Yep, another Holiday Slackfest All-Star, the GFOS, once a year whether you need it or not. These reposts are getting to be a season all their own. Really though, were you gonna listen to these in July?
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Joseph Spence, I gotta. Even if I'm not in the mood for writing much, I can't risk forgetting him. He's like Darlene Love was a few years back, a different style but also a go-to holiday favorite. If you haven't heard him, when you do you'll know immediately what makes him so special. If I have to spell it out for you, to put it bluntly, he sounds like he's drunk off his ass.
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Back in the day, a lot of my friends from the music scene were into the Pogues and, looking back, I realized that there was a certain type of person that liked the band. I can't really put my finger on it but it was beyond the binary cool/not cool classification. It was like a secret that this small slice of the scene "got" while others were trying too hard to be the coolest in the room. I started thinking about those friends, some now deceased, and got all warm and fuzzy, remembering the Christmas Eve DJ gigs my friend Julie and I had (at the Pink Panther and later the Casbah) and the reaction that "Fairytale of New York" would get whether we played it or one of our DJ friends did.. All of the faces of drunk friends, cigarette smoke softening the view, a few on the plywood covered pool table that did double duty as a dance floor when things got crowded. Shane MacGowan was one of us on those nights.
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As you've no doubt noticed, posts here have been really sporadic. I wasn't really planning on posting anything holiday related, but last night my mood changed. I was out in the alley having a smoke and heard a band a few blocks away. They were playing a hopped up version of "Little Drummer Boy" in a sort of fifties style, replete with horns. Then they played "Run Rudolf Run" followed by "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". Even a couple blocks away it was apparent it was a large band and they were tight. So I locked up and went to find out where the band was playing. Turns out it was a Christmas party thrown by Pacific Shores, a bar that has been around since the forties and, back when I was a lush, my home away from home. I had approached the shindig from the alley so I was at the side of the stage with a good look at the crowd. It had been some time since I was at the bar and it occurred to me that I was now part of the old guard. It was a younger crowd. What pleased me was that it wasn't a bunch of hipster douche bags. In my absence from the bar it had been my worry that it would be slowly taken over by kids that just try too hard to be cool. It was reassuring that the next wave of drinking kids in my neighborhood seemed down to earth, comfortable in their own skin. I actually got kind of choked up with a feeling that could only be described as All is good. So, in the spirit of slack and holiday tradition, at the peak of laziness and in need of breathing room, the annual reposting of Reverend Tom Frost's Bloody Xmas Mixes.
For all of you party planners running around like headless chickens, a reminder is in order. Spread the Good Word's Bloody Christmas mixes are still online. They used to be downloads, but they're now streaming (click on the "download" links below the song lists). Though they are streaming, I'm sure someone you know is savvy enough to run them through your sound system.
