close
User Login
How Do
You Like That
'How Do You Like That' is the blog of longtime musician, bartender, open mic host, and general Treehouse guru Joe Peppercorn. Here we make an effort to get a glimpse into the madness of Joe's mind, so that we might further understand all of his wisdom... but dont look directly into the light! For that kind of madness could blind us all.
| 21 December 2009
Christmas and Holiday Music
I am sorry, but you are wrong. You tell your friends how nauseating Christmas music is. You tell everyone within earshot that you would rather stick a nail gun in your ear than have to listen to anymore Christmas music, because after all, they are the same thing. You tell your friends that when you were in high school, you were working at Cinnabon, and from November through December, you had to endure the worst Christmas music ever made. You had to listen to Ertha Kitt, Harry Connick Jr, Amy Grant and a bunch of Johnny Mathis wannabes singing saccharine versions of the worst Christmas songs. You are not alone: your friends all agree with you (your friends are awful): “OMG Kendra (your name is Kendra by the way), I hate Christmas music too! I had a job at Old Navy and was listening to Christmas music all the way up through the second week of January because they were late getting the 3 hour techno remix loop, which was surgically proven to increase the number of Painter Jeans sold” (your friend is somewhat clever, also, you guys are old. Your friend (her name is Jane) worked at Old Navy when people used to buy Painter Jeans, in fact, your college boyfriend wore painter jeans when he took you on your first date to Champps, and then your boyfriend took you to see Bicentennial Man, that guy was a better boyfriend than the guy you date now, even though the guy you date now knows better than to wear painter jeans on a date, not like your current awful boyfriend ever takes you on dates anymore).
Here is the thing, Kendra, as much as I empathize with you and agree with some of your points, you are missing the big picture: Christmas music is awesome and an integral part of being human. Yes, you are right when you say that the Harry Connick Jr. Christmas album is awful in a Gap commercial kind of way (have you guys seen that new GAP ad? Did they find that tape in some widow’s attic and hire special retired detective Nicolas Cage to watch it so that he might find out it is real and then if it is, catch the pervs in the video?). You are right that your mom’s Amy Grant Very Special Christmas tape has been banned as a torture device by the hope and change of the Obama administration. Yes, Manheim Steamroller is awful, and not just because Rush Limbaugh thinks it is like the Beatles except better (“Rush Limbaugh is the worst person in the whole world ever” –the Beowulf author). You have had some horrible experiences with Christmas music Kendra, but we all have. We live in a post-nothing Capitalist whatever and music has been commodified and you really like the Kings of Leon despite all of this, so yeah, we all feel that pain.
(A side note, Kendra, you really should just say Merry Christmas instead of Feliz Navidad, everyone thinks you are annoying when you say that. It is sort of like how you waitressed at PF Chang’s in college and you learned how to swear in Chinese from the kitchen staff and now you tell everyone about it afer you say things that sound like you are making fun of Asians, nobody cares, except for your boyfriend, but nobody likes him, so he doesn’t count.)
Kendra:
“COME ON”
-Gob!
Have you watched a Charlie Brown Christmas in the last ten years? It is absolutely amazing. You can’t make this stuff up, you can only live it (I stole that quote from some guy watching a blues band while wearing a cowboy hat at the Thirsty Ear Tavern): loser everyman kid, who gets no love from any of his friends, mocked and tortured, even through his misguided attempts to unite his friends and create art. He is like the Leopold Bloom of adolescent 20th century Americana, a Joycean hero! Actually, he is not, and just because you read Ulysses up to where it becomes a play does not mean you are allowed to use phrases like ‘Joycean Hero,’.
Charlie Brown turns a needle-covered stick into a Christmas tree in one of the most beautiful moments of animated television history! He is then is faced with the crushing feelings of rejection, failure, loss, regret, bitterness, sadness, depression and everything in between when he is confronted with the fact that he probably killed it! It is like a metaphor for Tiger Woods and his career! HAHA, cultural relevance in the Treehouse blog, that could have been a joke Justin Timberlake would tell at an awards show! All of this action is set, by the way, to the most gorgeous of Christmas soundtracks, by Vince Guraldi. Ah, Charlie Brown Christmas, I still have the beta cassette my parents recorded off TV, it has a great newsbreak in the middle of it where they announce that Bo Jackson won the Heisman Trophy (we’re old in this together Kendra, actually we’re not that old, but still, we feel like we’re old, even though that’s an insult to people who really are old). Anyway, yeah, this says everything I try to say but fail to:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
The Treehouse has seen the entire Charlie Brown soundtrack covered by my band, The Whiles, and has also hosted performances of soundtrack selections by the Tom Foolery and the Mistakes, fronted by our very good friend and booking agent, Kyle Sowash. You can find the 7” of Kyle doing the Christmas songs at Lost Weekend Records. I saw it there today. You should go there Kendra, buy some cheap used vinyl and get rid of your Kings of Leon records.
