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Hey, remember that band of douchebags who shut down an L.A. freeway during rush hour? They just got fined $39,000. Party!
Usually I’m all for trying to Stick It to The Man. But when you stick it to my morning commute, I hope The Man stomps on your neck with his big shiny Man-Boots. So I was delighted to learn this morning that Imperial Stars, the band of d-bag rap-rockers whose only claim to fame is shutting down the 101 freeway here in Los Angeles to perform their single “Traffic Jam 101″ for a bunch of fucked L.A. commuters, just got ordered to pay a $39,000 fine for their little publicity stunt. Thirty-nine grand! That’s a lot of Ed Hardy shirts, huh, guys?
Apparently the Imperial boys also had to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy and perform 35 days of community service. I didn’t know parking a truck sideways on a freeway counted as a conspiracy, but I guess it does take some planning, especially when you’re a bunch of fucking morons.
I can’t bring myself to embed the video for “Traffic Jam 101,” but if you must, you can watch it here.
We look forward to mocking your “Help Us Pay Our Legal Bills” Kickstarter soon, guys.
Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer is about to gentrify America
America, your long chap-hop drought is finally about to end. Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer will soon grace our savage shores with his refined, banjolele-fueled ditties about big pimpin’ Victorian style. Huzzah!
Sadly, the esteemed Mr. B’s Stateside social calendar currently boasts but two invitations: The CONvergence sci-fi and fantasy convention (whose 2013 theme, fittingly, is “British Invasion”) in Minneapolis on July 4th, and the Antiquarian Music Festival at Steamstock, a steampunk festival in the San Francisco Bay Area, on July 28th. Between those two dates, we can only assume he will be making the arduous trek across our great American wildernesses via horseless carriage, or possibly one of these things. Will he call upon various saloons and public houses along the way and delight them with impromptu chap-hop recitals? The gap-toothed hoi polloi between the Twin Cities and the Golden Gate can but fervently hope.
Mr. B hasn’t released any new tunes of late, so we’ll leave you instead with this adorable Steamstock promotional video, featuring the many highlights and elaborate hats of Steamstock 2012. Please to enjoy.
Passed Out Juggalos is my new favorite Facebook page. Sorry, Grumpy Cat.
There are few things in this world more satisfying than drawing a Sharpie dick on your friend’s face after he’s conked out from one too many Jägerbombs. But among those few things is a shapely female ass in a thong. So you can imagine my delight when I recently discovered the miracle combination of these two beautiful things that is Passed Out Juggalos.
Passed Out Juggalos is a Facebook page started by a bunch of chicks who go to Gathering of the Juggalos and other events where the eyebrow-pierced fans of Insane Clown Posse congregate, find the dudes who are passed out (trust me, it’s not very hard), and take pictures of themselves shoving their scantily clad asses and boobs in said passed out dudes’ faces. It’s like some kind of crazy, genius cross between teabagging, a strip club lap dance and a Take Back the Night march. Okay, that last part might be a stretch, but you have to admit, there’s a turn-the-tables layer of female empowerment to all this. You could almost call it girl-on-guy sexual harrassment…except that for 99.9% of these guys, unless there’s a huge gay Juggalo contingent we’re unaware of, this is a fucking dream come true. Or it would’ve been if only they’d been awake for it.
Like all true geniuses, the women behind Passed Out Juggalos are misunderstood. Scattered amidst the “Fuck yeah!” and “I wanna pass out when you’re around” comments on their Facebook page is a fairly steady stream of “You’re all dumb sluts” and “Why are you doing this?” POJ girl Neveah answers that last one pretty well in this Q&A she and two other POJ girls did with Vice.com: “It’s hella funny, because you see people hella passed out in these crazy positions that look so uncomfortable. What could be better than putting your ass right in their faces?” Neveah, we hella agree with you 1,000%.
On a related note: Tickets are on sale now for the next Gathering of the Juggalos, happening Aug. 7-11 in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Gentlemen, start practicing your uncomfortable-looking fake-passed-out poses now.
Mission Man’s new video is “Extra” awesome
Last time we checked in with our avant-hip-hop hero Mission Man, he had decided to finally quit his day job to pursue music full-time. Now it’s three months later and he’s…well, he’s back to the working grind again, but not to worry. The new job is just part-time and as he puts it on his website, “music is a bigger, more beautiful part of my life than it’s ever been!” So Mission Man’s, er, mission to bring “hip-hop without ego” to the masses continues apace.
