the respect of a PCP crazed drunk starting a fight at the Queen Mothers funeral. / Lux Interior once memorably stated that he spends 95% of his time having sex and the other 5% thinking about having it. / Signing to hip indie label Creation was a most unlikely but highly clever move.
Interview (Halloween 1989) The album's title was originally the catch- phrase of an obscure `60s TV horror host in Cleveland who went by the name of Ghoulardi. Lux, who was a teenager at the time, remembers his performances well. "He was really great! He'd say `Stay Sick!,' `Turn Blue!' and `Purple Knif' which is fink spelt backwards. Everybody drank these big Ghoulardi shakes which had every flavour imaginable mixed into them… and then green dye! That guy was intense. On TV he had this wavering little halo around him and one spot light under his face. He'd blow things up on TV. They'd be showing a horror movie and then, after the commercial break, he'd have a model of a split-level house with a car and mom and dad waving to each other in the front garden… then he'd blow it up on TV. That guy was like Hitler or something, he was really something different." On Date with Elvis not being released in the States… "All these A+R departments in America are a buncha scared bunny Rabbits" sneers Lux in disgust "all hoping they can hold onto their pay-cheques for one more week. There are a lot of record companies that have tied up a lot of our time over the years, going out to dinner with us, talking with us… But when it comes round to the real thing, they're all groupies. Some people talk about it and some people do it!"
Interview (City Limits) "You can see a film like Naughty Dallas and the strippers really existed. It happened. There was no concept or anything. These are things that interest us because they're to deal with real people." Opines the striking Mr Interior as a way of expressing his disgust at those who see the band as a two-dimensional cartoon. "We have 3000 films on video-tape and we're looking for stuff all the time."
Interview – "We're the Kings and Queens of Rock and Roll." Says Ivy "We don't take life seriously, we take ourselves seriously, and what we do, we're just totally committed to it." "We've already dominated the world" snarls Lux "If only they'd just come to that realisation. "
Interview (Poison Ivy on her self-image) – What image do you have of yourself? "Flaky and incredibly disorganised. I also think that I am completely normal and it is the rest of the world which isn't. A lot of values that are really valued in contemporary society I don't have. I'm spaced out most of the time. I like it that way, being on a different wavelength." What image are you trying to achieve? "That of a well-decorated Christmas tree." Do you wear make up? "People think I wear too much but I don't think that's possible. I hate the natural look."
The three drawings below are by Benjamin Marra, who says: "These were sketches for an assignment that didn't pan out. It was a cool one: to illustrate a Cramps Christmas album cover. I think my friend and colleague Ted McGrath ended up getting the gig. Dems da breaks ..." http://benjaminmarra.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
Happy Holidays and best wishes for the new decade, compliments of myself and Krampus, St. Nicholas' cloven-hooved, chain-swinging, lolling-toungued, child-punishing Eastern-European sidekick. If what you see interests you, then you might want to check out The Devil in Design: The Krampus Postcards, which you can purchase from The Morbid Anatomy Bookstore by clicking here: http://astore.amazon.com/morbanat-20/detail/1560975423
Various Artists: Oh! No! Not Another... Midnight Christmas Mess Again!!
1. Hazy Shades of Winter - The Slickee Boys 2. Christmas I'll Be Home - The Vipers 3. Star - The Cheepskates 4. Santa is Comin' Down Again - The Psycho Daisies 5. Santa Ain't Santa - Woofing Cookies 6. Jesus Christ - The Love Pushers 7. O Tannenbaum Now - Das Furlines 8. Blue Christmas - The Ravens 9. Wreck These Halls - Howard & Jag's X-mas Vacation 10. Sleighbell Bop - The Holidays 11. Coal in My Stocking - The Backbones 12. Christmas Eve at KNL (Kansas Neurological Institute) - The Iguanas 13. Snow is Falling - Dementia 13
Santa Claus versus The Devil I first saw K. Gordon Murray's Santa Claus at the 25th Street Theatre in Waco, TX in 1966. It's impossible to overstate the profound effect this film had on my life. Of course, it was the English dubbed version I saw, but nowadays I'm partial to the original spanish. Here is the classic scene where the Devil tempts Lupe to steal the doll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e63yPs5uB8
Happy 2010 - "How terrible do I feel about using the same image I painted from last year?! I think I can squeeze a few more years out of this one." - MATTHEW CRUICKSHANK (via death becomes her)
