Category: Musings

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Christmas Mix 2020: Christmas Storytelling

So here we are. This year is nearly over. The unwarranted feeling of relief is taking over, despite what that lies before us. So, as I listen to this Billy Bragg record that hasn’t left my changer for years and very much not a Christmas album, I release this sixteenth Christmas mix into the world. This could have been an extremely dark Christmas. We could be staring down record-setting pandemic infections AND four more years of him. Last night I was imagining the songs that folks have written, perhaps even recorded, that will now go unheard because the feeling is just different now. Those who read my blog will not be surprised by many of the choices, as I show my cards all season long. There are some weird ones, some ridiculously beautiful ones, some older ones that needed the right home, and a finale that should be a radio hit if people listened to the radio like they used to. The only connective thread is that every song is a song I truly love. Perhaps you’ll find you do too.

Honestly, I’m just so relieved that it is a rather happy mix… something that I couldn’t even imagine earlier in the year.

1.Randolph’s LeapStay Away This Christmas
2.SleepwalkersChristmas Morning
3.CrocodilesChristmas in Hell
4.JW FrancisChristmas Heartache
5.King Gizzard and the Shitpost WizardChristmas Lights
6.Swampmeat Family BandA Present for Me
7.A.R. PinewoodTis the Season
8.Andrew BirdAndalucia
9.Grace EdenHold You
10.MeikoThis Year Can Kiss My Ass
11.GirlhouseUgly Xmas Sweater Party
12.HanemoonChristmas Time Goes By
13.Night FlowersSnowfall
14.Jacklen RoC U Christmas Day
15.Christmas AguileraWhy Can’t I Go To Sleep?
16.Rachael Dadd (with Rozi Plain and Kate Stables)We Built Our Houses Well
17.Purple MountainsSnow Falling in Manhattan
18.Willie J. HealeyMerry Christmas
19.Thom StoneMerry Christmas (What a Hell of a Year)
20.SaintsenecaWinter Breaking
21.The Martial ArtsSnow Flakes
22.Charlie’s Hand MovementsSnow Globe
23.Polish ClubCountdown
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Christmas Mix 2019: ‘XMAS’

Something seems to go wrong every year, but somehow I have managed to make 15 of these things. Thanksgiving being so late this year pushed everything back, and I’m still catching up. This year’s mix is dominated by multiple tracks off the incredible Fowler VW / Blackwatch compilation (review STILL to come), as well as the Merge You Wish release, which really grew on me. I dipped back a few years to resurrect a long-lost The Films’ track, and took advantage of a couple great songs that came out late in last year’s cycle. The struggle was to keep this mix happy, as is often the case. If you read the blog, you’ll know I tend to skew toward the melancholy, so my wife has to run interference and keep me from sending out something that is going to be a total bummer. I believed I avoided that bummer pothole, and have created something that I certainly like, and perhaps you will too. Merry Christmas!

1Eastern Conference ChampionsSaving Christmas
2The FilmsIt’s Christmas (What’s The Difference)
3LivingmoreShow Me Light And Love
4Mac McCaughan & Annie HaydenDown We Go (Sledding Song)
5Christmas in JulyMiss Mistletoe
6Beau JenningsThe Christmas Light
7Mini TreesSigns & Wonders
8Virgin of the BirdsChristmas in the Borough of Our Birth
9Thee MighteesChristmas Song
10Mike KrolWon’t Be Alone Tonight
11Pedro The LionYellow Bike
12SuperbravoLa Nuit
13L’ResortsChristmas is a Time for Dreaming
14Charlie MarieUnderneath the Mistletoe
15Sufjan StevensLonely Man of Winter (feat. Melissa Mary Ahern)
16Richard WaltersLights On
17Samantha CrainChristmas For Cowboys
18Paul Thomas SaundersChristmas, The Sequel
19The Classic BrownWintervention
20Annie BoothChristmas Time (Keep It Together)
21wejzakMerry Christmas on New Year’s Eve
22Randolph’s LeapChristmas, Burn it All (Featuring the Olive Grove All-Stars)
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Where do you buy your digital music?

