A Whole Pile of Christmas

Merry Christmas in July!!! Tuna Melt is OWNED by VOLDAR!!!

I, Voldar, have taken over The Tuna Melt for the remainder of the month of July!!! Traitor Vic and his
silly "wait a month and then download this crappy record" attitude have been shoved to the side by my superior Martian intellect, not to mention my brawny physical condition and this fancy helmet that I wear which has all sorts of strange tubes and hoses and stuff poking out of it!

This is me. I am from Mars! I am Superior to You! I am BAD!!!

This is me about to Kill your silly Santa Claus!!! Ha ha ha!!!

Okay. I didn't, of course.
That, though, was only because I enjoy the conflict that exists between the two of us.
Do not believe reports that he defeated me very soon after this photograph was taken.
How could that have possibly happened?
Am I, Voldar, not clearly in control of the situation?

Yep. Sure am, boy howdy!

I take Complete Control of The Tuna Melt, of course, to prove to you STUPID Earthlings that you are STUPID! Especially you who celebrate Christmas (the most STUPID of All STUPID Earthling Holidays)!

In order to prove to you that you are STUPID, I post this directly to the blog. Traitor Vic would not have done this. He is STUPID! This is my plan: To prove that STUPID Earthlings will enjoy Christmas in July!!! As such, I make this post immediately available to all. I'm sure you'll all be excited to be able to add "Merry Christmas from Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music" to your STUPID Holiday Music Collections.

Lawrence Welk: Merry Christmas from Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music

1. Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
2. I Wanna Do More Than Whistle (Under the Mistletoe)
3. White Christmas
4. Christmas Island
5. The Christmas Toy
6. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
7. Winter Wonderland
8. Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)
9. Christmas Comes But Once a Year
10. Thanks for Christmas
11. Twelve Gifts of Christmas
12. High on the Housetop

Also, allow me to take this opportunity to let you know of Traitor Vic's STUPID posts from Christmas 2006 that are still active in case you didn't get them already.

Billy Vaughn: Christmas Carols

1. White Christmas
2. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
3. O Holy Night
4. Deck the Halls
5. The First Noel
6. Joy to the World
7. Adeste Fideles
8. Silent Night
9. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
10. O Tannenbaum
11. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
12. Faith of Our Fathers
13. Jingle Bells
14. O Little Town of Bethlehem

Various Artists: A Midnight Christmas Mess

1. Christmastime Here (Could Never Be Like That) - Wednesday Week
2. On Comet - The Point
3. Christmastime With You - The Cheepskates
4. Here's What I Want on a Christmas Day - Justin Love
5. Christmas Dance - Johnny Rabb
6. Gotta Get Lucky for Xmas - Johnny Rabb
7. Xmas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It) - The Dogmatics
8. Last Minute Rush - The Cheepskates
9. Merry Christmas - Plan 9
10. Christmas Tyme (Baby) - Yard Trauma
11. Forget It - Nadroj & The Wolrats
12. Schizophrenic X'mas - The Suburban Nightmares
13. Gloria (in Excelsis Deo) - The Tryfles
14. It's Christmas (A Time for Giving) - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
15. Silent Night (J.D.'s Salute to Phil Spector) - Droogs

Various Artists: Oh! No! Not Another... Midnight Christmas Mess Again!!

1. Hazy Shades of Winter - The Slickee Boys
2. Christmas I'll Be Home - The Vipers
3. Star - The Cheepskates
4. Santa is Comin' Down Again - The Psycho Daisies
5. Santa Ain't Santa - Woofing Cookies
6. Jesus Christ - The Love Pushers
7. O Tannenbaum Now - Das Furlines
8. Blue Christmas - The Ravens
9. Wreck These Halls - Howard & Jag's X-mas Vacation
10. Sleighbell Bop - The Holidays
11. Coal in My Stocking - The Backbones
12. Christmas Eve at KNL (Kansas Neurological Institute) - The Iguanas
13. Snow is Falling - Dementia 13

Various Artists: Its Midnight Xmess Part III

1. Reindeer n' Whiskey - The Iguanas
2. Celebrate! - Whooping Cranes
3. "Yuh, Xmess" - Gorhounds
4. My Sears Catalogue - Sharky's Machine
5. Xmas Will Never - The Love Pushers
6. Merry Christmas, Baby - The Senders
7. Mrs. Claus Has Menopause - The Sterilles
8. Staring in the Eye of God - The Woofing Cookies
9. Are You Ready for Christmas - Luther n' B.B.B.'s
10. One Winter's Night - The Brood
11. December Mourning - Crocodile Shop
12. Christmas Comes to Those Who Wait - Dimentia 13
13. The Last Noel - John Frankovic

Living Strings: The Sound of Christmas

1. White Christmas
2. Medley: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day / Silver Bells / Out of the East
3. The Christmas Waltz
4. Medley: Winter Wonderland / Jingle Bells / Snow Bells
5. Medley: Oh Come All Ye Faithful / The First Noel / The Coventry Carol / O Holy Night
6. Do You Hear What I Hear?
7. A Handful of Happy New Years
8. Medley: Toyland / The Little Drummer Boy / Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
9. Blue Christmas
10. Medley: O Christmas Tree / Deck the Halls / The Wassail Song / Silent Night

Remember, too, to check out the STUPID Christmas Music Specific blogs to see what they've got going on this July. Allow me to recommend 77 Santas, BongBells, Hi-Fi Holiday, Ernie (Not Bert), Musical Fruitcake and Red Ryder BB Gun.

Also make sure you check out the Christmas in July post at The Vintage Place.

Michel Legrand: Strings on Fire

On Fire!?! It's Simply In Sane!

Back in the 50s and 60s a good deal of really cheap movies were made about "What Might Happen If" scenarios. For instance... What Might Happen if Nuclear Energy Affected Ants and Made them Really Big and Dangerous!?! Or... What Might Happen if Nuclear Power Were to Distort a Man's Ability to Fight Against Horrifically Enlarged (by Nuclear Power, of course) Rodents!?!

All this "What Might Happen If" stuff kinda gets me to thinking about this record. It seems a perfect example of What Might Happen if Jackie Gleason were Conducting an Orchestra When, Suddenly... He were Possesed by the Spirit of Juan Garcia Esquivel!?!

Scary, huh?

Not really, though. Michel Legrand, who's album this is, was born into a musical family (his father was a successful conductor and his sister was a member of the Swingle Singers) in 1932. He was already studying music when, in 1947, a friend gave him a ticket to a Dizzy Gillespie concert.

That being said, Michel Legrand has produced quite a few High-Brow "Real" Jazz records over the last 60 years ("Legrand Jazz," on Columbia-EMI, and "C'Est Magnifique," on Mercury, are real standouts), he has also created, conducted and/or produced a fair amount of Less Important Music. Some fault him for this. I say that it's simply because he realized a few years back that All Music is Good (unless it's Music That Sucks, of course) and that the Sound of Strings Zooming and Zinging around a room (from the speakers of a Console Stereo) was a Marvelous Thing!

This guy is GOOD! If you ever see a copy of his "Archi-Cordes" or "Plays for Dancers" in a Thrift Shop... GRAB IT!!!

In the meantime... Enjoy this.

Michel Legrand: Strings on Fire

1. Perfidia
2. El Choclo
3. Boulevard of Broken Dreams
4. What Is This Thing Called Love
5. Everything I Have is Yours
6. Jezebel
7. Jalousie
8. Close Your Eyes
9. Temptation
10. Come Back to Sorrento
11. Tabu
12. All or Nothing At All

Jason and The Scorchers: Fervor & Still Standing

Tuna Melt goes CowPunk!

One of these discs was posted at The Tuna Melt last year, but now is your chance to get it if you didn't then. In case you're not familiar with CowPunk, these guys are a great place to start. This is how that happened...

This fella, who grew up on a Pig Farm in Illinois, moves to Nashville with dreams of being a Music Star. But not a Nashville Music Star. He's kinda into a more Punk Rock frame of mind. At the same time, though, he's from a Pig Farm in Illinois, so his song's lyrics are a bit more, well... Country. Somehow he bumped into the most incredible bunch of young musicians in the Music City. The band that they formed was too good for words.

Too good for American Radio too, I suppose, as Country Radio refused to play them because they were too Rock and Rock Radio refused them because, of course, they were too Country. As a result, after releasing four appropriately Scorching albums, they disbanded in 1989. After that, of course, thier history gets complicated.

Jason and the Nashville Scorchers were the closest that Cowpunk ever got to Real Punk. Although the songs are tuneful and melodic beyond what most punk ever dreamed of, and they could also play the quiet stuff as good as The Flying Burritos or The Byrds, the energy and drive they pushed into each tune put them into a class that includes the fastest, loudest bands of all time.

This is their first nationwide American release, a 7-song Mini Album that came out in 1983.