Last week, Gary “Mission Man” Milholland released his latest opus: A brand-new video for the pep-talk track “Extra” off his most recent album, M”. In true MM fashion, the clip features all sorts of zany composite shots of Mission Man dancing on flowers and planets and flying away in his Chevy Cobalt, plus some scenes of him busting moves in some shitty sports bar that probably doesn’t deserve him, and a whole sequence involving footprints in the snow that hopefully he can explain to us over a beer someday. But our favorite part of the whole video is probably the part where he looks directly into the camera and raps, “You look extra today: Extra tall, extra smart, extra talented, extra sexy, extra amazing.” Back atcha, Gary!
In other Mission Man news, he recently performed a new track, “Love, Funk and Soul,” with a live band. He’s taking this shit to the next level, y’all!
Professor Elemental vs. Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer
It’s yet another first here at Weird Band HQ: This week, two artists will share the title of Weird Band of the Week. It seems only fitting, since Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer and Professor Elemental were finally able to quash their long-running feud and agree to share the top of the chap-hop heap.
Let’s back up a bit. “Chap-hop” is a term that, as far as we can tell, was originally coined by Mr. B (real name: Jim Burke), a London rapper who adopted the trappings of the British “Chappist” movement, a subculture devoted to the more genteel ways of Downton Abbey-era England, complete with lots of tweed, liberal use of the word “jolly” and well-manicured facial hair. By combining dandyish style (and an adorably retro instrument called the banjolele) with the rhymes, beats and cocksure attitude of hip-hop, Mr. B created a whole new subgenre of music. Or did he?
This is where it gets interesting. Because you see, before Mr. B ever dropped a rhyme about his watch fob, another chap in nearby Brighton by the name of Professor Elemental (real name: Paul Alborough) was mixing rap with Edwardian swag on songs like “Cup of Brown Joy,” an ode to tea drinking whose loopy, low-budget video has racked up 1.5 million views on YouTube, making it a chap-hop anthem on par with, say, “Gin & Juice.”
Although Professor Elemental initially identified himself as a “steampunk mad scientist” (you can tell he’s steampunk because he sometimes wears goggles on his pith helmet) rather than a practitioner of chap-hop, it wasn’t long before he discovered the existence of Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer and began drawing battle lines. “I can’t walk down the street these days without being mistaken for Mr. B, or without folk asking if I am going to battle the cad,” he said in an interview with The Chap, the scene’s magazine of record. In 2010, two years after both chap rappers first rose to prominence, he released a song and video called “Fighting Trousers” that called out Mr. B in no uncertain terms.
Mr. B eventually responded with his own shot across the bow, a capital little brag track called “Just Like a Chap.” But by this point, the battle was all in good fun, as you’ll see towards the end when Professor E himself makes a good-natured cameo.
Anyone wishing to further weigh the relative merits of chap-hop’s two leading lights should peruse footage from this 2011 “chap-off.”
Although we do find Professor Elemental’s Jules Verne-inspired zaniness entertaining, and although he certainly meets the criteria for weirdness set out by our esteemed blog (the fellow has a gorilla butler named Geoffrey for a sidekick, by Jove), we tend to find Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer a more satisfyingly polished performer. Maybe it’s the banjolele that gives him his edge. Or this video. Or the fact that, unlike Professor E, he seems to know how to use a straight razor.
It’s worth noting that Mr. B and Prof E have inspired a whole chap-hop movement, and there’s now a host of other artists busting rhymes like it’s 1899: Poplock Holmes, Class Rhymes and Reginald Pikedevant, Esquire, to name only a few. At this rate, chap-hop seems poised to outlast the post-Downtown Abbey acting career of that fool who played Matthew Crawley. Seriously, why would anyone quit the best show ever on British television? What a cad.
P.S. We almost forgot to thank readers Wallicoth and Charm Man for introducing us to the joys of chap-hop. Good show, gents!
