Monday 30 September 2013

Christmas

Sometimes.. just sometimes, I forget that I'm an old person and not everyone grew up in Palmerston North. Recently I let slip that we made some Christmas albums a way-way back and people keep hounding me about it, so here you go. Sorry Al.

These are three of my favourite songs from the second album. The whole idea of the project was to rip off NOFX's 'Fuck the kids' concept and write and record entire albums in a single week. We recorded all the songs at the Stomach in Palmy and often only got through a single decent take before moving on to the next song.

A Christmas Cracker - http://tinyurl.com/l8mgju4

This is my favourite song off the second record, it's about the insanity of Christmas and how people put on a brave face despite losing it at that time of year. I got in references to Universal Solider, MC Hammer and the last line (which people always ask about) is "..you find me here beneath your tree and I'm eating meat, and I won't say where I got it from, but Woofy needs some gravy".

Eat Tinsel And Die - http://tinyurl.com/ma24g9p

This was a lot of other people's favourite track off the album, it's about the first Christmas a 3 year old has to spend with their nearly year old baby sister. My favourite lyric from this comes from the maniacal bravado in "..the sandpit will be mine again!". This was me commenting on the selfish side of Christmas, but I frankly can't help loving this little tough guy, I think it's because I know he cannot win. - I only had one or two takes at this and was regularly out of tune and out of time, I was eating a cold BK chicken burger with extra mayo at the time.

The Clatter Of Many Hooves - http://tinyurl.com/mxcywrq

This is my second favourite song on the album, it's about an elf with little job satisfaction, feeling he does all the work while the reindeer take all the glory. We were running out of time having wasted a considerable amount of effort trying to cover "Snoopy's Christmas" and we were still 3 songs short of a record. I recorded both voices in one take and ad-libbed the whole second part. Something I'm still immensely proud of and which blew Andy Young's mind. Seeing as Andy was there and we never did manage to get through Snoopy's Christmas, we got him to play drums and sing the last song on the record, the very angry, very cantonese, "Smiley, Happy, Christmas Song". So here's your bonus track, you'll have to ask Andy what he's saying.

Smiley, Happy, Christmas Song - http://tinyurl.com/m5sah6x

A big thanks to everyone who performed on the records and special thanks to Dougal Ross for writing this silliness with me.

There were always supposed to be three albums, but while I wrote songs for a third, it never materialized. Maybe one day. When we're even older.

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