Marvin Gaye played the Moog on cool and controversial Christmas tunes from cancelled 1972 single
In 1972, in the wake of his immensely successful album, What’s Going On, and its accompanying singles, Marvin Gaye released the topical 45, “You’re the…
Christmas
A Classic Ghost Story for Christmas: ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You’
The sole object of a ghost story, wrote M. R. James, is to inspire “a pleasing terror in the reader”. James was an academic and…
Having a ‘Cosmic Christmas’ with the Rolling Stones
Released in December 1967, Their Satanic Majesties Request had the working title of Cosmic Christmas, and the Stones imagined it on display in the shops…
Fiona Apple’s dad plays a crazed, killer Santa Claus in a John Waters favorite, ‘Christmas Evil’
Christmas Evil is a psychological horror movie about a unstable man obsessed with Christmas. He becomes increasingly unhinged over the course of the film, eventually…
When Luis Buñuel wrecked Charlie Chaplin’s Christmas
Eduardo Ugarte, Luis Buñuel, Jose Lopez Rubio, Leonor and Tono at Charlie Chaplin’s house, 1930 Whenever someone voices alarm about the “war on Christmas,” I…
Sun Ra’s ‘Happy New Year to You’ doowop single (and a Christmas song too!)
Sun Ra had his share of offbeat and amusing records–his Batman and Robin album and his limbo album spring to mind as typical (atypical?) Sun…
Songs Santa Claus Taught Us: Download the Christmas mix tape compiled by Lux Interior of the Cramps
The story goes that Lux Interior of the Cramps was an inveterate maker of cassette mixes for his friends. (CD mixes, much less online playlists,…
Jingle all the way: Joan Collins, Burt Reynolds, & Jayne Mansfield selling sex mags at Christmas
Hustler, 1976. I’ve never quite bought into the idea that red is always a color of sex and desire. Not that I give a fuck…
Have a M-M-Merry Max Headroom Christmas
Well, apparently computers celebrate Christmas too. Max Headroom’s Giant Christmas Turkey aired on Boxing Day in 1986. Not to be confused with the follow-up sci-fi…
Aamok: Legendary Krautrock producer released deranged anti-Christmas single in 1973
One of the oddest Christmas records of all time came out in 1973 under the name Aamok. The single was put out by the label…