You might also like: Mo Wolpert, MC Frontalot, DeScribe
Links:
- Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer official site
- Professor Elemental official site
- The Chap-Hop Shop (Mr. B’s online store)
- Professor Elemental on Bandcamp
- Professor Elemental on Facebook
- Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer on Facebook
- Mr. B on Tumblr
- “In ‘Chap-Hop,’ Gentlemen Rappers Bust Rhymes About Tea, Cricket” (good article about chap-hop from, of all places, the Wall Street Journal)
- Professor Elemental’s catalog on Amazon.com
- Mr. B’s catalog on Amazon.com
Weird Guest Post: Insane Clown Posse vs. Vagina News
It’s another first here at TWBITW—our first-ever guest post. The author is Rebecca Metz, creator of Vagina News, a blog that discusses women’s issues and vaginas in the news. (How often are vaginas in the news? More often that you might realize, especially because when they are, everyone tends to scrupulously avoid saying the word “vagina.”) She also happens to be my wife, so y’all be nice to her, K?
Rebecca has a keen eye for misogynistic horseshit, so we decided to ask for her insights into the latest video from Insane Clown Posse, “Hate Her to Death.” But first, let’s watch and judge for ourselves, shall we?
Now, let’s get Rebecca’s take:
I didn’t know a lot about Insane Clown Posse. I knew they were bald guys in clown makeup who didn’t understand how magnets worked. I knew their fans were called Juggalos, and Juggalos sometimes look like Goths, but they’re not the same thing, because I once saw a guy ask a couple of Goths if they were Juggalos, and the Goths had never heard of Juggalos. And that’s what I knew about Insane Clown Posse.
Then I watched the video for “Hate Her to Death.”
So there’s this cheerleader the Insane Clown Posse guys like. A lot. She’s funny and caring and pretty and bendy and they like to draw pictures of her radiating a Jesus-like aura. (In the video, ICP are represented by a sad loner. We know he’s a sad loner because he’s wearing the sad loner uniform—a black hoodie—and he’s an artist, the official hobby of sad loners. Sad loners are all one pretty cheerleader away from the next great graphic novel.)
Anyway, the problem is that she “don’t belong to” our clowny heroes. She may or may not belong to one of several hipster bullies—but she definitely KNOWS them, because they show her the cheerleader-as-Jesus drawing. But instead of leaping into the sad loner’s arms upon seeing herself as Jesus, she goes to the gym and stretches, because she’s dumb or selfish or something.
And while the sad loner could just tell her he thinks she’s incredible/unforgettable/breathtaking/earthshaking and see what happens, come ON. She should KNOW that from the picture, right? What does he have to do, come out and say his feelings in WORDS? LAME.
So since he’s being bullied by hipsters and the cheerleader doesn’t love him (which is stupid of her, everyone knows sad loners make the best boyfriends) and he doesn’t seem to have friends or parents or a therapist to talk to, the cheerleader clearly has to die. It’s so sad. For him.
Well, first she has to watch her bully-hipster-maybe-boyfriend die, because that kind of thing makes cheerleaders feel terrible, and eliciting terrible feelings is Step One in Hating Someone to Death. But ICP are super sensitive to concerns about school violence, so they avoid the sorts of weapons people are always freaking out about, and kill the hipster by first choking him with a magic spell and then stabbing him with a pen. Everybody loves magic and pens!
ICP also understand that, while the cheerleader totally deserves to be the object of the sad loner’s rage because she’s happy and he’s not, killing pretty girls is among people’s least favorite kinds of killing, so you have to be real subtle about it. What to do, what to do… AHA! Crumple up the cheerleader-as-Jesus picture in an act of murder-foreshadowing! (They make sure to say “I fucking hate her to death” a bunch of times at the end so we’ll know what the crumpled picture means. It’s like poetry. Video poetry. Voetry.)
Thanks to “Hate Her to Death”, I know a lot more about Insane Clown Posse. I know they lack basic communication skills, don’t know how to process unpleasant emotions, and support violence against women as a means of expressing anger—but in an über-creative way that makes it awesome instead of representative of a serious cultural problem. I know they like to hang out in badly-lit libraries. And… that’s it. Am I a Juggalo now?
Leslie Hall (Leslie and the LY’s)
I’m not gonna lie: When Jake and I first started this blog, it was a full-on sausage party. For about the first year or so, I think pretty much the only female presence on the entire site was Miss Pussycat. But chicks like weirdin’ it up as much the boys do, and we’re finally taking baby steps towards some semblance of equal gender time with recent Weirdos of the Week like Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin and Miss Von Trapp. Sorry it took us awhile, ladies.
