Merry Christmas, everyone! With post counts down due to the pandemic and holiday commitments, let's revive an old chestnut of the site, where I'd share some seasonal videos and covers from local musicians on Christmas Day, just as a present to you guys. We're gonna lean heavily into the recent catalog of prolific local punk frontman & dtummer Mikey Hawdon, who has achieved a new level of recognition with his Mikey & His Uke series of collaborative covers during the pandemic! We only really talk about the covers on the SMS when he enlists more local talent or makes the local news, as I believe he still lives in Southern Ontario, but it's the holidays, and earlier this week, he finally tackled a Christmas song in the series! In this case, it's The Vandals' "Oi To The World" from their punk Christmas album of the same name, and Mikey enlisted another talented band for this one!
Alongside him on guitar (and initially, ukelele), he's joined by vocalists Sirae Richardson, Erin MacKenzie, and Brianne McWane from twelve-piece Boston band The Doped Up Dollies, plus ex-Suicidal Tendencies guitarist Rocky George, Buck-O-Nine bassist Andy Platfoot, and Goldfinger drummer Darren Pfeiffer (a frequent guest on his own). Fun cover for punk fans with lots of upbeat performances, and given the high number of punk Christmas albums, it was only natural for something from those to get the Mikey & His Uke treatment finally! Give it a watch below!
Next up, this was an album that I already mentioned on the SMS seven years ago today, but let's shine a spotlight on Mikey's most recent non-uke band with him on vocals & guitar, namely Toronto punk quartet The Fairmounts, who were featured on the 2011 compilation album "Christmas with The Salads & Friends"! Yes, The Salads (the Newmarket ska punk band of "Get Loose" fame) curated a 15 song compilation CD of Christmas carols and seasonal songs from 14 different Canadian bands, with The Salads themselves playing the first two. Readers may recognize illScarlett, The Killing Time Band, and The Johnstones among the performer lineup, with The Fairmounts offering up what appears to be an original song named "Christmas Tradition". This one is a straight-forward song about fondly remembered Christmas traditions, and it's not tongue in cheek at all beyond being played by a punk band.
Fans of Mikey's vocal/guitar exploits post-Lion Ride will be right at home with The Fairmounts' offering here, so give Mikey, Phil, Simon, and Andrew's own punk carol a listen below, and hopefully we'll hear more from them in one form or another when the pandemic eases up!
And yes, Mikey pulled double duty on "Christmas with The Salads & Friends" via his then-role as drummer with local Celtic punk band Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide! As you may recall us mentioning on the site in 2014, Dustin, the Jaaskelainens, and Mikey recorded their own skewed take on "The 12 Daze of Christmas" (sic), with all of the gifts being changed from birds and rings and such to alcohol (starting with Dustin getting a straight shot of warm whiskey). Aside from the boozy lyrics, this is a fun cover that is played straight in regards to their genre, so fans will definitely take to it! Hopefully we hear more from The Tide in the new year!
If you want to hear studio versions of Christmas songs from local metal, hard rock, and/or punk bands, there are a few other options out there. The original crash band Sykotyk Rampage included a medley of Christmas songs as only they can play them (entitled "Christmas Melody") at the end of their 2012 album "The Cross", which is largely a concept album about religious skepticism. More recently, Late & Loud included two Christmas songs ("Green Slays" & "Dirge of the Bells") way out of season in their podcast score album "Late & Legends 1" from April 2021. But of course, the titans of Christmas metal in this area are Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night, who have their 2010 instrumental album "Christmas Night", later carols with far-flung vocalists Gaby Koss & Ida Elena, their Christmas tours from 2017-2019 with ex-I.S.O.M. vocalist Rachel Mender, and most recently, two studio re-recordings with their current lineup towards a second Christmas album, complete with official music videos.
Visit Theatre of Night's YouTube channel and Reverbnation page to see and hear everything seasonal they have to offer so far! Their two newest music videos teased that they were recording a second Christmas album, this time with Craig & Steve joined by Rachel, Erik, and their still-unrevealed new bassist, but if the aim is to put that out in time for Christmas, then I wouldn't expect it until late 2022. Rather than re-post something I just covered this year, why not re-watch their full Christmas concert in Holland from 2019? If you want a TSO-style brand of metallized carols, this should do the trick, but there's way more where that came from in Theatre of Night's online pages!
That's all for today, but have a Merry Christmas, and stay tuned next for this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Thanks everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment