MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS – liner notes

Dear readers-
what follows are the liner notes to the CD I compiled while weathering the agony of being at home this Thanksgiving. If you have any suggestions for songs that I need to add to my collection please write in! And now, the notes:

Let’s get one thing straight: I hate the Christmas season. People being so fucking cheerful all the time, society painfully separated into the haves and have-nots, rampant commercialism, ludicrous television holiday specials like the one where the Flintstones celebrate the birth of Christ about a million years before he was born (yes, that actually exists), my mother dragging me off to midnight mass when I could have been getting laid or drunk, people utterly forgetting the point of the whole thing (which really bugs me, and I’m not even the least bit religious) and any number of other seasonal irritants. Yet, number one on my list of holiday dread is the endless, all-pervasive Christmas music. It first starts to wend its insidious way into my brain right around Halloween, and keeps on going until mid-January. Worst of all, my mother is probably the number one fan of Christmas music, so I’m even subjected to it when I go home for the holidays.

As you know, I refuse to bow in the face of oppression, so I began a campaign to save my seasonal sanity by finding pleasing (to me at least) alternatives to the vomitous dreck that I have to hear each year back in 1984. That was the year that I got my hands on the Feederz’s infamous vinyl sacrilege “Jesus Entering From The Rear,” a song that equates Christianity with a homosexual rape with a two thousand year duration. Nearly everyone who has ever heard this record finds it incredibly offensive, but it is such a catchy little punker that it is virtually impossible to get out of your head. From that point on, I have collected oddball Christmas records, and each year I treat myself to the latest in such items.

Here’s a compilation of questionable Yuletide classics culled from Brooklyn’s most infamous record collection, the Vault of El Buncho (over 1000 records and CDs, and still growing). Enjoy (or possibly be offended), and remember the cardinal rule:

THIS ONE AIN’T FOR THE KIDDIES!!!

MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS - Mr. Garrison
Nothing goes together like peace on Earth and rampaging ethnic/religious intolerance. “South Park’s” Mr. Garrison gives us his heartfelt sentiments on nations and people who have the unmitigated gall to not celebrate Christmas.

CHRISTMAS IS A COMIN’ (MAY GOD BLESS YOU) – The Shitbirds
This is one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, twisted or not. This is genuinely fun, and you should check out the lead singer, April March’s first solo album, “Paris In April.” This one has to do with drunkenness and Santa’s elves happily manufacturing “Christmas cigarettes.”

HARK THE HAIRLIP ANGELS SING – John Valby
Easily the dirtiest recording artist in any musical genre in America, I have held this guy in the highest of low estimation for over twenty years, and my opinion has not changed one iota. Here’s a fantastic simultaneous ruination of a yuletide favorite and an offensive gag at the expense of the facially disfigured.

FUCK CHRISTMAS – Fear
The legendary Los Angeles punkers’ contribution to the Yuletide ouvre. I don’t know how well-known these guys are on your side of the pond, but they are best known for such classics as “Have A Beer With Fear,” “Beef Bologna,” “Mengele,” and that undisputed classic “New York’s Alright (If You Like Saxophones).” The vocalist, Lee Ving, doesn’t sing so much as scream like a drunken hockey fan. He was last seen somewhere around 1987 in an episode of the nauseating “Fame” TV series as a sensitive mob enforcer who belts out “The Impossible Dream.” A sad coda to a great crash-and-burn career.

FROSTY - John Valby
Did you ever see that shitty cartoon about Frosty the snowman coming to life, and being pursued by an evil stage magician (with character designs by Mad magazine legend Paul Coker Jr)? I first saw it around 1970, and it has polluted the American airwaves yearly ever since. This is the version of the song that needs a half-hour cartoon! Listen for yourself and see what I mean.

SANTA CAME HOME DRUNK - Clyde Lasley & The Cadillac Baby Specials
An early 1960’s R&B gem in which a black guy in a Santa suit decides to get seriously fucked up on Christmas Eve. Truly amazing.

DON’T BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS - The Sonics
Another one about getting shafted, gifts-wise. From the long-defunct band that gave the world the classic ode to imbibing household toxins, “Strychnine.”

SANTA CLAUS IS WATCHING YOU - Ray Stevens
I was always a bit creeped-out by the idea of Santa seeing everything that you do, all year ‘round and grading you on it via what you get, gifts-wise. Theoretically, the fat bastard watched you while you were taking a dump or beating off, or stealing money from grandma’s purse, or whatever it is that kids get up to. From the genius who gave the world “The Streak,” this ode to Yuletide paranoia will always warm my heart because of the little kids’ hysterical cries of “He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!” Sort of like a junior Kevin McCarthy at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The bottom line: if he sees you fucking up, forget about prezzies.

