TMBG released their Holidayland ep in 2001 with five holiday songs they'd previously released: "Santa's Beard" from 1988's Lincoln album, Mono Puff's "Careless Santa", "O Tannenbaum" from a 1993 ep, and a couple of songs from emusic's TMBG Unlimited service ("Santa Claus" and "Feast of Lights").
I've managed to include all these TMBG songs on Christmas mixes over the years, but "Santa Claus" is my favorite of the batch. It's a song originally done by the Sonics in 1966 (the original version is here) that TMBG covered in their first TMBG Unlimited ep in early 2001. It was probably the rarest song on Holidayland, and the only one that isn't on any other albums.
The Sonics were from Tacoma, WA (hometown of Bing Crosby and yesterday's artist), and were performing rocking Christmas originals like "Santa Claus" and "Don't Believe In Christmas" long before it was fashionable. These two songs were released on Etiquette's 1966 Merry Christmas compilation along with other holiday songs by the Sonics labelmates (and fellow Tacomans) the Wailers and the Galaxies . That album, as well as Christmas albums by the Ventures and Paul Revere & the Raiders, made the Pacific Northwest the rock 'n' roll holiday hub of the mid-1960s.
No comments:
Post a Comment