Today's Christmas cracker comes from one of the bands who have been kind/foolish enough to play one of my gigs this year.
Eddy & the T-Bolts are one of the most fun bands I've seen this year, and their debut album Medium Rare is a riff packed, shouty, singalong beast of a record.
Their festive offering will be quite familiar to those that know the band, or have listened to stuff I've posted by them while gig pimping etc, since it's a rewritiing of one of their other songs (one of my favourite ones, as it goes).
Suitably big, brash, and tons of fun, Santa MacClaus is a free download here.
Eddy & the T-Bolts have one last gig this year, on December 12th at Bar Bloc.
More accurately, Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5, with he Girobabies and The Plimptons.
I may have said something about just wanting stuff to give away as downloads for the Advent Calendar, but this is for a good cause, so it gets to break the rules.
Christmas Pimping, Everybody's Gimping, is a charity single for Caoimhe featuring Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5, The Girobabies and The Plimptons due for release 10th December on Traffic Cone records.
Caoimhe is only three years old, she has Anaplastic Ependymoma with Spinal Metastases, a grade three malignant brain tumour.
To give Caoimhe conventional radiotherapy in this country would leave her neurologically devastated, blindness, deafness and stunted growth are only some of the side effects, however Proton Therapy is a targeted revolutionary method of irradiating young children, It is so accurate there are very little side effects, but is not available in this country.
The bands involved in the single decided to get together to do their bit to get Caoimhe to America for treatment. Everybody involved, the bands, producer Robbie Gunn, Dixon Street Studios and Video Director Daryl Cockburn have given up their time and effort and every single penny raised will be used for Caoimhe (pronounced Keeva), people can alternatively donate at http://www.justgiving.com/jaclyn4princesscaoimhe
The single will be available to buy on all the usual download sites from December 10th.
There's also a chairty gig to raise funds for Caoimhe taking place this Thursday, hence my mention of the single a wee bit in advance of release. Jamfest takes place at Nice & Sleazy on Thursday night, with performances from all involved in Christmas Pimping, along with loads of others. More details on the gig can be found on Facebook.
Now, here's the video for Christmas Pimping, Everybody's Gimping
Four days without missing a deadline? That's a minor miracle for me. No promises on it continuing though.
Today's Christmassy song comes from Newcastle's Coney Island Sound (not Coney Island's Coney Island Sound, that would be too obvious). Actually, it's two songs, since CIS's Ewan Gordon has gone all out with a two track Christmas single. A pair of unique takes on old classics, the Christmas single is a free download here.
Here's the first advent calendar post of the year which has been written while sober. See if you can tell the difference.
Naming The Saints are a very new band from Scotland, who have chosen to make their debut release a three track Christmas EP. DRUNKTANK just came out today, and has helped take the chill off my bones this morning as I listened through it.
You can stream it below, and download the whole thing for the price of your choice here.
For the second day of the advent calender we're going with another of my favourite ever festive songs, and also one of my main current irritations.
For those not keeping up with my private life, that'll be most of you then, I'm back working now after a far too long spell on the dole. This is good, in that I am a) not on the bloody dole and b) get better money. The downside is that I'm in retail in December, which means Christmas songs on a loop in my workplace, all bloody day. This brings up my general genocide in waiting song of fucking Paul fucking Mc fucking Cartney's Wonderful Christmastime. The rest of our Christmas CD seems to involve really ruibbish knock off versions of popular songs. Most of these I can safely block out in my brain, but every time one starts I think "I love this song!" then a piss poor version follows, crushing all my hopes and dreams.
The song in question? That'll be Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses. One of only two songs anyone remembers that band for, it's one that would be a huge hit with hipsters nowadays I feel. The somewhat bored delivery, the cute girl, the lo-fi guitars... Anyway, Christmas Wrapping is a bloody great song, which is why I get so annoyed the version I hear 16 times a day is a terrible one.
A much better version makes up today's entry behind the imaginary Aye Tunes advent calendar though. Miss the Occupier have been fairly quiet of late, but that's no reason not to enjoy their take on Christmas Wrapping, recorded ages ago for a Vic Galloway session.
