Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Go Christmas Crazy!
Mike C.'s 4th Annual Xmas Party
Wednesday, Dec. 21
8 p.m. till late
no cover
at MANITOBA'S
99 Avenue B between 6th & 7th St., NYC
Christmas music is an odd beast. It fascinates me to no end that an entire musical genre exists around our culture's most pervasive holiday. There is so much good Christmas music, and the fact that the window to listen to it each year is a fleeting few weeks makes it all the more precious. Many stores and radio stations fire up the Christmas tuneage in mid-November, but I think playing Christmas music before December 1st is just gauche. I'm a huge fan of the genre, yet I don't even really get in the mood to hear the stuff until around December 10th. But when the fever hits me, I go overboard, and no musical holds are barred. That's why I take it to the bars.
For the fourth consecutive year, I am hosting a party at which I will be spinning nothing but holiday tunes. Oh, I've established some wiggle room for myself, widening the boundaries enough in order to play a few tunes that don't include sleigh bells—songs with the words "holiday" or "Jesus" in the title are fair game—but this party is all about good music and the radical juxtaposition thereof. You might hear Julie Andrews and Foghat back to back, or The Dead Kennedys segued into Perry Como. It's unscripted, so the sky—and the audience's tolerance for a spectrum of music ranging from The Mormon Tabernacle Choir to King Diamond—is the proverbial limit.
This year I'm doing something different by bringing the party, which has had a great run the past three years at The Goldhawk in Hoboken, into the rock & roll confines of Manitoba's in Alphabet City. It's gonna be an honor and a privilege to bring some Xmas love to one of the definitive downtown rock & roll joints. Get there early for candy canes and other fun crap; stay late to indulge in the comforting warmth of musical blasphemy.
