I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Part 13

Today we've got some background on three more tracks from my 2024 holiday compilation, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." I've been posting information on a handful of selections every few days since just after Thanksgiving, and you can find stuff about many of my previous mixes elsewhere on this blog. I've been making these holiday mixes for the past 20 years, and you can learn more about all of them on my holiday music website. Here are today's listings:

Track 34
Getting In The Mood for Christmas, Brian Setzer Orchestra (2000) 

Brian Setzer's musical interests cover a fair stretch of territory, and there's no doubt that holiday tunes have a place near the top of his list of favorite styles. I think of him mostly as the front man for the Stray Cats, the rockabilly group that made a splash in the early '80s with the songs "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rock This Town" from their eponymous debut album. But Setzer's career has included forays into a wide array of styles, and he seems to enjoy each twist and turn of the road.

Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Setzer started out playing jazz in high school before developing an interest in rock and punk. By his early 20s, he'd started to get more into rockabilly and started a band with his brother that ultimately became the Stray Cats. After moving to London, they hooked up with Dave Edmunds, who produced their hit debut album. After the Stray Cats disbanded in 1984, Setzer joined Robert Plant's short-lived group the Honeydrippers, followed by work on a couple of blues/rock-style solo records and a tour with George Thorogood. 

By the 1990s, Setzer turned his attention to big-band swing music and formed the Brian Setzer Orchestra (BSO). The group has recorded nine studio albums since 1994 including three Christmas records:  "Boogie Woogie Christmas" (2002), "Dig That Crazy Christmas" (2005), and "Rockin' Rudolph" (2015). In 1999, the BSO won a Grammy award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group for its version of the Louis Prima classic "Jump, Jive an' Wail." In recent years, the BSO has launched several holiday-themed tours during the Christmas season, and they've become well known for their performance of big band holiday sounds. 

Setzer was forced to cancel the BSO's planned "Christmas Rocks!" holiday tour on doctor's orders due to a severe case of tinnitus in 2019, and the band has not toured subsequently. Setzer toured with a reunited version of the Stray Cats this past year. At least BSO fans have that group's holiday records and videos to see them through the 2024 holiday season. 

See the Brian Setzer Orchestra Guest Star on the CBS Sitcom "The Nanny" (1997)

Watch the VH1 Music Documentary on Brian Setzer:  Part 1   Part 2   Part 3

Kenmore Square, Boston

Track 35
Christmas in Kenmore Square, Billy West and Tom Sandman for WBCN Boston (1985) 

This track is the third of three WBCN-FM 1980s holiday promos I've included in this year's mix, and it's another of the awesome clips created for the station by Billy West and Tom Sandman. It brings back some great memories for me, not only of WBCN's golden era but also of the Christmas I spent in Kenmore Square myself. 

Although I attended and graduated college in Baltimore, I spent my junior year in a special program on urban government at Boston University. I had a dorm room in a complex known as The Towers on Bay State Road, and as I recall I spent nearly the entire holiday vacation on or around campus. I loved being in Boston that year, and I was starting to get into live music in a big way and enjoyed being able to hang out at clubs like The Rat, Spit and The Paradise without the crowds of students from outside of Boston that typically filled the Square when school was in session. It was a crazy time. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president, John Lennon had just been killed, and there was all sorts of amazing music in the air. Bruce Springsteen released his double-album masterpiece "The River" in November, and I played that album, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Double Fantasy," and "Remain in Light" by the Talking Heads almost non-stop — also "Catholic Boy," the debut album by The Jim Carroll Band, and a bunch of great local bands including Third Rail, The Neighborhoods, Ron Scarlett and more.

Billy West

As this is the last of this year's WBCN promos, I should add at least a couple of words about the two guys responsible for them. Billy West was hired by the station primarily as a voice actor, and he worked there from roughly 1980 until 1988. He voiced various characters for the "Mattress Mishigas" feature that wound down Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" show each morning, and he created promos and other comedy bits for the station. A native of Boston's Roslindale neighborhood, West also played in a band called The Shutdowns during this period. After leaving WBCN, West became a regular on the Howard Stern program on K-Rock Radio 92.3 FM in New York, voicing a wide array of characters from Johnny Carson and Rudy Giuliani to Lucille Ball and Sammy Davis, Jr. In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles and became a successful voice actor and performer for film and television. He's probably best known for his work on The Ren and Stimpy Show, Futurama and Doug.

Tom Sandman

Tom Sandman  started his radio career in 1973 working at his college radio station at the University of Cincinnati. From there he took a job doing an overnight show on the local public radio station, followed by work as a production specialist at Cincinnati's leading album-oriented rock station, WEBN. Wanting to expand his horizons, he applied for jobs at a variety of larger stations and received an offer from WBCN in September 1982. As he later explained,

What's interesting is that both [WEBN and WBCN] also had, from day one, a commitment to offbeat, creative, eccentric, weird, humorous production — produced elements in between the records, some of them commercials, but some of them not commercials — just production for the sake of entertainment, image production. That also attracted me to 'BCN, and I had a very happy and productive eight years there.

Here's another great holiday promo Sandman and West created for WBCN, "Christmas in Kenmore Square":

Track 36
Merry Christmas Santa Claus, Max Headroom (1986) 

I remember first hearing about Max Headroom in early 1987, by way of a single off-hand comment by one of the reporters at a small monthly newspaper I edited in Boston. It's funny the things we remember about people. This reporter was a bright, interesting and all-around terrific guy and the one thing I remember most clearly about him was his telling me that he'd seen the first episode of the Max Headroom show on TV the night before and thought it was really funny. No reflection on him, but I have yet to see a single episode.

Max Headroom

The U.S. version of Max Headroom was a mid-season replacement that aired on ABC beginning March 31, 1987. Based on a British TV movie, the show takes place in the future, when the world is controlled by a powerful web of television networks. Investigative reporter Edison Carter is the last remaining check on the hegemony of the networks. Despite his network employment, Carter files a series of inside reports on their many abuses of power. Fearful of his safety, Carter attempts to flee but is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. Carter's brain is downloaded onto a computer, from which he can  communicate, albeit with occasional glitches of stuttering. The computerized version of Carter adopts the name Max Headroom, as the last thing the real Carter saw before his accident was a moveable gate in the parking garage bearing those words of warning.

The series did well enough in its first half season to be picked up for the fall, but scheduled opposite Dallas and Miami Vice it was pulled before the end of the year.

Max remained a cultural icon of sorts even after his show was cancelled. There was something about a computer-generated character stuttering as his data buffers that portended a dangerous future, and who doesn't enjoy an occasional preview of our dystopian future? But Max Headroom never quite achieved the same sort of cachet in this country that he had in Britain a short time earlier.

Before invading American shores, the British producers of the show even scored with their own holiday special, the "Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey Special, which aired in late 1986. It was from that special that Track 37 from this year's mix was commissioned as a limited edition 7" single on Chrysalis Records. Enjoy:

For those brave folks who can handle it, here's the complete "Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey Special" for your holiday enjoyment:

There's been talk of a Max Headroom reboot now in production at AMC. I guess we'll have to wait and see on that.

We must also wait and see about my reports on the remaining five tracks from this year's mix. They'll be posted before Christmas, but I can't say exactly when. Mystery makes life more interesting.

I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Part 9

I started this blog to share information about the tracks on my annual holiday compilations, and we're currently in the midst of reviewing the 41 tracks on my 20th holiday mix, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." We're now more than half-way through this year's mix and today we'll be looking at Tracks 22 through 26. Here we go!

Track 22
Holiday Greetings, William Shatner 

I don't know that I've ever seen a full episode of Star Trek or even a partial episode of T.J. Hooker on TV. I've watched none of the Star Trek movies and only a few bits and pieces of Boston Legal, although I keep meaning to watch more of that show since I did practice law in Boston for a number of years. Come to think of it, the only programs I can recall seeing William Shatner in are his Saturday Night Live appearance with the Sweeney Sisters that I wrote about last week and his two appearances on the original Twilight Zone series — "Nick of Time" from Season 2 and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" from Season 5. Still, I'm crazy about the guy, especially because he's now 93 years old and still going strong. I stuck in this five-second holiday greeting strictly as a brief homage. Shatner's worked in a variety of media, kept busy throughout his career and while he takes his work seriously he's never taken himself too seriously, as we can see from the following rendition of the Elton John classic "Rocket Man," which Shatner performed in 1972 following an introduction by Bernie Taupin, who penned the song's lyrics:

Shatner's performance takes on special significance when you consider that in 2021 he became the oldest man to fly into space when he embarked on a suborbital Blue Origin flight at the age of 90 with Star Trek enthusiast and Blue Origin creator Jeff Bezos. I tell you, there's just no stopping William Shatner.

