christmas and gregory porter

The big jazz singer Gregory Porter and CAGG is not an obvious combination. His first Christmas album 'Christmas Wish' contains a lot of smooth  and slick songs, with only a few covers. Like Stevie Wonder's 'One Day At Christmas'. But there is one surprising song, the title track, on his album. It's about his dearest wish:

If I had one wish, one wish to gift  that  day

It would be to kiss my momma on Christmas day 

It starts with an old fashioned swinging organ and slowly it turns into a crazy gospel song. His brown voice with a real gospel choir is a great combination.

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Melanie Ryan

Name one better reason to write a Christmas song while you're in a songwriting session together with Judy Blank halfway March and it suddenly starts snowing. There isn't one. And so Dutch singer-songwriter Melanie Ryan and Judy did, they wrote an original Christmas track for this year at that very moment.
Now regular visitors of this blog know very well that we hold Judy Blank in high regard here, so the omens were good and it did turn out well.
Melanie describes her music as 'braided style country', where pop meets folk, meets country, meets americana. Her beautiful, crystal clear voice brings all these styles together with great ease and naturalness, making it a style all her own. 

Oh and we know and immediately admit it: true romance doesn't always dominate here on CAGG, but with this one from Melanie we more than make up for that. Her beautiful warm and sensitive song 'Everything I Need Is Here' subtly shows what life is really all about and so also during Christmas. Now light up that fireplace! 

Insta over here. X over there.

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Swansea Sound

The Swansea Sound from - you guessed right - Swansea in the UK, is specialized in singalong indiepoppunk and recorded three Christmas tracks this year. The one featured here is 'Santa Bail Me Out' and is about how you should, even with a bank account deeply in the red, still celebrate Christmas. Maybe even extra hard. The other two songs are in fact two of a kind. 'Nadolilg, Pwy A Wyr?' is sung in Welsh by Catrin Saran James, who is actually not a real band member, but does the artwork for the band, while 'The Life We Led' is sung in English by Hue Williams and Amelia Fletcher. Both songs will be released December 8th.
And don't forget to join in to their very short Christmas Listening Party on 9th December, because "The band will be up for a chat and will answer any questions, although they may be quite drunk." Don't say we didn't warn you. 

Insta over here, X over there.

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Ballsy - OMG, it's Xmas

More than three minutes of quirky, cheerful and up-tempo Christmas pop music, that is Ballsy's Christmas gift to us and we accept that gift with gratitude. No difficult stuff, just uncomplicated and undisguised longing for those cold and snowy days underneath the mistletoe in Montreal, Québec.

A festive live video over here, Insta over there.

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A Brown Christmas - R.I.P. Karl Tremblay

Karl Tremblay, the popular lead singer of Québec's modern folk group Les Cowboys Fringants, died on November 15, 2023. One of the band's last performances with Tremblay was in Québec City at the Festival d’été de Québec in July 2022, the third biggest outdoor event in Canada. It was such a big deal that Les Cowboys Fringants could play that an extra day was added to the festival, with 90,000 people there just for that show. For context, Karl Tremblay is French-speaking Canada's answer to English-speaking Canada's Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip.

A few weeks later, performing in a small city, the band had Tremblay singing, sat down, and did the same to not make it weird. Karl picked up on that and told the crowd, "You came here to see us sing, not to see us dance," to lighten the mood.

Les Cowboys Fringants' 2021 album 'Les nuits de Repentigny' ('Repentigny Nights') named after the sleepy city near Montréal the band hails from, features the Christmas song 'Noël brun' ('Brown Christmas)'. It's about being dumped on Christmas Eve and the brown part is about coffee. Kinda.

Alone on a night with no moon
Sitting in a Tim Hortons
Brown Christmas, my childlike heart is far away
A thousand miles from the good old days

Karl Tremblay, rest in peace.

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Fresh snow and warm feelings - Zoe Sanders

True to Montréal form, pop singer Zoe Sanders sings in both French and English. It's Québec's language equivalent of non-binary: it doesn't matter where you were born, who your parents are and what side people think you're on, you're both because 'oui can'. Get it?

Sanders' Christmas single 'La chute est douce' ('The soft fall') feels like being stuck in dark, downtown Montréal traffic but the powdered snow is so beautifully that you don't care. Or it's the caribou you drank at the office Christmas party kicking in. Or both. And you're not driving!

Besides having been a model, Sanders writes all her songs. She should be blasting off into space career-wise.

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Discohen

Question: Is Leonard Cohen a Christmas artist? His (edited) song Hallelujah is - for it is covered on many Christmas albums. I saw this YouTube compilation. And come to think of it, songs like If It Be Your Will or You Want It Darker ('Vilified, crucified/In the human frame/A million candles burning/For the help that never came') have a certain Christmassy feel.

Another question; is Anita Ward's Ring My Bell a Christmas song? There's a bell involved, sure. But it's pretty easy to spot that the song is about sex. Christmas & Sex, what a combination. We should to a themed post ab...oh wait.