We’re continuing our female-friendly trend this week with the long-overdue addition of Iowa’s craziest product this side of the hot beef sundae: Leslie Hall, the queen of bejeweled sweaters, gold spandex jumpsuits, high-STER-ical dance videos and geeky electro/hip-hop party jams as sleek and stylin’ as the aforementioned gold spandex jumpsuits.
Hall became a minor Internet celebrity not, at first, with her music, but with her sweater collection: an online “Gem Sweater Museum” that went viral back around the time people started saying things like “go viral.” In an NPR interview, she later claimed that the music began as a side project to pay off her bandwidth overage charges: “I’ll put out a hip-hop album, sell CDs, get rich and famous, and this bill will go away.” Her first album, released in 2005, was called Gold Pants because, according to another interview, “65% of the comments on my [Gem Sweater Museum website] were about my gold pants.”
Amazingly, working with just GarageBand and, as far as we’ve been able to learn, no real musical training (she actually has a fine art background), Hall has since pumped out five albums’ worth of cheeky, increasingly polished dance pop, over which she raps and/or sings about dancing, her sweaters, crafting, her pants, dancing, and how awesome she is. And, one time, killing zombies. But mostly about dancing.
With her chunky glasses and chunkier physique, Hall is like the anti-Katy Perry—a shiny gold beacon of the uncool-as-cool, a reminder to us all that no matter what you look like, all it takes to be fabulous is the right attitude and maybe a good dance move or two. And a gem-covered sweater never hurts, either.
P.S. A big ol’ sloppy thank-you to reader Susan Molnar for recently introducing us to the wonders of Leslie Hall, which we had somehow managed to miss previously. Clearly, we need to get out more. Or maybe we need to get out less—and spend more time on YouTube.
P.P.S. Banner photo of Leslie and her white tiger sidekicks by Kai Chan, lifted from this article.
Links:
- Leslie Hall official site
- Leslie and the LY’s official site
- Hefty Hideaway (Leslie’s online store)
- Gem Sweater Museum
- Leslie Hall on Facebook
- Leslie Hall on Bandcamp (home to her latest album, Destination Friendship)
Fuck Presidents’ Day. Feb. 17th is Juggalo Day.
Washington and Lincoln are cool and all, but they’ve also been dead for like a hundred years. And why celebrate a bunch of dead white dudes when you can celebrate the living, breathing people who put on clown makeup and crank horrorcore hip-hop with hidden Christian messages?
Yes, Sunday, Feb. 17th is the 2nd Annual Juggalo Day, a holiday to celebrate the awesomeness that is Insane Clown Posse‘s batshit fan base. Technically, Presidents’ Day is the next day, but after partying like a Juggalo, you’re gonna sleep through that shit like someone put Roofies in your Faygo.
According to ICP’s newsletter, the Hatchet Herald, ICP themselves are gonna celebrate Juggalo Day by performing their classic 1995 album Riddle Box in its entirety at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit. If you can’t get to Detroit, we recommend celebrating Juggalo Day with a few bong rips and blasting Riddle Box loud enough to get evicted. If you do get kicked out, you can always blame it on the FBI.
In other ICP news, the 2013 Gathering of the Juggalos has been confirmed for Aug. 7-11 (numbers dear to every Juggalo’s heart) in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Maybe Andy and I will finally go this year, but probably not. We’re old.
Let’s play this post out with one of the most popular tracks from Riddle Box, “Chicken Huntin’.” We hear Abe Lincoln knew what to do with a drunken hillbilly, too.
Mission Man embarks on his “I Quit My Job (please don’t make me go back)” tour
When we first encountered Gary “Mission Man” Milholland back in 2011, he was a struggling underground rapper who delivered pizzas by day and spit rhymes by night. But now it’s 2013 and guess what, bitches? He’s rapping full time! Well-played, Gary. It’s success stories like yours that give us hope for weird and misunderstood artists everywhere.
In addition to honing his mic skills at, he promises, “5 open mike shows per week, plus hopefully a full show or two each week, as well,” The Mish is embarking on some January and March (not February, for some reason) tour dates. He’s dubbed his little eight-city jaunt the “I Quit My Job (please don’t make me go back)” tour. It starts on Jan. 19th, his birthday. So buy the man some cake, Dayton.
