Light My Christmas.
Available now for the first time… The lost recordings of one of rock and roll’s most mysterious bands… In rare Yuletide spirit, The Doors… Light my Christmas...
This puts me in a festive spirit.
Light My Christmas.
Available now for the first time… The lost recordings of one of rock and roll’s most mysterious bands… In rare Yuletide spirit, The Doors… Light my Christmas...
This puts me in a festive spirit.
Creepy Christmas ornaments for your tree this holiday season from Michelle Scrimpsheron. You can order them at Michelle’s Etsy shop for around $17.00 per ornament.
Is it just me, or does the top ornament look like an eye from an Ood?
(via Super Punch)
I’m not putting up a Christmas tree this year, but if I were to, I’d top it with Yoda… and his lightsaber. He’s available for purchase over at the NetoShop for $59.95.
Here’s an early Christmas gift from Caribou and All Tomorrow’s Parties:
From December 9th-11th 2011 at Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead, UK, All Tomorrow’s Parties will present their yearly Nightmare Before Christmas festival. This year each day is curated by a different artist: Les Savy Fav on Friday, Battles on Saturday and Caribou on Sunday.
Please enjoy this amazing mix put together by Dan Snaith (Caribou), who has created an intense hour long journey through the artists chosen for his day of the event, highlighted by a new and previously unreleased remix of Improve Me by Junior Boys.
Tracklist:
01: Toro Y Moi - Intro / Chi Chi
02: Pharoah Sanders - Prince of Peace
03: Sun Ra Arkestra - Saturn Research
04: Pharoah Sanders Interview
05: Theo Parrish - Goin’ Downstairs Parts I & II
06: Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex & Guests - Aynamaye Nesh
07: Theo Parrish - Feel Free To Be Who You Need To Be
08: Junior Boys - Improve Me (Caribou Synthapella Mix)
09: Connan Mockasin - It’s Choa My Dear
10: Orchestra of Spheres - There Is No No
11: Roll The Dice - The Suck
12: Four Tet - Pyramid
13: Silver Apples - Oscillations
14: Roll The Dice - Cause and Effect
15: Factory Floor - Wooden Box
16: Omar Souleyman - Dabke (Daphni Edit)
17: Four Tet - Our Bells
18: Pharoah Sanders Interview
20: Sun Ra Arkestra - Space Is The Place
(via Testspeil.de)
Morrissey has allowed high-street department store, John Lewis to use a cover version of “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” on the chain’s £6 million Christmas advertising campaign. The track has been covered by Slow Moving Millie (aka Amelia Warner, ex-wife of Colin Farrell, apparently), which follows on from last year’s take of Elton John’s “Your Song” recorded by Ellie Goulding.
According to the Daily Telegraph Morrissey is “delighted” that the chain was using the track. Craig Inglis, John Lewis’s marketing director, is quoted as saying:
“We know our audience holds The Smiths and bands from that era in high esteem.”
“It’s a magical feeling when you find that perfect present for someone; there’s a great sense of anticipation from the moment you buy it to the moment you give the gift on the big day.
“That feeling is exactly what we’ve tried to capture with this year’s Christmas campaign.”
Ruth Paterson, head of marketing at Rough Trade, the record label which released most of The Smiths’ work, said she was entertained by the collaboration.
“I do like the idea of a really good song by a really good band being played in Middle England’s living rooms,” she told The Times.
“I’m sure that wasn’t the song’s intended purpose, but I think that’s a good thing.”
As Morrissey edges towards a pensionable age, the “substantial pecuniary boost” this ad will bring will no doubt be greatly appreciated - though perhaps not by his fans, as if that will matter.
After Morrissey and Christmas, who’s next? And what other advert involving high street business and alleged hip musician would make for the most unlikely pairing? Suggestions, please.
The Divine David wishes us all the best for the Holidays. Let’s sing along.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
As you sit around rolling the traditional Christmas joint (presents, surely? - Ed.) or preparing the Molotov cocktails (Egg Nog, surely? - Ed.) for the glorious day, (Holidays? - Ed), we thought you might like to hear the complete Beatles Christmas records , which some groovy people have posted on this site here.
Alternatively you can listen to all of these jolly festive discs below.
Have a glorious May Day. (You’re fired! - Ed.)
Complete Beatles Christmas Records 1963-1969, after the jump…
With thanks to Steve Duffy
As we jingle along in our festive pop tunes, here’s Neil Innes singing “Dear Father Christmas” live on BBC Breakfast Time from 1984. The jaunty little tune was a single release from Innes’ fourth solo album, Off the Record, co-produced by Rod Argent.
For TV trivia fans, Innes is introduced by the legendary British TV host, Frank Bough, whose career would be cut short after a sex and drugs scandal. Nice.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
With thanks to Neil McDonald
Each year animator John Butler produces his own distinct Christmas image to send to friends. Rather than the traditional jolly Santa or nativity scene, John creates “a sinister festive image,” inspired by a work of classic science-fiction. This year’s image was inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing and John has sent it to Dangerous Minds for all of us to share. Nice.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
At first, Christian fundamentalist group Repent Amarillo’s recent charming video of their firing-squad execution of a Santa piñata in the name of putting the Savior back in to the holiday seems typical.
But after reading Canadian cannabis activist Dana Larsen’s 2003 article on the apparent psychotropic and shamanic origins of Santa Claus and many other Christmas traditions, it made some deeper sense to me.
Skip down to the explanatory vid…
According to Larsen, the Lapps of modern-day Finland and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes had holy men in their ranks who regularly imbibed the hallucinogenic red & white amanita muscaria mushroom (also known as “fly agaric”). These ‘shrooming shamen proved to be the model of the figure we now know as Santa Claus.
Larsen also contends that the Christmas tree was originally seen as a “World Tree”, typically a fir or evergreen, species under which the amanita muscaria mushroom thrived:
The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the “middle earth” of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.
So, of course, the North Star around which all stars seemed to revolve was always aligned with the top of the tree—thus the star on top of the modern Christmas tree. These ancients also saw the magic mushroom springing up as “virgin births” seeded by the morning dew, which is symbolized by the tinsel on the tree. Trippy, eh?
Also:
Below is the least campy video I could find that draws a bunch of the connections between Santa and the ‘shroom. Enjoy!
Thanks to Lexie T. for the heads-up!
To jolly us along with a festive feel, here’s Kate Bush singing a live version of “December Will Be Magic Again” from her 1979 BBC Christmas Special.
With thanks to Misty Roses
He’s a smug bastard, but he’s our smug bastard.
It’s nice to know that America’s funniest atheist activist is also part of a growing group of celebrities unafraid of the Oprah cult-mafia.
Thanks for the heads-up, Aybee Deepblak!
Enjoy a free digital LP of holiday related songs from the ultra-fine label that releases me choons. Mine’s the third one in, a song of conflicted ambivalence. Hope ya dig it. Happy Frank Zappa’s birthday, everyone !
Direct Bandcamp link: I’ll be Hometapes For Christmas
The brilliant artist Duggie Fields supplied Dangerous Minds with this fabulous Holiday snap of a Christmas party with Divine and Larry ‘J.R.’ Hagman in the 1980s. As Duggie explains:
The photo was Christmas day at Zandra Rhodes’ in London Maybe a year or two after ‘J.R.’ was shot in Dallas - Andrew Logan was also there, Joan and Jack Quinn and Janet Street-Porter too….Lunch and afternoon rather than evening…..Larry is giving out his Christmas gifts to everyone of mini portable fans with his photo on - his Patented Anti-Smoking Device...!
Previously on Dangerous Minds
Bonus snaps and clip, after the jump…