Who Moved My Cheese Metal?

With winter comes the long nights exploring my collection of albums, Cd’s, cassette tapes and the more recent addition of mp3s. It’s been a really long time since I broke out the old turntable much less the cassette player. I still have two turntables and at least four or five cassette players gathering dust here and there.

In the garage, naturally, I found an old box of cassettes from about 1990 or so, the last time I had a car with a player in it. One of the really cool ones that would actually fast forward to the next track and stop. Cutting edge stuff at the time. (It didn’t matter that it would damage the tape by streching it a half step out of tune either. You would just turn it up louder and well, it didn’t make that much difference).

In that old box I found Iron Maiden’s “The Number Of The Beast.” Fun but hardly Christmas appropriate. Phantom, Rocker and Slick. How about those guys? Does anyone other than me remember them? Slim Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker formerly of the Stray Cats. They released  their “solo” album in 1985 after Brian Setzer left the band. It did have one fun song on it. “Men Without Shame.”

It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas. I just thought I would throw it in here because it’s been so long since I heard it.

Other gems in that old box were Brian Setzer’s first solo album, the “Knife Feels Like Justice.” Again not very Christmas like. I’ll get back to that one. A cassette single of the Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping.” Now we’re getting somewhere. This could possibly be the last cassette single in existence on the planet as I think I may have been the only person to buy something so foolish, but I do still love the song…

Lindsey Buckingham’s first solo album, “Law and Order” and some Pat Benatar, “Crimes Of Passion” and “Precious Time,” the first GoGo’s album, some Alice Cooper and of all things, Dan Fogelberg.

Here’s where it gets into the Christmas spirit.

Strange video, an apparently unofficial one but, the song is there.

Same Auld Lang Syne. A nice lift from Scottish poet Bob Burns. I can’t blame Dan for this however. It’s a sweet song and if if didn’t really happen to him, it should have. I can only guess it’s happened to a lot of us. Remember the Harry Chapin song “Taxi?” Dan had a much better night than Harry. Both bittersweet, Harry more bitter.

There is a quite sweet emotion in “Same Auld Lang Syne.” It’s sad but accepting. Not a bad thought for Christmas.

Now that we are rapidly closing in on Christmas 2009, it’s time to see what rock and roll has to offer up in the holiday spirit. And, being rock and roll it can be a wild ride from wonderful to wonder why.

There are so many rock and roll Christmas songs out there it’s always tough to pick the ones that are really good and the ones that, politely, probably should not have been recorded.

I believe that the whole rock and roll Christmas tradition started with Bobby Helms in 1957 when he recorded “Jingle Bell Rock.” It holds up well and has been recorded by hundreds of artists over the years. Not a bad place to start.

I still love it and always enjoy hearing it every year.

There are other versions from artists you don’t really expect.

I don’t quite know about this one. He looks like he’s not really comfortable. Or sane. If the camera was turned off for a second he very well might attack the person who made him make this video.

Here’s one that is somewhere in the middle. This song I love dearly. I remember when it came out in 1980. I was already sold on the Pretenders and this was some musical cake for me.

The video? Well, not so good. Chrissy looks like she really wants to be somewhere else. And when you look at the early eighties “concept” video it’s kind of hard to blame her. After all an adventure in ice fishing or skiing to survey for ice fishing or whatever the hell they are doing was not the first thing to come to my mind when I heard this song but, I suppose it sounded good when it was pitched to the record company. And, really, what’s with the Salvation Army outfit and tambourine?

My favorite rock and roll Christmas song is “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses. They really only had two hits, “Christmas Wrapping” and “I Know What Boys Like.” Both show a great sense of humor and quite good musicianship. Patty Donahue’s vocals, while not polished, show personality and a good bit of moxie. She had quite the sassy attitude that really sold the songs well.

This song just makes me smile every time I hear it.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Couldn’t miss this one this year!”