Merry Christmas from Nashville
With Christmas a mere four days away, everyone seems to fall into one of two categories; the bah-humbug types who are fed up with the last minute hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping, and those who are bound and determined to spread holiday cheer. Some of my favorite local bands apparently fall into the latter category, and have posted seasonal songs on their Myspace profiles. Here's a roundup the yuletide offerings from some of Nashville's finest...
Last year Lylas released A Christmas Kiss from Lylas, and they have both of the "proper" songs from the EP available for download, along with the b-side from their first single, "Let's All Go Caroling." Since they haven't posted either of the two brief instrumentals that bookend the EP (and no one else has either), here they are for your listening pleasure...
Lylas - "Theme for Saint Nicholas" (mp3)
Lylas - "Snowfall Since Midnight" (mp3)
Former Save Macaulay frontwoman Caitlin Rose has recorded recorded a straight up country version of the classic "Blue Christmas," only with trombone. Why haven't more people thought of including trombone on country songs? It sounds surprisingly awesome.
Two of the local bands that contributed songs to the Toys For Tots benefit album Peace On Earth have their tracks availalble for streaming, Sleeptalker's "This Is Christmas," and The Winston Jazz Routine's "Through The Snow."
Several years ago Matthew Ryan contributed a incredibly cool version of "Little Drummer Boy" to Nettwerk's Christmas Songs album. It's not posted on his main myspace profile, but you can listen to it here.
The Features have a track up called "Father Christmas" that is not a cover of the Kinks classic. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I couldn't find a lick of info about it online. Anyone???
Timbre is one of my favorite local artists, but I always struggle to describe her music (indie classical?). Regardless, she has two Christmas songs posted on her profile; the traditional "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and a new song which tells a variation of the fable about the Robin fanning the embers of the fire to warm Baby Jesus, "Robin Red Breast."
And finally (self promotion alert), my own band Paris Street released a Christmas EP this year, simply called Winter. Three of the four songs (two originals, and a cover of "A Marshmallow World") are available for download on our myspace profile. The one that isn't is a cover of a song by Hefner.
Paris Street - "The Little Baby Hefner's Xmas Song For Holland" (mp3)
If you know of anyone I forgot, feel free to link to them in the comments. And from our city to yours, have a super fantastic very merry Christmas.
photo by Chris Wage
: 12/23/2007 9:43 PM << Home