A deep Cohenned voice + sex and disco, that's where Discohen comes in: the project of Dutch duo Tejje Venema & Pim van de Werken. In 2016 they found out that Tejje could sing really low, like Leonard. And that it was really funny AND cool if he sang certified dance classics like Donna Summer's Hot Stuff and Divine's Shoot Your Shot inna Lenny Cohen stylee. And oh yeah, change (in the lyrics of 'Ring My Bell;) 'dishes' into 'tissues'. A full album and an EP were released. Sure, it's a joke, but Tejje & Pim are also very serious. This is good stuff.

Side note: Cohen himself did one disco'ish track, Don't Go Home With Your Hard On, certainly not a Christmas song.

Back to now. For tis season, Discohen remixed 'Ring My Bell', added a fierce church bell, and see: it's gothic, it's sexy, it's a song to hear between red velvet sheets. You want it darker? If that be your will:

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néomí

Another very talented singer from The Netherlands is néomí (Neomi Speelman). Earlier this year she released 'After', a beautiful spheric indiefolk album about being young and growing old. And so in a way, her new song is about that too. It's not necessarily intended as a Christmas track, although it does have that specific atmosphere, but without ringing bells and all that stuff.
She's open about her granddad suffering from Alzheimer in 'Garden', a slightly sad but loving song with a very personal video. And on Christmas Eve, even though he probably has no idea, she will tell him again how much he loves her grandmother. A beautiful, moving and honest track that overflows with love.

Insta over here, X over there.

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Marike Jager

It has been far too long since we welcomed Marike Jager to our blog. Back in 2011 she recorded a cheerful and damn good cover of 'Frosty The Snowman' which was accompanied by a touchingly sweet home-made video, but after that there were no more Christmas releases. But it's been twelve years now and luckily, she's back on Christmas track! The Dutch singer-songwriter has written a wonderfully glowing and acoustic Christmas song full of love and with delicate choirs in the background, that beckons and longs for being together just one more time. She accompanies herself on guitar and with an occasional honky tonk piano tune, making it feel so intimate, it's almost as if you're right there on the couch with her. And yes, you heard right, there's nod to mr Presley there.

"Stay with me
Let us curl on the sofa
Oh baby, hold me tight
Love me one more night
It's Christmas"
 We wouldn't even dare refuse.

A gem of a song. Please don't let it take another twelve years, Marike.
Insta over here, X over there.

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Freedom Fry

Connecting the dots between folk, 60s and 70s pop and indie rock is what Freedom Fry from Los Angeles, California aims to do. And so they connected with a cover of 'The Christmas Song', the unparalleled Nat King Cole classic. But the French/American duo also wrote an original too: 'Who's That Walking on my Rooftop?'. A joyful and retro poppy Christmas track, sweet and smooth, makes it the ideal accompaniment for an intimate dinner with a full-bodied red wine and the curtains closed.

More Freedom Fry on CAGG in 2017 and last year also. 

Insta over here, X over there.

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Don't Call me Ishmael

Tinseling up the alt Christmas scene since 2015, our friends of UK band Don't Call Me Ishmael are gearing up for the season with a four-track EP, all new and original songs. And yes, you guessed it, this EP is as fine as the bestest earlier offerings of DCMI.

This stingy little rocker is a taster of more goods to follow (EP is online now, by the way). We had a sneak peek already, there are more hooks on this EP than on any Boston whaler ship in the Moby Dick-era:


The EP is LIVE right now, see the video:

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Window Business

Window Business is a duo from Spokane, and Portland, USA. Chief Windowers are Will and Tim, they make music since 2014 and I count five albums. But very VERY little people have heard of 'm: close to zero plays on Soundcloud and Spotify. Odd! They need to be heard more!
They make blues and folk inspired music; sparse, slow, with a loose groove. And sometimes tragicomic lyrics. Or very sad, listen to 'Tell the kids'. Their albums are downloadable for free on their website.

I bumped into them by accident, when I was searching for the original version of this song posted on Christmas Underground. If you like a more laidback Gaspard Royant or JD McPherson, you might enjoy this (it's not a cover):

Window Business · Holidays Are Hard

This track, also from their Christmas album, about drinking and listening to James Brown on Christmas, sits very nicely on any Xmas mix:

Window Business · Brandy & Eggnog

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Frog

Antcipation's building for this Friday, 'cuz you bet a lot of new Christmas songs will be released. Also on Friday, a new album by New York indie darlings Frog, the band led by Daniel and Steve Bateman. Frog loves hooks and melodies, some review I read compared them to a cool seventies rock station. Vulfpeck sprang to mind when I listened to a few tracks. And Ween.
In 2015, Frog released an album called Kind of Blah, with a fine, hidden Christmas track called Wish Upon a Bar. It builds and builds and builds to one heck of a finale. I only recently got acquinted with this track, thought you'd like to know it too:
I am adding it to my best Christmas drinking songs Spotify playlist too.

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Sharks and Minnows

These guys from Atlanta, Sharks and Minnows, normally are a pop influenced indie rock band. Not this time of the year though. They now show a different and lighter musical side of themselves on this great Christmas original. Still guitar-driven, but less wild and in the chorus even fragments of Beach Boys-a-like sweet harmonious singing. But don't let that fool you! The lyrics sadly tells about that one night that could make up for the whole year, those nights that were never silent, even though it was Christmas.

