indie rock – Page 10 – Christmas Underground

November 28, 2022

Alex Exists “Never Christmas Without You” (2022)

The Confidence Emperors
Buy: Bandcamp

Sometimes you just want some swagger. Toronto’s Alex Exists is overflowing with such swagger in his big, glam-infused Christmas single, “Never Christmas Without You.” The guitars bend, the vocals soar, and the attitude seeps out of every line. While the song’s first notes immediately place this song within the Christmas canon, the lyrics are far more interesting than you may anticipate. There are these couplets of contradiction that I thought are so perfect and relatable:

Love and hate
Are both the same
You can’t control where
Your heart is aimed
We hated the cold but
Still loved the snow

Delivered with Alex’s expressive vocals, this song is filled with huge brush strokes of emotion. I found his delivery to be captivating – he isn’t singing a song, he is completely engaged in performing it. While I might continue on to opine about what his motivation might be when writing this song, Alex explains it quite well on his Bandcamp page:

This is a song for anyone that feels crestfallen during the holiday season. Love it or hate it, the holidays bring out a lot of different and often complicated emotions in us all. This is a sentimental song that bites back and evokes a bit of sass towards all those hurtful moments in life. If you’re feeling lonely, like I used to during these times, you might resonate with this song. No matter how tragic life gets for you, there is always an extra seat at our table.

Bottom Line: A big, beautiful, emotional song for a complicated time of year.

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November 25, 2022November 25, 2022

Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2022)

A Benefit for Crisis
Buy: Bandcamp

I often think about what it would be like to be just now getting into this hobby of underground Christmas music mix-making. When I got in the game (18 years ago!), there wasn’t quite the wealth of indie rock/pop/alt.country/etc Christmas releases to hunt down. Bandcamp, the venue which I primarily exploit to find cool new songs, wasn’t founded until 2007, and it wasn’t until 2010 that I could have even embedded a track on a site like Christmas Underground. It is both exhilarating and terrifying to think about dipping my toes in for the first time in 2022… there is just so much to listen to – years and years of great songs to get through, let alone all the new releases that come out every year. Well, lucky for my imaginary self, as well as that very real person taking their first stab at making a cool Christmas mix, fellow weirdo Christmas music fan Kevin McGrath has created the perfect introduction to this niche of holiday music with the massive, expansive collection of 108 songs, Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol. 1 & Vol. 2. This is like one of those The Greatest ________ Album in the World collections I used to bump into in the import sections of the 2000s – packing an absolute ton of the tracks you need to hear to fully get what has been going on. The sheer effort that it took to clear 108 songs is astounding, let alone the challenges of contacting bands that are no longer together, and there are some wonderful ones represented here, to which I’m delighted their musical legacy will persist. Readers of this site will find some familiar faces and names, such as Sweet Tempest, St. Lenox, Charlie’s Hand Movements, The Ornaments, Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, and many, many more.

Just know you are bound to discover a new classic or two that you’ve never bumped into before. Christmas Underground is a one-person shop, and I can’t and won’t be able to know every single cool indie Christmas song out there… as I’m currently sitting here listening to Volume 1, bobbing my head to a song I’ve never heard – and I love it. All this great music also benefits a great cause, Crisis, a UK charity that helps the homeless. So, while the suggested price for each massive collection is a mere £7/$8.50, just know that you don’t necessarily have to give only $8.50. Maybe make yourself a sandwich each day this week for lunch and give a bit more? This is the season of giving, and in a world where billionaires aren’t going to save us, we need to look out for each other.

Bottom Line: These two releases could fashion 3-4 years of indie Christmas mixes for your friends and family. It is an absolutely essential purchase for new and old collectors alike.