Jan 19 Blind Bob’s Dayton, OH
Jan 20 One Eyed Jack’s Fairborn, OH
Jan 21 Southgate House Revival Newport, KY
Jan 22 Stadium Bar and Grille Oxford, OH
Jan 23 Scarlet and Grey Cafe Columbus, OH
Jan 24 King Avenue 5 Columbus, OH
Mar 09 Southgate House Revival Newport, KY
Mar 14 Annabell’s Akron, OH
Mar 16 Checkers N Trophies Kent, OH
Here’s hoping Mission Man becomes enough of a force in 2013 that he can finally play the West Coast. As much as we enjoy his YouTube videos, something tells us you really need to see the man live to fully appreciate his unorthodox approach to beats and rhymes.
Weirdify Playlist 12: Whack Christmas
It’s been way too long since we did a new Weirdify playlist, but there’s no better occasion for getting into the back into the swing of things than Christmas. You either love holiday music or you hate it—and if you’re like us, your opinion on the subject probably swings wildly between those two extremes depending on what they’re playing while you’re picking up your Zoloft at CVS. (Please, baby Jesus, no more Mariah Carey.)
Fortunately, there are approximately five gazillion metric fuck-tons of holiday and Christmas-themed recordings to choose from, and many—most, even—don’t involve Grandmas getting run over by reindeers or old classics getting run over by the melisma of former American Idol contestants.
So with our patron saint, Frank Zappa*, as our guide, we dove into Spotify with all the shopping-cart-filling zeal of a Black Friday shopper at Wal-Mart to bring you our final Spotify mix of 2012: “Whack Christmas.” It’s what we’re dreaming of. Soon, it’s what you’ll be dreaming of, too. Especially when you get to “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.” That shit is catchy!
Giddy up, giddy up, let’s go! (That’s Christmas-speak for, “Launch your Spotify player.” Or use the embedded player below. Cuz Spotify finally lets you do that now.)
*There’s no Frank Zappa on Spotify and, to the best of our knowledge, he never recorded any Christmas music. But if one of you Frank-ophiles out there cares to correct us, we’ll happily link to whatever Santa-related sonic mayhem he may have concocted.
Some notes on your listening experience:
1. Capital Kings, “Carol of the Bells.” You didn’t think we’d ease you into this mix gently, did you? Fuck no. You’re gonna start with a dubstep version of the most melodramatic Christmas carol of all time. When the bass drop hits, try crushing a carton of eggnog on your forehead. You’re feelin’ it now, bro!
2. Ronnie James Dio, Tommy Iommi, Rudy Sarzo, Simon Wright, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” This is from an album called We Wish You a Metal Xmas…and a Headbanging New Year! Need we say more? R.I.P., Holy Diver. (P.S. There might be another track from this album later in the mix. But you’ll just have to stick around to find out.)
3. Wesley Willis, “Merry Christmas.” I bet Wesley Willis gave great Christmas gifts. Or at least great Christmas head butts. We like this holiday a lot, too, Wesley!
4. Johnny MacRae, “Here Comes Fatty Claus.” You can find this on a delightful collection—sadly, not available on Spotify—called A John Waters Christmas. It kinda does for Christmas what Pink Flamingos did for overweight transvestites.
5. Randall Reed with the Forerunners, “The Peppermint Stick Man.” This unintentionally (we hope) child molestery Xmas original is from another worthy compilation called The American Song-Poem Christmas, a collection of amateur one-off singles recorded by would-be singer-songwriters and (we presume) very, very depressed session musicians. Here’s a tip for all you aspiring writers of children’s songs: Never use the word “erect” in a lyric.
6. Bob Dylan, “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Did you know Dylan released a Christmas album a few years back? It’s true. He also apparently smoked a carton of unfiltered Camels right before the recording sessions.
7. Afroman, “Police Blow My Wad.” This early ’00s novelty rapper took all the royalties from his one and only hit, “Because I Got High,” and blew them on a holiday album called A Colt 45 Christmas. And weed. Probably mostly on weed. This one is set to the tune of “Feliz Navidad”…get it? No? Smoke a bowl first and it’s hilarious. Trust us.
