Christmas Without Schmaltz

I've heard more than a few people complain about Christmas music and how vapid and horrible they find it. Some people hate really religious numbers like "O Holy Night" and others hate pop tunes like "Silver Bells" or that thing about chestnuts roasting. I agree about the overwhelming sentimentality, however there are a few tunes that bring up images of Christmas without broaching upon issues of religion or spending money on presents.

A pretty good example is The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, which sounds very Christmas-like, songs like "I Know There's An Answer" or "God Only Knows". You could play Pet Sounds all through Xmas and still get the holiday spirit. And old JC or Saint Nick get no mention anywhere in the lyrics.

At any rate, here are a few of my personal selections of music that could convey the Christmas spirit but don't get enough play.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (Ode To Joy) - Wendy Carlos

Taken from the Clockwork Orange soundtrack album, this particular track definitely conjures images of wintertime solstice and Christmas joy, courtesy of the great mind of Ludwig Van Beethoven. I'm not sure the extremely violent footage from the movie accurately conveys that Christmas spirit, but enjoy the music anyway.

By the way, I remember The Beatles singing Beethoven's Song of Joy in the movie Help! to calm down a wild lion from tearing Ringo apart in a German cellar. Great movie!

On The Rolling Sea When Jesus Speak To Me - Van Dyke Parks

While not a Christmas song at all, but still an inspirational tune written by Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence, Van Dyke Parks' arrangement is one of the most surreal ever recorded. Parks bangs gospel piano sounding more like a roadhouse saloon, all Elmer Gantry grooves galore while a robust choir sunnily chant the lyrics, the volume of their voices going from fortissimo to pianissimo and then back again, the timbre shifting up and down like the waves of the sea. Salvation Army horns blast away with a strong Charles Ives southern gothic flair, and the whole thing is alternately exhilarating and horrifying.

I remember hearing this first on the Warner Brothers Records compilation "Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies" in 1970 and never forgot it, so hearing it again on You Tube is nothing short of great!

The Man With All The Toys - The Beach Boys

The standout track on The Beach Boys' Christmas album is this merry song about Santa Claus, a very perky little number with a light wintry guitar sound. It's funny how they have Santa Claus on the brain, what with this tune and Little Saint Nick also praising the great toy giver.

Jingle Jangle Jump - Dexter Gordon

A pretty jazzy tune about Christmas for hipsters sung by Gladys Bentley and featuring the great tenor sax playing of bebop icon Dexter Gordon. Bentley's definitely no Dinah Washington, but that's okay, this one's strictly for Gordon fans. Another cool Christmas song played by a legendary jazz giant is It's Christmas Time by The Qualities featuring Sun Ra.

Other songs I could mention is Slade's million-selling "Merry Christmas Everybody", Roy Wood's Wizzard's goofy "I Wish It Was Christmas Every Day", and Jethro Tull's dour message tune Christmas Song. No matter what the genre of music there's no shortage of Christmas music that's bound to be halfway fun to listen to without resorting to depressing maudlinity. Yeth!

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Another tiny pleasure is this brilliant Mad Magazine beatnik takeoff on The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Wally Wood. Mad Magazine, beatniks, and Wally Wood; it doesn't get much better than this:

Stone Age Electronica (1968-1971)

One of the most fascinating periods in the history of pop music was the electronic revolution in the late Sixties, most notably the inauguration of the Moog synthesizer in pop music. Very few revolutions in music disturb the record buying public: punk rock, for example, rap when it really mattered, but arguably the synthesizer might have been the most radical.

Just when rock music was getting set in its ways in 1968 with Cream and Jimi Hendrix-influenced long guitar solos, drum solos and rock operas a bizarre classical album by Walter Carlos and Benjamin Folkman called “Switched On Bach” was released and proceeded to sell half a million copies. Robert Moog’s delightful instrument had arrived to the mainstream public and they responded in alternate shades of delight and horror.