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November 22, 2022September 8, 2023

Beau Jennings & the Tigers “Midnight Service” (2022)

Beau Jennings wowed us all a few years back with his stunning Christmas LP, The Christmas Light, and we can all be thankful (it is nearly Thanksgiving!) that he took another stab at a seasonal song – because we all know it is going to be great. “Midnight Service” is a slow burn, with a simple, shimmering guitar line that flutters from ear-to-ear, a delicate flurry of musical snow to encase Beau’s “internal Christmas journey.” The song beautifully captures the transition between a child’s Christmas and an adult’s, and an embrace of something new. This is best captured in his last beautiful lines:

“Now I don’t worry anymore / about the kind of Christmas I knew before
I let it come and I let it go / like the northern wind or the falling snow.”

Bottom Line: This song is full of heart and beauty, and is a wonderful addition to Beau and Co.’s stellar seasonal catalog.

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November 21, 2022September 8, 2023

The Walters “Another Christmas” (2022)

Self Released?/Warner?
Buy: 7Digital (FLAC/MP3) | Apple Music | Amazon MP3 | Amazon.de MP3

I love those Crookes’ Christmas records that they used to put out… and Chicago’s The Walters has me feeling those sorts of feelings once more. TikTok brought them back together after 4-year hiatus, just in time for their first seasonal single, “Another Christmas.” The song shares some DNA with those great indiepop/rock singles of I loved – sentimental and catchy to the point that you end up bobbing down the street singing the chorus in your head. While the main thrust is somewhat sad, spending Christmas alone and such, the end of the song, “everybody’s singing / Christmas bells are ringing” suggests that everything is going to be alright.

Thanks to Tim for the tip!

Bottom Line: A classic “Christmas alone” song with an indiepop hook that’s gonna snag you.

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November 17, 2022November 17, 2022

Phoebe Bridgers “So Much Wine” (2022)

Who would have guessed… the Handsome Family classic underground Christmas song “So Much Wine” has finally broken through to the mainstream with Phoebe Bridgers selecting it as her yearly Christmas song. I must say… it is her best one yet. I am genuinely torn as to whether I like hers or Katy Kirby’s better, and I believed Katy’s to be a 2022 Christmas mix lock. Sit back and enjoy… this one is so terribly good.

EDIT: I thought that was Andrew Bird whistling in the background… and yup, it was.

Bottom Line: Phoebe has really knocked it out of the park with this year’s Christmas song… and solidified the Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine” with solid, underground (and maybe mainstream??) classic status.

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November 16, 2022

Titus Andronicus “Drummer Boy” (2022)

Have you ever heard a song and wondered, “what took so long?” Titus Andronicus popped into my Bandcamp feed this morning with a reworking of a classic song that absolutley everybody knows… but as a Christmas song. It makes so much sense… as if it was always there in the ether and somebody just needed to grab it. I really don’t want to ruin the smile that you’ll have when you immediately realize what they’ve done. This is indeed a Drummer Boy that I can get behind :).

Bottom Line: Just a good bit of fun.

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November 8, 2022

Bad Bad Hats “Sally Sweet Tooth” (2021)

Don Giovanni
Buy: Bandcamp

I am finally getting through all the stuff I meant to listen to last year. If you are someone who feels as though a shitload of browser tabs is a personal failing, let me introduce you to the largest failure I know… Me. Thankfully, every so often you find something that makes saving that session worth it. Minneapolis’ Bad Bad Hats has been producing a song a month on their Patreon since at least October of 2020, and what do you know… December 2020’s theme was Christmas! Let’s let them tell you a bit more:

“I was listening to all the holiday classics to get inspired and I was struck by how many great characters there are in the Christmas canon: Rudolph, Frosty, a run-over Grandma. So I wanted to add a new character to the mix. She’s a little sweet, she’s a little sassy. She’s Sally Sweet Tooth. And you’d be wise to give her your cookies.”

The song was deemed worthy to bust out of the Patreon $5 tier jail to the wider world last December, in all its early-2000s alternative/power-pop goodness. So rejoice, and remember not to be stingy with your cookies… she’ll get ya.

