Kill Rock Stars – Christmas Underground

December 21, 2023

Caleb Nichols – So This Is Crimble (2023)

Kill Rock Stars
Buy: Bandcamp

You may recognize poet and singer/songwriter Caleb Nichols from his previous feature on this blog, or perhaps my 2023 Christmas mix, I’m an Igloo, which features his gorgeous 2021 song, “I Fell in Love on Christmas Day.” Well, this year Caleb has packaged up his previous Christmas tunes, including the wonderful, nearly brand new “Christmas, California,” from his 2023 album Let’s Look Back, and added a spectacular new track that is sure to delight many fans of this thing called pop music we all love.

This brand new, exclusive to this release song, as opposed to that old song from way back in October (Christmas, California), is “Crimble Medley.” The title may be a giveaway for hardcore Beatles fans (my son may know about this – he is in bed though!), but this term is apparently Beatle-ese for Christmas, coined on one of their fan club 45’s many a moon ago. I’m going to defer to Caleb’s description, as this song is packed full of Beatley goodies:

“…a late entry into the crowded Christmas music field with “Crimble Medley” — a 4-minute John Fahey-esque folk tune that seamlessly blends holiday offerings from the Beatles solo catalogs, all set to the musical base of the bands’ unreleased, fans-only track “Christmas Time Is Here Again.” Songs from all four Beatles are included in the Americana-twinged medley, including “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “Ding Dong Ding Dong” by George Harrision, “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney, and the Ringo Starr/George Harrision penned “Photograph”.”

Wrapped in a tight 4:13, Caleb packs a whole ton of seamless Beatle fun into this song. I’m sure it is going to be a favorite for the next few days… then again starting next September for you crazy folks (like me), and perhaps July for our southern hemisphere friends. Ah hell, if Caleb can put incredible Christmas songs on his “normal releases,” we all should work incredible Christmas songs into our “normal listening.” Justification found!

Bottom Line: What a lovely Crimble gift for us all.

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October 26, 2022

Caleb Nichols “(I Fell In Love On) Christmas Day” (2021/2022)

My fellow holiday-blogger DJ El Toro sparked off Festive! Fanzine’s holiday season with a fantastic interview with San Luis Obispo’s Caleb Nichols. As Festive! went through the effort to interview Caleb, I would like to send you there to learn more about this song and Caleb as a wonderful-song-writing human being. I will, however, let you know a few basic things about the song. First, it appeared last year on Kill Rock Stars’ It’s Hard To Dance When It’s Cold And There’s No Music: Kill Rock Stars Winter Holiday Album Volume 2, but has since also been released on Caleb’s excellent 2022 record, Ramon. Secondly, these lyrics are that mixture of joy and sadness that I am so terribly attracted to. “What Dickens knew I now intone / that without love you die alone. / Though we all must die alone, / maybe love can take the sting away. / Oh Tannenbaum, oh tinsel tree, / oh silver bells, oh misery. / If you can find someone to share / the misery with, you’ll be square. / So fall in love each Christmas day, / cause only love can take away / the loneliness and the bitter pain / that you feel on days like this.” What a lovely sentiment from a lived life.

Bottom Line: This is emotional without being sentimental. Truly a rare treat in the Christmas genre.

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March 26, 2014March 25, 2016

Kill Rock Stars Winter Holiday Album (2006)

Kill Rock Stars
Buy: Bandcamp | iTunes

Back in 2006, Kill Rock Stars was sending out CD-R copies of their brand-new Winter Holiday Album with a purchase of $50 or more through their webshop. This was the only physical release of the compilation, which is easily found now through most digital retailers. Its certainly not the most obscure independent release to review, but I do find it necessary to throw a bone out there to those who are just getting into this unfortunate obsession, and might not have heard of everything yet.

Kill Rock Stars Winter Holiday Album is the kind of idea that makes you super excited, which inevitably (in most Christmas music cases) leads to disappointment. I certainly don’t want to scare off KRS from another comp, but this record is all over the place. The pace, however, never picks up – it maintains a slow-to-mid tempo nearly the entire time. There are moments of gloom (Gold Chains & Jillian Iva: “Winter Kills”), drone (The Mary Timony Band: “Hapi Holidaze”) and silliness (Phranc: “Hannukah Snowman”) that activate my “skip track finger.” There is really only one track that I truly enjoy. The Everyothers cover of the Pretenders’ “2000 Miles” is done wonderfully – their voices certainly do it justice. They don’t reinvent the wheel, but if you are someone who 1) likes the song and 2) doesn’t want to include the original or the ubiquitous Coldplay version on your mix, this may be the one for you.

Bottom Line: The potential of a great label releasing a Christmas comp is tough to live up to, but I can’t bring myself to give it too much slack. I also haven’t got much sleep this week, sorry KRS, that might play into this too. 2/5