I’m back for another year of talking about the best and absolute worst of holiday punk music. It feels like a contradiction to love Christmas and love punk rock at the same time, but I also feel like a lot of punk rockers fall into that contradictory space where they love both. As Brenna Red says in her song “Punk Rock Christmas”: “Punk rock girls love Christmas too!” So maybe I’m not alone in always wanting to have some punk rock ragers to mosh around the Christmas tree with. So let’s dive back into the best in new holiday music that’s punk, punk adjacent, and everything else.
Single: Tchotchke and the Lemon Twigs – “Tchotchkes”
I sometimes have told people that my first CD growing up was Green Day‘s Dookie, but if I’m being perfectly honest it was The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album that came as a present from Santa alongside my first CD player. I loved the Beach Boys when I was a kid because my parents did, and I still think their Christmas album is one of the best that’s ever been made.
That’s why I was pleasantly surprised that The Lemon Twigs‘ new Christmas single “Tchotchkes” has melodies that distinctly remind me of the Beach Boys’ Christmas album. The melodies are absolutely gorgeous. This is a band with classic pop sensibilities that really shine through in thsi silly little song about buying little tchotchkes for your love.
Digital 7″: The Baccarudas – “Ring-A-Ding-Ding”
I’m vaguely familiar with The Bacarrudas to begin with. Their novelty, surf-rock style offers up a very retro vibe that I can usually get down with. Unfortunately, for their annual Christmas 7″, they fall a little short. “Ring-A-Ding-Ding!” is a perfectly competent song, but I don’t really see anything that really makes it stand out as exceptional. The lyrics, about something called the “Christmas Train” just feel like generic Christmas fare that doesn’t really excite me. The slow-moving B-side “Christmas Struttin'” is a little more interesting, but doesn’t quite save this 7″ from being unremarkable.
Video: The Dead Milkmen – “Santa Claus is Coming for Your Eyes”
I didn’t expect a new Christmas song from punk legends The Dead Milkmen this season, but here we are. The song makes Santa out to be a sinister figure, a deranged homicidal maniac. The video uses what I’m assuming is stock footage from a movie which features a woman who has just killed a man who fears Santa coming for her. That’s more of Krampus’ role than Santa’s, but it kind of works in this demented little song that the Milkmen came up with. It’s a clever, fun, and blasphemous little track that is exactly what I expect from this iconic band.
Single: Louis Lingg and the Bombs – “La Bombe Avant Noel”
Louis Lingg and the Bombs explain on their Bandcamp that they wanted to get together a bunch of other local artists from Paris to make a big, collaborative single in the spirit of Band Aid’s classic (and vaguely racist) 1984 Christmas song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Thankfully, the resulting single—which features Acid Gras, Monster Mash, Supersports, Die Vracks, Pendrak, and Les Flug—is a far cry from the garbage that is “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The song is mostly in French so I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, but the energy of this song is undeniable and makes for an exciting punk rock Christmas track.
Cover: Skatune Network – “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”
Once again, we see Skatune Network—the covers project from Jer Hunter, formerly of We Are the Union, who is now focused on their solo project under the name of Jer—busting out a pair of holiday covers. I’ve said before that I don’t love Christmas covers as much as originals, but Skatune Network is entirely about making covers so I’ll give it a pass.
The cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” does a great job of taking a classic and turning it into a ska track, but the most impressive part is the incredible vocal performance that Jer puts on with this track. They’re really the perfect person to sing this particular song. The cover of “Sleigh Ride,” judging by the video, brings in a few extra artists* to record the keyboard and drum parts, and it pays off with a perfect instrumental ska rendition of a classic song.
*editor’s note- Just ONE extra artist, the also multi-talented Esteban Flores of Matamoska!
Video: Slick Cupid – “HO HO MOTHERF#%KERS!“
I don’t understand what this video is supposed to be doing. It feels like there’s some inside jokes in this video that I don’t understand. There’s this really weird conversation between the members of Slick Cupid where they discuss making a Christmas single and then realize that a single only technically has to be 15 seconds or longer (I don’t know who made that rule) so they make a 15 second song. The tragedy of their 15 second song is that it’s really catchy. It could have been a fun song had it not been made into a weird joke about how short of a single one could possibly create.
EP: Lab Brats – “Lab Brats’ Twisted Christmas”
I’ve talked before about how “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” is the lowest of the low of Christmas novelty songs. There’s a reason that “old women getting trampled by animals” isn’t a well-known genre of comedy. Lab Brats, on their Christmas EP Lab Brats’ Twisted Christmas, open on a ska-infused sequel to that well-known atrocity of a song called “Grandpa’s Gonna Sue The Pants Off of Santa.” Really, do we need a sequel to “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” anymore than we need a yet another Avatar movie? This song becomes just a continuation of a joke that wasn’t funny to begin with.
Then we get “Doesn’t Feel Like Christmas” which drops the schtick and gets into something slightly more serious. It’s a slow ska track with a punk chorus and it really gets into the emotions around the holiday in frank and honest ways. There’s a few clever little jokes in the song, like a really funny reference to “Last Christmas,” but the jokes manage to do nothing to detract from the heart of this more genuine song.
Judging by what the band wrote about it on the Bandcamp, I take it that the third track, “Merry Christmas, Honey” is a re-recording of an older track from the band. It’s a surprisingly earnest and endearing Christmas ska-punk love song that hits all the right notes for a successful love song. It helps demonstrate that Lab Brats have a lot to offer as a band, even if I feel like their first track on this EP is an unnecessary continuation of a bad joke.
Covers LP: Classic Pat – “Christmas Mania”
Classic Pat‘s Christmas Mania offers up 10 Ramonescore-style covers of classic songs. I’m not going to give a track-by-track review of the album because there’s not much to say about most of these songs. The song choice is interesting, as not all of the songs are the most obvious Christmas songs possible like “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” and “Auld Lang Syne,” the latter of which tends to be more of a New Years’ song than a Christmas song. But the covers don’t really do a lot to play with classic arrangements or put much of an interesting punk spin on these tracks. The opening track, “Jingle Bells,” seems to have some extra lyrics added by Classic Pat, but aside from that, he just plays all the songs the way you’d expect a Ramonescore artist to play them. I suppose if that’s all you’re looking for then this is a good album, but I’m looking for more out of my punk rock Christmas music.
Cover: The Haymakers Boston – “Mister Grinch”
The Haymakers Boston emailed me directly to make sure I didn’t miss their cover of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” That’s a pretty popular song this year as this marks the third cover of it we’ve featured in this column so far. The Haymakers’ version might be my favorite of the three covers, though, because they manage to turn it into a garage punk track without losing the sinister tone of the original. They still manage to play up the joyfully mean-spirited lyrics with a particular glee even as they cut out all the fat and make it into a really quick, punchy little track. I talked a lot this year about there needing to be a reason to listen to your cover rather than the original, and The Haymakers make the song their own enough to genuinely justify this cover needing to exist.
Once a year TGEFM lets contributor Julie River break out her “Queen of Mean” hat in order to spend the holiday season critiquing this year’s crop of holiday-themed tunes. Some she loves, some she definitely doesn’t. But what are you gonna do? If you’re gonna wade into the Thunderdome that is HOLIDAY SONGS, you’d damn well better bring your A game.
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!