I love the holidays! I love punk! And I especially love when the two come together! Welcome to my own little holiday workshop where, each week this festive season, I'll be compiling mini reviews of recent seasonal-themed tracks, whether they be covers of old classics or original songs; and I'll sort out the naughty from the nice!
Crash and the Crapenters – “Fuck Christmas”
Within the genre of Christmas punk, you're always going to get songs that are shitting on Christmas. The classic anti-Christmas song is, of course, Fear's “Fuck Christmas” (which this is not a cover of). Crash and the Crapenters' give us a song complaining about people spreading goodwill for only one month a year, and the miserable annoyance of having a birthday right after Christmas. But for all their poo-pooing of the holiday, the jingle bells in the background and the faux choir at the beginning give it a surprisingly festive feel, making this a little bit more than 2 ½ minutes of Christmas negativity.
Half Past Two – Holidays EP
For their Holidays EP, ska band Half Past Two give us something a little different: four covers of different songs called “Holiday” from four different artists: Green Day, Vampire Weekend, Weezer, and Madonna. Of course none of these songs are actually about the holidays, but Half Past Two find a way to make the whole thing festive nonetheless. Green Day's “Holiday,” which was arguably the most important anti-war song of the Iraq War, is performed, for some reason, to the tune of Reel Big Fish's “Beer.” On Weezer's “Holiday” they do a good job of capturing the spirit of the penultimate song off of The Blue Album while still turning it into a ska song. And, of course, Madonna's “Holiday” is too good of a pop song for anyone to screw it up. So, all in all, Half Past Two does a pretty good job with this very unconventional take on a holiday EP.
Ingenious Devices – “WAR ON XMAS!” and “The Chipmunk Song”
What Ingenious Devices lack in lyrical subtlety they make up for in just how spot on of a critique “WAR ON XMAS!” is of the right wing's manufactured war on Christmas. I like the long list of holidays that fall in November and December.
The rare digital single that has a B-side, this B-side is a bizarre cover of the already bizarre “The Chipmunk Song,” the 1958 Christmas classic in which Ross Bagdasarian, under the stage name David Seville, recorded four vocal parts by playing tapes of his voice at different speeds, launching the fictional Alvin and the Chipmunks, who still vaguely entertain us as recently as 2015. I could be wrong but it sounds like Ingenious Devices use actual children and slow down the already frustratingly slow song, making it feel more like a weird musical experiment than anything else.
Robbie Morön – The First Noe (High End Denim Records)
Robbie Morön (of The Moröns) gave us his first Christmas release with his Bobsleighs on the Hill EP in 2019. The First Noe (get it? there's no L in it!) takes the four songs from that EP and adds four more to make…well, I'm not sure if eight tracks clocking in at 22 minutes qualifies as an LP or an EP, but I think it kind of straddles the line between the two.
“Where's the Tylenol” essentially describes the plot of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation while “Lick the Pole” details the famous pole licking scene in A Christmas Story. “Santa is a Punk Rocker” is, you guessed it, a parody of the Ramones' “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.”
“Decrease the Surplus Population,” with its title taken from Scrooge's famous line in A Christmas Carol, is about being a wealthy kid and wanting all the poor kids to die, which I have to assume is sarcastic because otherwise it's the least punk rock sentiment ever expressed in a punk rock song. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is literally just a punk cover of the Christmas classic first made popular by Judy Garland in 1944, and Morön does a surprisingly unironic and faithful take on it. Overall, Morön demonstrates a love of Christmas mixed with a typical punk irreverence. It's a definite must-listen for any Christmas punk fan.
Russkaja – “Last Christmas” (Napalm Records)
Whamageddon is upon us, the annual contest where people try to see how long they can go without hearing Wham's “Last Christmas” during the Christmas season. But since covers don't count in Whamageddon, Russkaja's cover of it won't lose you the game. It may still make you regret listening to it, though, because their bizarre blend of Christmas music, hardcore, ska, polka, faux Russian accents, and a belch at the end of the song makes for one of the most off-putting Christmas songs I've ever heard. Never has anyone made me wish for George Michael this hard.
Skatune Network – “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” and “The Christmas Song”
Skatune Network, which is mostly Jer Hunter, also of We Are the Union, doing cover songs. This Christmas they give us two very different but equally outstanding covers. Two very old songs I've listened to all my life, I didn't expect to enjoy these covers, but Jer manages to turn in my two new favorite versions of these 1934 and 1945 classics, respectively.
“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is the more traditional of the two covers, and it's a fantastically fun rendition that really radiates with the joy that Jer had recording it and completely resuscitates a tired old song.
Then “The Christmas Song,” which is a collaboration with Boston indie jazz quartet Really From, starts with a folksy, instrumental guitar version of the song as an extended intro, then moves into a full band version of the song that seamlessly blends ska, blues, and jazz. It's an interesting experiment to pull off for a Christmas song, and at 5 ½ minutes it could have dragged, but it mostly just leaves you flabbergasted at how good it is.
Julie is punk rock, lesbian time lady from the future. The greatest things in the world are punk rock and science fiction. Check out her website JulieRiver.com!