Track 23
Krampus Is an Evil Man, AAIIEE (2013) 

Krampus

While the predominant American image of Santa Claus has changed over the years (as I noted last week), he's generally seen as a kind and generous soul whose raison d'etre is delivering gifts to well-behaved children throughout the world. Because he sees kids when they're sleeping and knows when they're awake, Santa knows if they've been bad or good and dispenses gifts accordingly. The worst punishment he can inflict is leaving a lump of coal in a child's stocking — disappointing, but hardly catastrophic. There's a competing folk character,  however who metes out far more severe forms of punishment. Conceived in Germany and recognized in many European countries, this horned, anthropomorphic figure is known as Krampus, and he rounds up young miscreants on Christmas Eve, throws them in sacks and beats them with sticks. 

I first learned about Krampus by way of David Sedaris' story "6 to 8 Black Men," which appears in his 2004 collection "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim." Seriously, if you haven't read this story or heard Sedaris recount it, it's worth your time to do so. Links appear below.

Krampus' origins are the subject of some debate, but the notion of an evil character who invades the winter solstice goes back many centuries. Sometime in the 17th century, many realized that it didn't look good for Santa's precursor, St. Nicholas, to be dishing out punishment to naughty children. He was, after all, a saint. The idea emerged that St. Nicholas need to have a helper who could inflict whatever pain was required, and Krampus was assigned to do the job. 

During World War II, the ruling fascists forbid any discussion of Krampus. I guess they figured that when it came to dispensing punishment they were more qualified than any made-up character. Things changed after the war. For example, the new government of Austria took to circulating leaflets titled "Krampus Is an Evil Man," which warned parents that evoking this character might lead to serious trauma, and surely everyone had had enough of that. Around 2000, however, Krampus experienced a revival of sorts, and he's lately begun to appear with increasing frequency at holiday celebrations throughout Europe. These have mostly been fanciful appearances to date — tongue in cheek, if you will. But given the troubles some European countries are currently experiencing, one wonders what sorts of duties Krampus might ultimately be asked to perform.

This track was recorded by the Seattle-based band whose name is depicted by the symbol at left. I think Prince did something similar some years later, didn't he? symbol at left. Somewhere along the way the symbol was translated into English as AAIIEE, which seems to have led only to additional confusion. 

The band was conceived and first started playing together in 1981 and is comprised of Johnny Vinyl on guitar, vocals and keyboards; Jeff Larson on bass and vocals; Brent Petty on drums, and Greg Stumph on guitar and vocals. While the band's maintained this same basic line-up from its founding, the members' outside pursuits and travels have led to a number of lengthy hiatuses over the years. They do not seem to have ever formally dissolved, but the "Gigs and News" page on the group's website lists nothing noteworthy after 2012.

AAIIEE

I first discovered "Krampus Is an Evil Man" on the album "Christmas Boogie Woogie:  Ten Years of Green Monkey Christmas," a truly offbeat collection of holiday mayhem that you can preview or purchase on Bandcamp HERE. I love the eerie and rather frightening sound of this track; in fact, along with "Christmas Party" and one track yet to be introduced, "Krampus Is an Evil Man" is one of my three favorite tracks on this year's collection.

Check out AAIIEE's Website

Read "6 to 8 Black Men," by David Sedaris

Hear David Sedaris Read "6 to 8 Black Men"

Buy "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim," by David Sedaris on amazon.com

Tracks 24 and 26
Judy Garland Holiday Greetings, Judy Garland (1963) 

I included these tracks with a certain amount of misgiving because I'm a big fan of Judy Garland and I don't mean to ridicule her for requiring three takes to record a short holiday greeting. Garland is said to have suffered from drug dependency for much of her life, and I don't mean to make light of that either, as this is an affliction that can affect any of us and in her case it appears to have arisen in part because of the heavy demands placed on her by movie studio executives who sought to take maximum advantage of her talents and celebrity. Ultimately, I chose to include this recording, divided into two separate tracks, because it demonstrates that taping any message is difficult work and getting things right often involves more than one attempt. 

Track 24 is Garland's first attempt at recording the greeting. It ends badly, as she laughingly admits. 

Track 26 consists of the next two attempts, the first of which is unusable because she fails to include a mention of the holidays. "She's aware of that," says someone — possibly the director. On the next attempt, she gets it right.

I should note that I took some dramatic license in presenting these takes as I did. In reality, what I label "Take 1" was Garland's second take, and my "Take 2" was actually her first attempt. You can see the real recording of all three takes in their proper order HERE. 