Rev. A.W. Nix was one of the great singing preachers whose fiery, earthshaking sermons are enough to send any sinner running for salvation. Nix made his mark with his first coupling, the incredibly intense “Black Diamond Express to Hell Pts. I & II” in 1927. This was one of the best known and popular sermons with Parts 3 and 4 issued in 1929 and parts 5 and 6 in 1930. He cut fifty sermons for Vocalion through 1931, railing against sinners in sermons with provocative titles like “Goin’ To Hell And Who Cares”, “The Fat Life Will Bring You Down”, “Jack The Ripper” and “Hot Shot Mamas And Teasing Browns.” He had a special affinity for the holidays as evidenced in recordings like “Death Might Be Your Christmas Gift”, “That Little Thing May Kill You Yet (Christmas Sermon)”, “Begin A New Life On Christmas Day – Part 1 & 2″ and “How Will You Spend Christmas?” (via PCL LinkDump/Donna Lethal) Listen & download here: http://www.baddogblues.org/clips/nix-present.mp3
How Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine tried to take Christ out of Christmas (From the Daily Mail)
Nazi Germany celebrated Christmas without Christ with the help of swastika tree baubles, 'Germanic' cookies and a host of manufactured traditions, a new exhibition has shown. The way the celebration was gradually taken over and exploited for propaganda purposes by Hitler's Nazis is detailed in a new exhibition. Rita Breuer has spent years scouring flea markets for old German Christmas ornaments. She and her daughter Judith developed a fascination with the way Christmas was used by the atheist Nazis, who tried to turn it into a pagan winter solstice celebration. Selected objects from the family's enormous collection have gone on show at the National Socialism Documentation Centre in Cologne. 'Christmas was a provocation for the Nazis - after all, the baby Jesus was a Jewish child,' Judith Breuer told the German newspaper Spiegel. 'The most important celebration in the year didn't fit with their racist beliefs so they had to react, by trying to make it less Christian.' The exhibition includes swastika-shaped cookie-cutters and Christmas tree baubles shaped like Iron Cross medals. The Nazis attempted to persuade housewives to bake cookies in the shape of swastikas, and they replaced the Christian figure of Saint Nicholas, who traditionally brings German children treats on December 6, with the Norse god Odin. The symbol that posed a particular problem for the Nazis was the star, which traditionally decorates Christmas trees. Civilians were encouraged to send patriotic Christmas cards to soldiers at the front. The Iron Cross shaped Christmas tree decorations commemorate the start of World War One. 'Either it was a six-pointed star, which was a symbol of the Jews, or it was a five-pointed star, which represented the Soviets,' Breuer said. It had to go. In the 1930s, the Nazis tried to change the ideology of Christmas. But when World War II started, the focus became more practical. There were also tips on how to make Christmas cookies in the face of food shortages. In 1944-1945, the Nazis tried to reinvent the festival once again as a day to commemorate the dead, in particular fallen soldiers. 'By then nobody felt like celebrating,' Breuer explained. Happily, the German people mostly ignored the clumsy propaganda efforts and continued with the same traditions as before. The is a legacy of the Nazi Christmas. The wartime version of the traditional Christmas carol 'Unto us a time has come' is still sung. 'The Nazis took out the references to Jesus and made it into a song about walking through the snow,' Breuer said. Surprisingly, German churches put up little opposition to the Nazification of Christmas. 'You would have expected them to protest loudly and insist that it was a Christian festival,' said Breuer. 'But instead they largely kept quiet, out of fear.'
James Chance... Christmas With Satan (2002, Tiger Style TS-038 .mp3 audio 06:14). Christmas With Satan was originally released by James White on A Christmas Record (1981, ZE Records ILPS 7017). It was replaced by No More Christmas Blues by Alan Vega on the 1982 edition. Listen & Download: http://www.box.net/shared/static/y7e6huh0x9.mp3
Culturcide "Santa Claus Was My Lover/Depressed Christmas" 7" A Christmas time classic from Houstons own Culturcide... Especially the b-side. Merry Christmas (or whatever you're into) from the Texas Punk Treasure Chest! 1. Santa Claus Was My Lover 2. Depressed Christmas
Big Star's Alex Chilton, the musician whom your favorite band is probably ripping off right now, 
SB: It was the first time Alex had ever played a frat party in his life. It was at the Phi house, and he showed up and the crowd was already enormous there, and so he was sort of intimidated by it and I remember winding up saying, "Okay. I'll take care of you, Alex." And I hoisted his Deluxe Reverb over my head, told him to stay right behind me, and bullied my way through the crowd to the stage. And I got him on the stage, and I got his amp on the stage. And within like two minutes he was playing the gig.