Jason and The Scorchers: Fervor

1. Absolutely Sweet Marie
2. Help There's a Fire
3. I Can't Help Myself
4. Hot Nights in Georgia
5. Pray for Me, Mama (I'm a Gypsy Now)
6. Harvest Moon
7. Both Sides of the Line

And this is their third album, from 1986.

Jason and The Scorchers: Still Standing

1. Golden Ball and Chain
2. Crashin' Down
3. Shotgun Blues
4. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
5. My Heart Still Stands with You
6. 19th Nervous Breakdown
7. Ocean of Doubt
8. Ghost Town
9. Take Me to Your Promised Land

Wayne County & The Electric Chairs: Man Enough to Be a Woman

The Punk Rock Freak Show!

I was in a bar once (actually, I was in that bar more than once) and was talking to a fellow about Punk Rock bands. We were listening to The Mekons on the Jukebox and were naming bands to each other and telling each other what we thought of those mentioned. When I said "Wayne County & The Electric Chairs" he said he didn't care for them because he felt that they tried to turn Punk Rock into a Freak Show.

What is Punk Rock other than A Freak Show!?!

What is Rock & Roll other than A Freak Show!?!

What, for that matter, is Humanity?

Yep. You got it. You're a freak and so am I. We might be different kinds of freaks, but that's all that we, as humans, have the capacity to be.

Get on over to O CANADARM! right now and scroll downward (or just take this quick shortcut: http://ocanadarm.blogspot.com/2007/05/electric-chairs-uk.html) to find the first record, "Blatantly Offenzive", from Wayne County & The Electric Chairs. God knows those Canadians are a bunch of Freaks. Right!?!

This one, "Man Enough to Be a Woman," came out in 1978. It's Freakish. It's Freaky. It's Freakaholic!

Wayne County & The Electric Chairs: Man Enough to Be a Woman

1. Storm the Gates of Heaven
2. Cry of Angels
3. Speed Demon
4. Mr. Normal
5. Man Enough to Be a Woman
6. Trying to Get on the Radio
7. I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night
8. Tomorrow is Another Day

Richard Lloyd: Field of Fire

The Man who Created the Television!

Okay. That may be a bit of an overstatement, but it's not much of one. The latest post to The Tuna Melt is of a record by an individual who was recruited, in 1973, to join a band called The Neon Boys who were regrouping after a brief split. The new band took the name Television and, with new guitarist Richard Lloyd joining Tom Verlaine, Billy Ficca and Richard Hell, went on to make Rock and Roll History. If you don't know the rest of that story it's not too hard to find. I'd suggest AllMusic for this one at: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fifqxqr5ldse~T1.

Back, though, to Richard Lloyd. This guy Loved to Jam! He and Verlaine would go off on these tangents that were all over the map, though never exactly the "blues-based" jams that, well, Jam Bands had dealt with mostly up to that point. These jams, though they rocked and had a nice beat and were easy to dance to, were quirky and seemed a bit disjointed and were just plain weird back in the 70s.

Television finally broke up in 1978 after achieving very much critical but, of course, very little actual (or financial) success. Lloyd released a solo record called "Alchemy" in 1979 and then disappeared into drug addiction.

This is his comeback record. "Field of Fire" was released in 1985 and features a reborn (literally, in the religious sense) and rejuvenated Richard Lloyd at the top of his game. It lacks some of the Punkish edge that some might expect, considering his history, but the attitude is all there. It's Loud. It's Proud. And at times... It Jams!

Well… In a strange way, anyhow.

Richard Lloyd: Field of Fire

1. Watch Yourself
2. Losin' Anna
3. Soldier Blue
4. Keep On Dancin'
5. Pleading
6. Lovin' Man
7. Black to White
8. Field of Fire
   

Ya'll oughta listen to more Punk Rock. It's good for your brain.

The B-52's: Mesopotamia

There's a lot of Ruins in...

Back when it all started (around the 4th millennium BC) they called it Mesopotamia. What inspired The B-52's to write a song about it is beyond me. It might be because the Mesopotamians invented beer. It might not, though.

As it is, however, the song that they did write and record is really cool, as is the entire record on which it appeared. It was produced by David Byrne and released, as a 6 song 12" EP, in 1982.

And we all know that, since the area that Mesopotamia existed in is now known as Iraq, there are even more ruins there now than there were in the 80s. I'd like to think that I'll hear something else about Mesopotamia, soon, that makes me feel as happy as this record always has.

The B-52's: Mesopotamia

1. Loveland
2. Deep Sleep
3. Mesopotamia
4. Cake
5. Throw That Beat in the Garbage Can
6. Nip It in the Bud