Bottom Line: An extremely delicious jam to spread all over your Christmas mix.

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November 4, 2022

The Martial Arts – Christmas With The Martial Arts (2020/2022)

wiaiwya
Buy: Bandcamp (digital/lathe-cut vinyl)

Look at me… now I am REALLY just copying Christmas A Go Go as I essentially update and repost an older post with exciting new information (rather than have to write a whole new post… which is WORK!) The wonderful Where It’s At is Where You Are (wiaiwya) label has just dropped 50 lathe-cut, 10″ copies of The Martial Arts’ excellent Christmas EP, Christmas with the Martial Arts. And hey – it’s Bandcamp Friday, so Bandcamp isn’t even taking their cut! Go buy it now! And now, my original review:

I’m in a mood tonight. I want to just yell and swear (in a good way) about every record I find. You have no idea what I’ve already written and deleted for this review, but let your mind go crazy. Glasgow’s The Martial Arts is a project of Paul Kelly, whose CV is a murderers row of great bands (BMX Bandits / Carla J Easton / The Primary 5 / Ette / Radiophonic / Tuckshop / How to Swim / The Hector Collectors) has put together this just FUCKING FUN AND WONDERFUL Christmas EP, recorded over eight years and finished over lockdown. The first two bouncing, beautiful tracks, “Stockings” and “Snow Flakes,” just take off like a rocket and shoot sparklers out of their ass for four minutes a piece. I devoured every second, with a giant grin on my face. “My Christmas was in June” is a cover of a Ze Malibu (feat. members of Redd Kross and that dog) song, and while the tempo slows to a stroll, the scenery is gorgeous. The final track and the only one actually fully-recorded in 2020, “Blinded by the Night” takes me back to the 80’s, to an emotional moment in a movie with lots of driving in the rain and staring out the window. “Stare into my bright disco eyes,” god I love that line. Go buy this record, but wait a few hours for #Bandcampfriday, why don’t ya?

Bottom Line: This is an indie/power/retro pop mixture that, like the unholy concoction the Long Island iced tea, will fuck you up real good.

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November 2, 2022November 2, 2022

Coach Party “Wonderful Christmastime” (2020)

There are some songs that I really, really don’t enjoy… and Macca’s “Wonderful Christmastime” is most certainly on that list. For a guy who genuinely enjoys synths, one would think that I might be more fond of this modern classic, but those sugary-sweet synths rub me the wrong way. Thankfully, Coach Party has flown in from the Isle of Wight and saved the day, scrubbing those cloying synths with as many fuzzed-out guitars as humanly possible. Granted, they didn’t have quite the same hill to climb as anybody who tackles “Little Drummer Boy” might, but I tip my hat to Coach Party for making this terrible song pretty damn awesome.

Bottom Line: There is still a pop sensibility here, but Coach Party has frayed the edges enough to make me a fan.

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October 28, 2022October 28, 2022

Hope Irish “Here’s to Holidays” (2009)

Superpop Records
Buy: Bandcamp (NYOP)

I love digging up old songs as much as I do hearing the latest to drop. 2009’s “Here’s to Holidays” by Austin, Texas’ Hope Irish is one of those forgotten gems that I feel genuinely fortunate to have stumbled upon. The production is full of interesting colors, from the accordion melody to the mandolin, guitar, and slapping drums, providing a wonderful ramshackle accompaniment to Hope’s feisty, boozy lyrics about being alone on Christmas. The ending is particularly notable, as Hope repeats “If I could I’d piss your name in the snow…,” a sentiment that my wife, while falling asleep, really connected with. That’s love folks.

Of note – this song appeared on Superpop Records’ Holiday Collection 2009. Anybody have this? Want to share?? 🙂 I’d love to know what else was on this…

Bottom Line: A quick, boozy song of love and loss is a formula that (unsurprisingly) I can very much get behind.