I was going to make you a list of traits which make certain Christmas music good and certain Christmas music bad, but then I realized that my bad list would encompass such classics as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You,” which rules and not just because Steve Santino (of Blasphemy Saints, a fantastic local band) slayed a pretty faithful cover of that song last December at the Treehouse. But also because the video rules, and because Mariah does not seem like such a dirty whore when she wears a Mrs. Claus? outfit:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Guilty pleasure? Maybe, but still, heartwarming in a way that the best guilty pleasures are.
If Mariah cannot make you a believer, and the Charlie Brown missed you, Bing Crosby and David Bowie are here to confuse you:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Charming, but not sublime in the way that the best Christmas song of all time ever is:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
“So happy Christmas, I love you baby, I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true.” That song still makes me tear up the same way Terms of Endearment made my mom tear up throughout the summer of 87’ (that sounds sort of like a verse to a Bryan Adams song).
And while we’re talking about classics, your grandfather is a bad grandfather if he does not like Nat King Cole’s Christmas Song:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Ah, but Kendra, you are a shrewd gal, you even read music blogs to find new stuff and you say that all this Christmas music is old. Well, this just came out two months ago and it will rock your face off:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Sometimes our idols manage to surprise us and delight us at the same time. Sometimes however, our idols manage to do whatever the opposite of surprising us is, and also bore us and make us cringe (and vomit, Kendra, put down your Bacardi Breezer and SoCo/Lime shot before you watch this video):
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
So yes, if Paul McCartney is what you are talking about when you talk about how much you hate Christmas music, I totally agree. I mean, we have three more Christmas’ until the world ends in 2012, and we can only listen to the best. And this is the best, and the reason why Lennon is awesome in ways that McCartney comes up short:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
By the way, McCartney was trying to do this:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
And everyone wishes they could do this:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
“If you don’t like the James Brown Christmas song, you are pathetic and dumb”
-Christopher Marlowe
Life is hard, irony is easy, and while we may joke about how the world WILL NOT come to an end in 2012, there is something heartwarming about the deliberately over-sentimental, often naïve warmth that can be found in Christmas music. Last year, the Treehouse hosted a Holiday revue show where we attempted to take Christmas music back from the shopping malls. We failed sort of miserably, but failure is not a bad thing (omg, my next blog post is gonna be about failure). It is important that we fail sometimes. The goal is not to avoid failure, but embrace it with some sort of dignity. These guys have no idea what that means, nor does this guy, but this guy gets it entirely.
This year, the Treehouse is not having a holiday music/ugly Christmas sweater extravaganza, but that is only because we are lazy and forgot to book it at our own bar. It does not mean that the central Ohio cold has pulverized our tiny Grinch hearts (that usually happens around February, seriously, can someone do something about the cold here? Son of local newscaster who plays in one of the best bands in town, I am looking at you, tell your dad to talk to the weatherman). We still love Christmas and promise to have a holiday music show next year.
It is important to remember this as Christmas approaches Kendra, we can be all too human, we can embrace the sometimes cheesiness of Christmas music, we can sing along without self-consciousness, we can let go of irony and all of the other things we use to guard our FEELINGS. We can fail with dignity and have a great time doing it. Happy Christmas, war is over, and I hope you enjoy this Christmas gift. It is a Wild Hogs special edition 2-disc DVD. The special features on disc 2 are sweet. Its OK that you didn’t get anything for me, Violet didn’t send Charlie Brown a Christmas card either.
Bonus Tracks:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
(the custom video for the song above is pretty hilarious and awesome?)
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
(that last one was awful Kendra, but you never heard that one while you were getting your lunch at the Panda Express)
and finally:
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!
Unfortunately, no video of the holiday exravaganza last year but watching Phil Palma and Branden Barnett (of the shatters/ghost shirt fame) slay the bing crosby david bowie duet may be one of those things that resists category and videotape.
Seriously Kendra, give yourself the best gift this year and dump your boyfriend, we really do love you at the Treehouse and look forward to seeing you again (we have not seen you since your boyfriend was banned six months ago for trying to fight the owner).
PS- Listen to CD101 this weekend for the Andymanathon and donate money, it is one of the few local charities where all the money goes straight to the people who need it and not to keep a non profit CEO making a half a million a year. We love Andyman and the Andymanathon, the Treehouse raised $1200 for the athon this year during its Halloween bash. So perhaps we are in the clear this year for not doing holiday music?
Comments