Garland began her film career in 1936 at the age of 14 in the film "Pigskin Parade." She became a huge international star three years later with her portrayal of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," and went on to complete an additional two dozen features for MGM at the rate of around three a year over the next decade. Released from MGM in 1950, Garland was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her role in the 1954 Warner Brothers film "A Star Is Born," and Best Supporting Actress for the 1961 film "Judgment at Nuremberg" for United Artists. In the 1960s, Garland's focus shifted from movies to sound recordings, live performances and television. In 1969, she died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills at the age of  47. 

Here's Judy performing a Christmas medley with Jack Jones and her daughter, Liza Minnelli, from her 1963 holiday TV special:

And here's Judy's moving performance of "'Till After the Holidays" on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, from December 17, 1968:

Garland was an enormous talent whose life included both magnificent achievements and terrible challenges. She was a warm and empathetic personality whose performances always seemed to include a certain measure of human frailty, which earned her the allegiance of fans who faced challenges in their own lives. She was revered by members of the nascent GBLTQ community in the 1960s, and was among the first performers to acknowledge and appreciate her many gay fans. Judy Garland was surely one of a kind, and she will be long remembered for her incredible talents and the body of wonderful work she left behind. 

Track 25
Mighty Lunch Hour with the WBCN Chipmunks, Tom Sandman for WBCN Boston (1986) 

(L to R): Shelton, Parenteau and Laquidara

I wrote several days ago about Billy West and Tom Sandman, the gifted producers who created a variety of unforgettable sketches, characters and promos for rock radio station WBCN-FM in Boston during the 1980s. Track 25 on this year's mix was recorded to kick off one of the thousand or more "Mighty Lunch Hours" hosted by legendary Boston DJ Ken Shelton during his 10+ years at WBCN. Shelton's show aired weekdays from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm, sandwiched between Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" program (6:00 to 10:00 am) and Mark Parenteau's afternoon show (2:00 to 6:00 pm). As I recall, this line-up was in place for most of the 1980s.

Shortly before 12 noon each weekday, Ken would play a short intro piece featuring a reworked version of a well-known song altered to emphasize some lunch-related theme. For example, the Temptations' classic "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was reworked as "Papa Ate a Chicken Bone"; David Bowie's "This Is Not America" became "This Is Not a Hamburger"; and "I'm on Fire" by Bruce Springsteen became "Lunch on Fire." Sandman and West created hundreds of similar parodies, and they helped to make the "Mighty Lunch Hour" a daily Boston tradition. 

This track, of course, was a take-off of the 1958 novelty record "The Chipmunks Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", which I posted about last year. This Tom Sandman creation features DJs Laquidara, Shelton and Parenteau as chipmunks bickering about who works the hardest and clamoring for something good for lunch. I didn't include the entire promo in my mix, but here's the full version of the song as it appeared on Shelton's "Mighty Lunch Hour":

Shelton got his start as the floor manager for WBZ-TV's children's show "Boomtown," with Rex Trailer. From there he migrated to WBZ-FM, where he got the nickname "Captain Ken," by which many fans still think of him today. After WBZ-FM became fully automated in 1975, Shelton worked for WCOZ-FM, WEEI-FM, and finally WBCN, where he replaced Matt Siegel in 1980. Shelton had a friendly, relatively mature style at WBCN. He always impressed me as a true student of rock who could both recognize new talent and play the very best stuff from the past. 

"Captain" Ken Shelton

In addition to the Mighty Lunch Hour, Shelton's show also included a daily "Coffee Break" at 10:30 each morning, which featured listener requests phoned in from workplaces throughout Greater Boston. You can hear his regular "Coffee Break" jingle HERE. 

Things at WBCN started to go south in the 1990s. Shelton left in 1993 to assume morning drivetime duties for WZLX-FM, which became a classic rock station after it was purchased by Infinity Broadcasting. Laquidara left three years later when his morning slot was turned over to Howard Stern's syndicated program out of New York. By the 2000s, the station was a mere shadow of its former self, and in 2009 it was taken off the air entirely. Boston's 104 FM is now a sports station.

I don't listen to radio much anymore. Most stations have limited playlists of comprised of unobjectionable dreck selected by corporate functionaries and played by unctuous automatons amidst seemingly endless stretches of idiotic ads. Stations had distinct personalities in the 20th century, individual DJs played terrific tunes based on their particular tastes and the music was authentic and imaginative. You kids don't have any idea how good it really was.

Hear More Themes from WBCN's "Mighty Lunch Hour," with "Captain" Ken Shelton

Hear Still More "Mighty Lunch Hour" Themes from WBCN-FM

Hear a Bunch of Classic WBCN Radio Airchecks Via The Internet Archive

Read More About Ken Shelton from the One Music Museum of New England

We've got 15 tracks yet to discuss from this year's compilation and 15 days to go before Christmas, not counting today. I'll be back with more someday soon.