I’ve run two music blogs in my day. The first one was all about limited edition and import music. Cool vinyl pressings and bonus tracks, all before vinyl got crazy. Now, I run a Christmas music website, which is quite different, yet so similar in many ways. Both required a whole lot of searching for that special song, that great record, and both required my reader to BUY something. Christmas Underground is not, and will never be, your place for free Christmas music. Yes, some songs are free by the generosity of the artist, but if I can, I always try to encourage them to, at the very least, set up a Bandcamp with a “name your own price.” Art is work, and artists deserve to be paid. With that, I’m curious as to what services you all actually buy your digital music from. I always defer to services with the highest source material (Bandcamp and 7Digital offer FLACs), but realistically, most folks shop at Amazon. So… let me know if I’m either wasting my time by posting so many options or equally, let me know if I’m not posting the site that you most like to do business with.  Feed my curiosity and please answer the poll below.

Update: So, for some reason, the poll did not allow multiple answers, but it does not. You can choose up to 4 answers.

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Curious how you Christmas-mixers distribute these days…

As you can see, I’ve begun the big push towards the Christmas season. I’m posting more now than I had been (even though I try to keep SOME new posts coming during the year), and I’m beginning to think deeply about this year’s mix. I always do my best to provide a link to purchase the song, because that is what I need to create my primary CD and MP3 versions of my mix. But it got me thinking… how many folks just create playlists? Should I be providing links to Spotify/Apple Music/etc? I’ve never experienced anyone just sending a playlist as their official Christmas mix, but I’m also middle-aged, so while I’m not unplugged from the kids, I’m obviously not a kid. Thus, out of curiosity, please take a look at the poll below and let me know your Christmas mix distro flavor(s).

Please leave comments! The poll is great, but I’d love to know more about how you distribute, what you’ve found that works or does not work, etc.

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Merry Thursday December 27th

Well, I probably should have posted something earlier, but the holidays are always extremely busy. With getting ready for Christmas, preparing for company, and traveling, it can be hard to find time for the one thing that I try to do all year… write about cool Christmas tunes. I found a bunch more too. Whether I get them on here ASAP is best left to the soothsayers, mystics, the oracles and the like… because I have no idea. I’m presently away from home, using my phone as a hotspot and just letting you know I haven’t forgotten you all. Merry Thursday December 27th everyone. Hope it was a magical for you as it was for me. Come back soon – I’m here all year. And call your mother.

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Christmas Mix 2018: How to Solve our Christmas Problems

Well, here ya go. Hopefully since it is done, I’ll be able to get back to writing blog posts! I would have assumed there would have been some more political stuff that I’d want to include this year, and while there has been some nice ones (Quiet Company), it hasn’t quite panned out as I expected. I thought this mix was going to be full of hilarious vitriol, but instead I found myself trying to speed it up a bit. There is lots of sweet stuff on here, some longing, some French and Italian, and some swearin’. I hope you enjoy.

1Billy ChangerNew Year Dreams
2Slept in Through ChristmasEyes Lips Eyes
3BabaganoujShitty Christmas
4Gabrielle PapillonThen It Snowed
5The Grubby MittsCome on Home For Christmas
6Le CouleurLe Dernier Noël
7Futuro PeloSwamp
8Christmas AguileraFootsteps
9Guillaume CantillonNoël Je Me Souviens De Tout
10The StavesHome Alone, Too
11Pictish TrailBut Once A Year
12Richard WaltersThe First Snow in Years
13Amy StroupHoliday Ease
14SaintsenecaNew Coats
15Fontaines D.C.Winter in the Sun
16Matty Took42 Degrees
17Whyte HorsesNext Year Will Be Mine
18Dirty NiceIt’s All Gunna Go Wrong
This Christmas
19Lullabier feat. FaroNatale A Ceneda
20TravellerChristmas Eve at Kroger
21Annika NorlinCORRESPONDENCE: Silent Night
22Tom RosenthalThe Only Time I’m Home
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Happy New Year

Hello readers, the few I have left 🙂 Just wanted to apologize for being so darn quiet for the past week. I’ve celebrated Christmas with my family, bought a car (always fun….), traveled 6.5 hours, hung out with my parents, sister, nephews and family, and played in the snow with my son. It has kept me from even looking at what came out from Dec. 24 until today. I’m going to be way, way behind. Hopefully everything doesn’t disappear over the next few days…

I write about this extremely niche subject all year long, with unexplainable bursts of content followed by weeks of radio silence, so check back in here and there and make me feel like folks are out there. It always feels better when someone actually stops by.

