The Festive Funk Machine: Make Your Own Holiday Music

Sometimes the crazed “festive” holiday thing has the opposite effect: bringing on the blues. If you’re feeling a bit low, we recommend the sweet, fun Festive Funk Machine. Click on any of the robots to start making your own music…add in or “mute” any of the instruments  — from violins and bells to baselines and percussion…

Read More

Getting Ready for Christmas Day via Paul Simon

(Video link here.) Paul Simon’s ‘Getting Ready For Christmas Day‘* seems like a fitting ALT song for the run up before Christmas. It’s upbeat, secular, a tad political, full of social commentary and interwoven with excerpts from a 1941 sermon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, an influential preacher and Gospel singer. There’s also a lot of things leaping…

Read More

the swingin’ night before xmas

Cara de Silva sent us this fab video as a gift after watching our Ode to Joy post. It’s the great Django Reinhardt performing “Christmas Swing” (December 1937, Paris) set to footage from “The Night Before Christmas,” a television special from the 1950’s, sponsored by the Bell Telephone Company, PA., featuring the Mabel Beaton Marionettes.…

Read More