Sunday Music: 'Tis The Season

You'll notice, please, that we weren't in a great all-fired hurry to trot out Christmas tunes, after the underwhelming response to the suggestion last year. And while we like the genre, we tend to be uber-traditionalist. Sadly, much of what we love has been played literally to death. So this week, we bring you two tunes: one you might remember, but probably haven't had played to death. The other you almost certainly haven't heard of until today.

The first one requires some prologue.

In planning the eventual Camp Snoopy, I was looking at alternative building techniques, and stumbled across a gem of a YouTube vlog. A family of six (yes, six!) somewhere in the southwest desert, who ditched town for the great nowhere, and who've been cranking out weekly video offerings documenting that such that they rival professional productions. I haven't missed one in about six years. Every Friday evening, they bring forth their weekly "what we've been up to this week", and they are YouTube all-stars. You should totally check out their weekly 20ish minute updates. They're as good as any show that you'll find on pay cable, and better than most.

But they do a lot more than endlessly build their home. Great parents and four kids who are multi-talented means that this week, oldest daughter Bree Whatever has the chops to drop a solid little Christmas song onto YouTube (and iTunes, etc.), which is not only radio-worthy, it's just plain good. And if you've ever spent Christmas someplace where anything like snow is a bit iffy, you'll get it. Take a look, and if you like it, share it.

The other one is an 80s quirky cult classic, from a time when bands played their instruments, and singers sang without autotune, and had to come up with a good song involving some creative lyrics and solid chops, instead of just a throbbing bass track, raunchy R-to-X-rated lyrics, and a music video with more skin than a porn shoot. Enjoy.

Seasons Greetings!

And starting today, we include some messages for friends:

Raspberry 74130

pMe&a  75M,B  rJ_I@  [7vO1  W==^| 

B9y+t  N}Fm}  NZ'i{  [TVV_  vbxF~ 

W3uD7  &.gd;  {od5z  v,onA  (@+Ns 

r31=n  i=+3h  acdpB  sGc5H  EETv>

~S?L*  JNs]L  /CP-I  q/-n7  A{RYC

Y=$xK  /Tz*1  a)C3p  kd&@P  Sh#9O

Good luck.