Insta over here, X over there.

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Ivan Cunningham's early Christmas spirit

When we say 'We present you the weird and the wonderful, the odd and the old', we mean it. And when it comes to weird and odd, you'll get easily to Ivan Cunningham's Freedom Pie. And they got into the Christmas spirit early, because their Christmas track could already be heard on their album from May (!) this year. Ivan Cunningham's music leans on avant-garde, is highly DIY and experimental, but mostly with delicate song structures underneath. No sleigh bells required. Just give it a try.

This is my song about Christmas
I’m feeling happy, how are you?
The reindeer will spin, the mice they won’t win
The snow is red with blood from all our sins

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Lonely Christmas Calls And Candy Canes

Always a good idea to start the week with some nice Christmassy powerpop rock tunes. And you can leave that to Geoff Palmer, the one you might know for his contributions to punk band The Guts. Don't come over to Geoff for difficult stuff, but when it comes to write or re-write a solid song, you can leave it up to him. 'Lonely Christmas Call' is a cover of the George Jones classic from 1962 and shows more of Geoffs introspective side. The second one, 'Cocktails and Candy Canes' is a festive original, more up-tempo, more bells, more booze, more stolen kisses from underneath the mistletoe.
(But what about that Clockwork Orange-a-like artwork?)

Insta over here, X over there.

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Count down 'till Christmas with Peaness

Don't let them be misunderstood. Peaness has "more hooks, charm and depth than a dozen identikit indie-boy bores" and I'd like to add some real Christmas swag to that, as they managed to record an instant Christmas banger with Kiss Me Sweet Pea.
This festive indie-pop track starts with the well known Christmas sleigh bells and then goes up a gear with tinkling guitars and catchy harmonious singing that is distantly reminiscent of the early Bangles. 

Now let us count down the days 'till Christmas together with these three girls from Chester, England. Whooo! (And don't forget to check out their great second Christmas original 'Sad Season' too.) 

This track is one of few new Christmas tracks on 'Jangle Bells', a soon to be released Rough Trade Christmas compilation. 

Insta over there and their X over there.

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Julie Aubé - Ça c'est Noël

"Hey Natasha, why haven't written about Julie Aubé yet? Good question, Guuz, let's remedy that right now!"

Julie Aubé used to be part of indy folk trio Les Hay Babies from New Brunswick, where artists such as Lisa Leblanc, Les Hôtesses d'Hilaire and Marie-Jo Thério come from (Google it all). 'Ça c'est Noël' ('That's Christmas') has a lovely Acadian flavour, complete with a twangy guitar and references to mixed tapes to match the artwork's retro look. Tuques (winter hats), mittens, shovels and skates: this song has it all. It's comfort food for the Canadian soul, and hopefully for anybody else looking in.

If you buy the track, the money will go to a New Brunswick food bank. That's definitely Christmas.

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Secret Santas

So, it's Friday, there are a lot of new Xmas songs released today. See the Spotify playlist to keep up. On this blog, we're taking it back to 2017. A Canadian band called Secret Santas released, on Bandcamp, this indie rocker. Reminds me of Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, Violent Femmes. It's uptempo, it's nostalgic, it's catchy.
This was the only song by Secret Santas, I have no clue who 'Messier/Trudeau' are, the songwriters. Anyone with knowledge in Canadian indie that knows who's behind it? It's good. It's a potential classic, even.


So then I thought: are there any good songs with the title 'Secret Santa' (because there are a lot of songs with a variation on 'Christmastime with you')? Slighty more than a handful, it turned out.
This deep funky track by Charlie's Hand Movements, of course:
Our powerpoppin' Vista Blue friends made a good one:
From 2015, this gritty track, recorded for Jon Solomon's Xmas Marathon:
Longboat are billing themselves as 'Seattle's least favorite band', but this organic rocker is cool. It sounds like Lou Reed in a really good mood. It's from a full album with originals, that I need to explore (but 'It's Not Christmas Til the Trees Catches Fire' sounds good for the title alone):
Upbeat indie from Monkeys in Love (who made a louder, probably better Christmas song later):

Monkeys In Love · Secret Santa Party #1 (in Comic Sans)

And this Velvet Underground-ish track by Suzies:

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Beta Radio

I looked it up, Beta Radio gets one hit on this blog, in a mix by Blues Are Still Blue in 2011 (HERE). Other than that, the duo (Benjamin & Brent) are omitted. Which is...odd. They made several Xmas EP's, compiled those (HERE) and Martin/Stubby is (of course) a fan. The Stubmeister found out (on the Fa) that the duo released a new EP, with two covers and an original track. (Yes that is the cover, and yes you recognize the scene from Home Alone, no? It's also mentioned in the lyrics of the new song)
The folksky, country-tinged (lots of banjos), wonderfully sung tracks by Beta Radio are a treat, really. And their original song is too. I'm including the Paul McCartney cover too cuz it's simply wonderful. Really, try it.

Oldie but goodie:

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