Horror because the synthesizer wasn’t considered a warm instrument by many seasoned musicians, who seriously believed at the time that it was a cold computer set out to replace real musicians. To a certain degree this has actually happened, but at the same time we’ve heard the synth long enough to understand that it can also enhance what real instruments do, and beautifully.

Prior to Bob Moog’s invention there were several electronic keyboard predecessors that made their way in pop music, most notably; (i) the mellotron, all the rage in prog music with bands like King Crimson and The Moody Blues, and; (ii) the ondioline, invented in France by Georges Jenny in the late Forties which could emulate the tone and pitch of any conventional musical instrument.

But it was the Moog that created the biggest splash and controversy when it hit the scene. The emergence of the synthesizer almost appeared to be a logical response to the ubiquitous psychedelia that was all over pop music at the time. Finally, here was a keyboard that sounded so psychedelic it would put any fuzz guitar sound to shame. It couldn’t have come at a more auspicious time in musical history.

Once the synthesizer became employed heavily in rock music it was utilized in either one of two ways: (i) as a legitimate keyboard playing conventional melodies, as Emerson, Lake & Palmer did in 1971, or (ii) as a wallpaper of musique concrete, as The Monkees did with “Daily Nightly” in 1968, or Eno’s work with Roxy Music in 1972.

To synth or not to synth, that is the question: some musicians even bypassed the super expensive keyboard altogether and created their own brilliant electronic keyboards. Some of the bands that featured their own electronic keyboard inventions were The Silver Apples and Fifty Foot Hose.

The Silver Apples were a two-piece band from New York featuring a guy named Simeon (pictured above) playing his invention named, what else, The Simeon, and a drummer who played a 13-piece kit (!) with five cymbals – this is pre-heavy metal, remember. Diagrams of both the Simeon and Dan Taylor’s drum set up were both printed on their great CD set.

Silver Apples sound not unlike another New York band, Suicide, with droney oscillations playing repetitive hypnotic melodies while Simeon sings in that dreamy voice Alan Vega made popular. Just to keep things down to Earth there’s an occasional banjo plunking in the background and it sounds just as exotic as The Simeon.

Fifty Foot Hose came around the time of the San Francisco explosion (1966-1968) and featured a great singer named Nancy Blossom. What made them stand out from the rest was a unique electronic instrument invented by band member Cork Marcheschi made up from combination of elements like the theremin, several fuzzboxes, a cardboard tube, and a speaker from a World War II bomber. To the average listener it sounds like a synthesizer.

Fifty Foot Hose released one album, “Caludron” on Limelight Records which also released “The Minotaur” by Dick Hyman, which I wrote about several years ago. The most popular track from Cauldron is the slow dirge rocker “If Not This Time”, which did well on FM radio back in the day.

While Fifty Foot Hose and Silver Apples came off as serious and dramatic there was also the more playful bunch like White Noise from England. In June 1969 White Noise, fronted by David Vorhaus released the groundbreaking album “An Electric Storm” on Island Records. The album was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques, and used the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3.

Tracks from the album like the FM radio favorite “Here Come The Fleas” have a funny cartoonish vibe featuring member Delia Derbyshire’s zany vocals enhancing the surrealism. Vorhaus adds a beautiful, melodic poignancy to tracks like “Firebird” and “Your Hidden Dreams” which recall Van Dyke Parks’ album “Song Cycle”.

Annette Peacock released an equally innovative album in 1971 on RCA Records titled “I’m The One” that deftly merged jazz, funk and electronics (from a Moog prototype given to her from Mr. Moog himself). There’s some great electronic treatments used on her voice, especially on her unique cover of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender”. Annette Peacock pretty much paved the way for artists like Tara Busch to flourish today.

What makes all these artists so special was their dedication to creating new sounds and risking commercial failure and critical disapproval – yes, even critics showed absolute contempt for electronics for years. The role of the artist is to continuously explore, discover, innovate and show us the way of the future, not follow old paths.

The artists listed above and many others not mentioned (like Perrey & Kingsley, Curved Air, Bruce Haack, etc.) were pioneers of electronics and have left behind a legacy of brilliant electronic sounds for us to enjoy forever.