8. Elf-Elf and Dok-Im, “My Christmas Bells (Elf Vocal).” This might be Jake’s favorite rap song ever. Mashed potatoes!
9. The Jingle Punx, “It’s What I Got in My Sack.” Is there any better cure for too much shitty Christmas music than some good old-fashioned snot-punk? Also, he said “sack.” Heh-heh.
10. The Vandals, “I Don’t Believe in Santa Claus.” Next time someone asks you, “Hey, what’d you get me for Christmas?”…just play them this song. Unless you actually got them something. In that case…you know what? Play it anyway. ‘Cuz The Vandals rule.
11. Nerf Herder, “I’ve Got a Boner for Christmas.” Who needs “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” when we’ve got this romantic Yuletide ditty to keep us warm? Did you know “stocking” rhymes with “cock in”? Well, it doesn’t, really, but who cares? Let’s all get laid for Christmas!
12. Edmund Welles, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Think of this as a little post-punk palette cleanser, courtesy of our favorite all-bass clarinet ensemble. Not weird, per se, but gosh-darned purty.
13. Tiny Tim, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Another track from A John Waters Christmas, starring the world’s greatest ukulele-strumming, falsetto-voiced, late-night TV cult hero. This old Christmas chestnut takes on new life when it’s sung by someone who sounds like he’s gargling with angels’ tears.
14. British Summer Time Ends, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” As we point out frequently on this blog: The ’80s were a weird decade. This track appears on a random 1987 compilation called Joyeux Noel that features John Zorn and a bunch of other bands we’d never heard of, including these British Summer Time Ends guys. We tried Googling them for like two hours and all we could come up with was this. If anyone knows more about them, share, please! ‘Cause this version of “I Saw Mommy” is pretty great.
15. Lou Monte, “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.” This 1960 novelty song regularly shows up on “Worst Christmas Songs Ever” lists. Which we think is pretty unfair, actually. When shit like our next song is still in circulation…
16. Bobby Boris Pickett, “Monster’s Holiday.” To be fair, it must have sucked being Bobby Boris Pickett. That dude was doomed to forever rehash his one and only hit. Still, can you imagine if today’s acts released Christmas-themed cash grabs this shameless? Oh, wait, they do. Don’t worry, we won’t taint this mix with any of that Bieber shit. We’ve got a much cooler child pop star…
17. Gayla Peevey, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” Little Gayla Peevey was only 10 years old when she recorded this novelty hit in 1953. By 18, she was a Lindsay Lohan-like coke whore running over valets outside Hollywood’s sleaziest nightclubs. Kidding! Actually, she changed her name to Jamie Horton and released a song called “Robot Man.” Beat that, Miley Cyrus.
18. RuPaul, “Santa Baby.” A drag queen singing a seduction song to Jolly Saint Nick? Sure, why the hell not? Much like RuPaul’s Drag Race (seriously, how is that thing on its fifth season?), it wears out its welcome pretty quickly, but hey, that’s what the skip button is for.
19. The Superions, “Crummy Christmas Tree.” So long as we’re in camp mode, let’s throw in a track by B-52′s frontman Fred Schneider’s Xmas-themed side project. If that sad tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas specials could sing…it would sound exactly like Fred Schneider. Who knew?
20. The Avalanches, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” There’s a whole, massive subgenre of surf-rock/beach-themed Christmas music, most of which is, frankly, kinda lame. But this instrumental version of the date-rapiest of holiday standards is kinda groovy, isn’t it?
21. The Klezmonauts, “Joy to the World.” Hey, all you “War on Christmas” conspiracy theorists, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Most Jews actually love Christmas. Not the Jesusy, away-in-a-manger stuff so much. But Santa, the presents, the tree, the eggnog—they’re totally down. Neil Diamond didn’t record A Cherry Cherry Christmas because his Christian overlords at Columbia Records were holding a gun to his head. We’re sure the same holds true for The Klezmonauts, who recorded an entire album of klezmer-styled holiday standards under the obvious but genius title of Oy to the World. It’s like a delicious Hanukkah latke topped with figgy pudding instead of apple sauce.
22. Family Force 5, “Little Drummer Boy.” We interrupt this mix for a little Christian crunk rock. There’s actually an entire album of this shit, The Family Force 5 Christmas Pageant. But because we love you so much, we’re only gonna share with you this, the shortest track on the record. You’re welcome.