Happy New Year. Hope that this year is better than the last.

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Lie in the Sound’s Christmas Wish

Adam

Greetings readers. Our dear blogger-friends Lieinthesound.de have a Christmas wish this season. For years they have been active refugee supporters, and have recently found themselves even more personally involved. I will let Brigitte and Christoph tell the story:

Late September 2016 whilst browsing through Facebook Brigitte found the urgent scream for help of a young African refugee. He had gotten his deportation note with a fix date, time and already booked flight. A year later he is still living in Berlin (Germany). It’s been quite a task but we managed to stop the deportation. Adam has grown to be family for us. We are still fighting to get him a full legal status. At the moment he only has a “ban of deportation” (German: Duldung). He’s not allowed to work nor go to school. He’s going to a school run by volunteers though. Adam is part of a group which is under special protection from the protestant church. This doesn’t keep him safe from harm but gives us hope and some support to build a future for him. At the moment we are paying for a room in a shared flat and there’s other expenses for things like meds, tickets for public transportation. We also help his mother and sister, who live in a refugee camp in Darfur (Sudan). Adam’s father died while fighting against the army of the dictator of Chad. Neither Adam nor his mother and sister can go back to Chad as their family is well known for being part of the political opposition.

This fall Adam introduced us to Ali + Fatima and their seven beautiful children. Their situation is  difficult to say the least. We are still busy doing all the research to fully understand the legal aspects. At the moment they are put up in a refugee shelter outside of Berlin. The whole family of nine people has only two rooms. We are trying to find a flat for them. This means we have tons of appointments at different public offices, that’s why we need money to buy train tickets. We also need money to fund a good lawyer for them.

So, I just donated to help Adam, Ali + Fatima, so that they might have a better future for their families, themselves, and those yet to come. Brigitte and Christoph help light up your Christmas season every year, I hope if you find yourself with a couple of bucks, you’ll consider doing the same. Please help spread the word if you can. I’m sure there’s a tastemaker out there with more followers than all of our little Christmas blogs combined… I’m looking at you @awesomeperson.

PLEASE DONATE – It’s easy!

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Christmas Mix 2017: Snow Man

Christmas Mix 2017: Snow Man

This year’s mix began taking shape at the end of 2016, its direction was solidified the moment I heard Mac McCaughan’s “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again).” This year would have some four letter words, sexual situations, whatever might come, as I decided to allow myself this freedom every few years and not play it around my kid. I’ve done my best to remember to mark which songs have the fucks and the shits (hehe), but alas, I may have missed one; that oversight would certainly be classic me. As for the rest of the content, there are some angry songs, some sad songs, and some damn sweet songs, the highlight of the latter being Charlie’s Hand Movements’ “Until the 25th.” Damn, I love the ending to that song. Hopefully you’ll dig it, as this moment is really why I do this blog. I created Christmas Underground largely as a resource to keep track of my own search for music. By sharing, perhaps others would also share with me and not make it such a long, hard slog. I’ve met many wonderful people who have done just that – and I hope to hear from even more of you in the future. So, the blabbing is over, the listening begins.

http://8tracks.com/mixes/8733729/player_v3_universal

Snow Man from sixtywatt on 8tracks Radio.

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Christmas A Go-Go is Back!

Christmas A Go-Go is back! Stubby (out of semi-retirement) and I have been here, in varying levels of posting activity, waiting for the season and our favorite seasonal bloggers to figure out their passwords and start posting again. Of course Ernie has his Christmas in July, but beyond that mid-year burst of related content… it can get a little lonely around the Christmas tree. Christmas A Go-Go has been posting since 2006 – they have me beat by 6 years! – and routinely hips me to cool, mix-worthy tunes from around the world. If you have found my site, you likely know theirs… but just in case you hadn’t realized they were back… THEY ARE!