HOORAY FOR SANTA CLAUS - Sloppy Seconds
A brief bit of back story is required on this one: this is a rockin’ cover to the theme song from “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” a film that turns up perennially on lists of the worst movies ever made. Made in the early 1960’s on a budget of less cash than you have in your pockets when you’re naked, it truly must be seen to be believed. The basic plot: Martian children are miserable and lethargic, so the Martian elders decide to kidnap Santa Claus to make them happy. “Mystery Science Theater 3000” had a field day with it about ten years ago, and I run their version of it every Christmas Eve, along with the equally-awful Mexican “Santa Claus” movie (which features allegedly-African children in Tarzan getups with bones in their hair), that instant classic of Yuletide bad taste “Bad Santa,” and the splatter “classic” double-feature of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and “Christmas Evil.” “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” (and “Santa Claus”) was re-released yearly for nearly two decades, and made a boatload of money over those years. Even at age six, I knew it was staggeringly bad. If you have never seen it, “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is a film that I could not recommend more as a drunken party film. And it features the screen debut of seven-year-old Pia Zadora, who would later go on to bare all in such masterworks as “Butterfly” (in which her character fucks her father!!!) and “The Lonely Lady” (wherein her character is raped with a garden-hose nozzle by Ray “Goodfellas” Liotta. No, really).

HOMO CHRISTMAS - Pansy Division
The second-greatest gay Christmas song of all time. What’s number one? We’ll get to that…

IT’S CHRISTMAS - Bouquet of Veal
This song comes very close to nailing all of the details of my Christmases from 1985-1990. And, yes, I actually did once have sex with a girlfriend in the snow. I don’t recommend it (the snow part, not the girlfriend. Well, actually…).

BLUE XMAS – Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough is better known to most of us as the southern-accented guy behind the old “Schoolhouse Rock” TV segments such as “Three Is A Magic Number” and “Little Twelvetoes,” and here he demonstrates an incredible, soft-spoken seasonally driven cynicism that I wish I had written. Easily the most intelligent, erudite and musically sound entry on this disc.

A MERRY JINGLE – The Greedies
Thick-accented British punkers from back in the days get into the spirit.

DECK THE HALLS - Metal Mike, Alison & Julia
Why is it that heavy metal and Christmas go together so well?

O COME EMMANUEL - John Valby
The Master strikes again, this time combining stolid church music and ass-fucking.

HERE COMES SANTA’S PUSSY - The Frogs
This is the number one gay-themed Christmas recording. When Santa returns from his round-the-world gift-giving jaunt, Mrs. Claus takes a hike and Santa and the elves have a cross-dressing, bestiality-laden homosexual orgy to blow off some steam. I would love to see Ron Howard direct a feature film of this!

DADDY DRANK OUR CHRISTMAS MONEY - TVTV$
Self-explanatory and very funny.

RUN, RUN RUDOLPH – The Humpers
Nothing naughty or strange here, just a kickass version of the Chuck Berry chestnut.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, FUCK YOU – Jet Boys
What’s the first thing that you do when learning a foreign language? Learn all of the curse words, of course! Here’s what happens when a bunch of Japanese punk rockers get their hands on a translation book and decide to cut a Christmas record.

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY – The Bomboras
A great surf version of a tune that has been covered in a million different styles.

NOTHING FOR ME – The Muffs
Good girl-groups are hard to find these days, but the Muffs give me hope. A great, bitter little tune about getting shafted, gifts-wise.

I DON’T HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE (SOYLENT NIGHT)
- Mark Mothersbaugh
Ah, Markie… The front man for my all time favorite band, namely Devo, contributes this ultra-disturbing blend of hip-hop, psychedelia and nativity-related cannibalism. Don’t know what “Soylent” is? Rent the movie “Soylent Green” and find out for yourself.

HOLY SHIT IT’S CHRISTMAS – Red Peters
The long-needed upraised middle finger to the odious “Chipmunk Song” from one of contemporary music’s most unashamedly offensive and puerile performers. Almost as funny as his immortal “Take It Out At The Ballgame,” this features Red’s vulgar adventures with a bunch of foul-mouthed hamsters who serve as vile stand-ins for Alvin and his douchey brothers. If the FCC would allow this to be played on the radio it would sell as well as the old Singing Dogs version of “Jingle Bells.”

I’LL BE STONED FOR CHRISTMAS -John Valby
This was the anthem of myself and many a college student in the 1980’s during the holidays.

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN - Joseph Spence
I don’t know what was up when this guy recorded this one, but he sure as hell sounds drunk to me! Easily the most entertaining version of this song ever recorded. And it’s live, too!

CHRISTMAS WHEN YOU’RE DEAD – Ralph Sinatra
Hands down, this is the funniest Christmas song I have ever heard since it is cheerfully ghoulish and flagrantly disrespects both sappy holiday songs and the incalculably overrated talents of Frank Sinatra (I’m a Bing Crosby man). In a nutshell, this is the corpse of old blue eyes singing about the Christmas experience once he joined the choir invisible. Gains extra points for sending my very religious mother into a state of total apoplexy.

CHRISTMASTIME IN HELL – Satan
Here’s what happens when the Devil himself gets into the Christmas spirit.

NO PRESENTS FOR CHRISTMAS - King Diamond
What the…!!? A Christmas song from the Dark Lord of Nordic Satanic metal? Hey, stranger things have been known to happen.

CHRISTMAS IN JAIL - The Youngsters
A warning about drunk driving.

A SURFER’S CHRISTMAS LIST – Surfaris
Nothing naughty here, just some fun from the geniuses behind what may be the most famous surf instrumental, namely “Wipeout.”

KANSAS CITY – John Valby
The perfect coda to all of this seasonal bad taste, here’s one of Santa’s elves desecrating the 1960’s classic about going to Kansas City in search of chicks by turning it into a heartfelt ode to the fine art of titty-fucking.