23. Soul Saints Orchestra, “Santa’s Got a Bag of Soul.” Let’s get the horrible sound of crunk rock out of our ears with a little funky ’70s soul, shall we? This is from an outstanding collection of rare-groove Christmas records called In the Christmas Groove. And we really can’t play it without playing the man it’s obviously cribbing from…
24. James Brown, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto.” This isn’t even really the Godfather of Soul’s weirdest Christmas track…but we’re including it anyway, because it’s awesome.
25. Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, “Jingle Bells.” A reader named Trey suggested we check out Bela Fleck’s Jingle All the Way album. “Not the weirdest but definitely different,” he said. And honestly, we were skeptical—but then we stumbled across this banjo-and-throat-singing version of “Jingle Bells” and we were like, “Holy shit, Trey. You are a master of understatement.”
26. Alice Cooper, Billy Sheehan, John 5, Vinny Appice, “Santa Claus (Claws) Is Coming to Town.” OK, fine, we’ll throw in another track from We Wish You a Metal Xmas. Even though you’ve all been very naughty. We’ve got a list, too, y’know.
27. Psychostick, “Jingle Bell Metal.” You didn’t think we’d get through this whole mix without throwing in at least one metalcore freakout, did you? You know us better than that.
28. Insane Clown Posse, “Red Christmas.” Or an ICP song. There’s also gotta be an ICP song. Whether you like it or not. And we know that secretly, you kinda like it. It’s okay, we do, too. “I’m dreaming of a dead Christmas…”
29. Doctor Octoroc, “Have Yourself a Little Final Fantasy.” From the album 8-Bit Jesus. ‘Nuff said.
30. DEVO, “Merry Something to You.” When a Yuletide comes along, you must whip it. We spent about an hour throwing DEVO puns around and that was the best we could come up with. Sorry.
31. Heather Noel, “Santa Came on a Nuclear Missile.” We went back to the The American Song-Poem Christmas well for this bizarre little Cold War-era artifact. Ah, those were the days.
32. William Hung, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Among the many reasons American Idol sucks worse than ever these days, there’s this: That show has never produced another would-be contestant as delightfully terrible as William James Hung Hing Cheong. If it was nothing but tone-deaf wannabes with humorous foreign accents, we’d watch that shit all the time.
33. Eban Schletter, “Carol of the Bells.” When he’s not composing music for shows like Spongebob Squarepants, Eban Schletter records bizarre concept albums like Cosmic Christmas, which has something to do with a satellite that brings the spirit of Christmas to alien civilizations, but is mostly just an excuse for him to do theremin-and-analog-synth covers of old holiday warhorses like “Carol of the Bells.” Cosmic, man!
34. Angry Snowmans, “Drinkin’ Rum & Egg Nog.” A reader named David really wanted us to feature these guys. So here you go, David! Just remember to drink responsibly: After your fifth rum & eggnog, switch to brandy & eggnog.
35. MDC, “Black Christmas.” A little holiday nihilism, courtesy of the Bay Area punk band known alternately as Millions of Dead Cops or Multi-Death Corporation. On second thought, David, go ahead and drink yourself into oblivion. Damn, we’re all depressed now. But hey, I bet I know what would cheer us up…
36. Jingle Cats, “White Christmas.” Nope, that really didn’t help at all. Let’s try something else…
37. Sparks, “Thank God It’s Not Christmas.” Ah, much better. This is the venerable art-pop duo Sparks in full ’70s glam-rock mode. We’re not even sure what it really has to do with Christmas, but it’s just a great song.
38. The Polyphonic Spree, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Tim DeLaughter’s orchestral rock ensemble in full-on psych-rock mode, from their new Christmas collection, Holidaydream. If more Christmas carols were this creepy and minor-key, the holiday music at the mall might actually be bearable.
39. The Flaming Lips, “A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn’t So).” This isn’t really the Lips at their weirdest. But it’s certainly Wayne Coyne at his most awkwardly sincere. You’re not just a dreamer, Wayne. We believe it can all change! Even here at Weird Band HQ, we’re not above a little peace-on-earth sentimentality. In fact, after all the shitty Top 40 versions of “Frosty the Snowman” have faded, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
40. Barnes & Barnes, “I Had Sex With Santa.” Well, that and a few cheap laughs. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