I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Part 5

Today we continue our look at the 41 tracks on my latest holiday mix, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," with some thoughts on the next two tracks, numbers 12 and 13:

Track 12
Rockin' Around the WBCN Christmas Tree, Tom Sandman for WBCN Boston (1986)

I wrote a little bit about Boston radio station WBCN-FM back in 2011 (see HERE) in connection with one of the station's holiday promos from the 1980s that was included on that year's mix, "Gee Whiz … It's Christmas (Again!)." Originally launched as a classical music station, WBCN switched to a free-form rock format in 1968 and quickly became one of the region's best and most popular outlets. I was a regular listener from 1980 through the mid-1990s, when the station was known as "The Rock of Boston" and widely regarded as one of the best FM rock stations in the country. Home to such highly regarded DJs as Charles Laquidara, Carter Alan, Oedipus, Ken Shelton and Mark Parenteau, the station was known for breaking new acts such as U2 and The Cars; supporting local bands and comedians and providing strong news and public affairs programming.

Among the station's greatest strengths was its incorporation of comedy and listener participation as side dishes to complement the music. Mark Parenteau featured comedy every afternoon at 5 pm, including live interviews with local and nationally known comedians. Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" morning show wrapped-up at 9:50 each morning with a wild trivia game for listeners called "Mattress Michegas" which served as an effective transition to Ken Shelton's 10 am to 2 pm program. The centerpiece of Shelton's show was the "Mighty Lunch Hour," which was introduced each day with parody versions of familiar tunes focused on various noontime meal options. The station was fortunate to have a couple of high wattage creative weapons contributing to these features — voice actor Billy West and producer Tom Sandman, who worked at WBCN in the 1980s. The two also created a variety of classic promos and bumpers that aired throughout the day. These features helped WBCN stand out from its competitors and gave the outlet a sound all its own, particularly during December, when their memorable holiday promos made the station even more festive than usual. 

This year's mix features three classic holiday-themed promos, the first of which borrows from Brenda Lee's classic "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," which last year topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and became the song that took the longest from its original release to reach #1 — 65 years!  

We'll have more about WBCN in our write-ups on Tracks 25 and 35, coming up — stay tuned.

Hear WBCN's "Merry Christmas, Boston" Promo, by Billy West and Tom Sandman

Track 13
Santa's Too Fat for the Hula Hoop, The Pixies, featuring Thurl Ravenscroft (1958)

While men, women and especially children have almost certainly been twirling round hoops around their waists for centuries, the modern era of the practice began in the late 1950s when California's Wham-O Toy Company began marketing round plastic tubes under the name "hula hoops." As the Music Weird blog notes in a feature on "Hula Hoop Songs of 1958-59," Wham-O's release of the toy coincided with a surge of interest in Hawaiian music, so there was something of a perfect storm around the time The Pixies released this record, featuring the one and only Tony the Tiger, a/k/a Thurl Ravenscroft. Hawaii was admitted to the United States as our 50th state in 1959, so all of this seems to be of a piece.

When most people see a reference to The Pixies they think of the Boston-based alternative rock band that started in the mid-1980s, and they're a different outfit altogether. I wasn't able to find out much of anything about these Pixies until I came across a response posted to a piece in a blog called Gorillas Don't Blog that contained a note purportedly from a woman named Judy Steinfeldt, who wrote:

Ravenscroft

I was 1/2 of the Pixies. We were two junior high girls who loved to sing. I was the soprano. An entertainment lawyer heard us and started the ball rolling. We auditioned with a song we had written, "My Johnny.” That was actually our first record. Our second record is [Santa’s Too Fat for the Hula Hoop] and originally was recorded without Thurl [Ravenscroft]. We did all of the vocals. At one point the studio added him, which was brilliant. Santa came out the same Christmas as [The Chipmunks Song].

From what I can see, The Pixies don't appear to have released a third record.

Ravenscroft, of course, has a variety of other credits as a singer and voiceover actor. He was the originally uncredited singer of the holiday classic "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." He was finally credited as the song's vocalist in a version released posthumously that reached #32 on Billboard's Hot 100 for the week ending January 2, 2021. So the late Thurl Ravenscroft finally hit the Top 40 16 years after his death in 2005.

Here's Ravenscroft playing Santa Claus in "Santa's Too Fat for the Hula Hoop" from 1958:

Hear Thurl Ravenscroft's "Your a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"

Back again soon with more . . .