In Our Headphones

Mike Farris - "Havana Santa," a 2021 single on Compass Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Let’s be honest, there’s not a whole lot that’s sexy about Santa Claus. But have you met his brother? Ow ow! Grammy Award winning gospel, blues, and roots artist Mike Farris introduces a new character to the holidays with “Havana Santa.” The heated Latin track swaps the snow for the sea, where we meet the rum-drinking, mambo-dancing, red Camino-driving brother of St. Nick that’s living a very sultry life south of the border. Apparently, the inspiration to make a Latin-style Christmas song came after Farris and his 13-piece holiday band covered a Marc Anthony song during their annual “Soul of Christmas” show in Nashville one year and it was an absolute crowd-pleaser. Farris had this to say about the song: “The whole approach to writing “Havana Santa” was the same approach to the Soul of Christmas shows, and that is to bring maximum amounts of fun to the holiday season and to just fill the season with great memories and cheek numbing joy!” The track features a long list of long-time collaborators and includes six Grammy award winners among them: Derrek Phillips (drums), Dave Roe (bass), Kenny Greenberg (guitars), Kevin Mckendree (piano/hammond organ), Giovanni Rodriguez (percussion), Jim Hoke (tenor and baritone sax/accordion), Steve Hermann (trumpet), Yates Mckendree (bass), Saunya Clayborn (singer), Samson White (singer), additional singers are Dave Roe, Giovanni Rodriguez, Jamie-Sue Seal, Cassidy Zuver, Derrek Phillips and Kenny Greenberg. Get a taste of the fun that Farris and his collaborators bring to their Soul of Christmas events by watching a snippet of their performance of “Havana Santa” at this year’s show at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

India Ramey - "Cocktail for Christmas" from the 2021 album Christmas Times A'Comin' 2021 on Medicine Show Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. We’re getting a little more Southern for today’s Song of the Day. “Cocktail for Christmas” is a bluegrass country tune about dealing with family during the holidays by getting completely and utterly wasted. With a delightful twang, India Ramey spells out her plan for coping, “Well Uncle Ren is drunk and talking politics again /I try to keep the peace but the room is starting to spin /But that’s fine with me /I’m where I need to be /To put up with my loved ones /I'll be lit up like a Christmas tree by the time the turkey's done.” Certainly one way to handle it! Ramey is an Alabama-based lawyer-turned-musician who’s released who’s released four albums in the past decade, her most recent being 2020’s Shallow Graves. “Cocktail for Christmas” is included on Christmas Times A’ Comin’ 2021, the 6th compilation of holiday songs from The Medicine Show, a Scottish booking, promotion, and broadcast company run by Rob Ellen. Watch the kitschy video for “Cocktail for Christmas” directed by Stacie Huckeba at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Phone Jerks - "!Christmas on the Floor!," a 2020 self-released single. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. For a time of year where alcohol consumption is typically at its heaviest, we certainly don’t have enough Christmas songs about drinking. Well, Phone Jerks are here to rectify that. Last year, the Canadian quartet released their submission to the holiday drinking song canon with “!Christmas On the Floor!” The energetic garage rock tune harkens the familiar tale of a lover leaving you during the holidays but then paints a very vivid picture of the unhealthy coping mechanisms one might employ during those trying times.  “The fairy lights remind me I'm the saddest ever been,” laments one of the band’s three lead singers (I’m guessing Emily). “I tripped over Baby Jesus, broke the Nativity scene/ My glass keeps on refilling but I just don't know who poured/ Looks like I'll be spending another Christmas on the floor.”  While based in Canada, the Phone Jerks has a member who use to live in Seattle - Brian LaManna, who was in the alternative punk band The Valentine Killers. At the link below, watch live footage of Phone Jerks at the Maniac Mansion if Fredericton, New Brunswick in 2018. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Attendant - "Roll On May (Misery Christmas)," a 2021 self-released single. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. UK grunge-punk duo Attendant have thrown their hats in the heartbreak Christmas song ring this year with “Roll On May (Misery Christmas).” It’s a near-universal adult trait to feel a spot of loneliness during the holidays but what does one do when they just want to revel in the melodrama of their misery during the jolliest time of the year? Backed by customary twinkling bells and some very non-traditional heavy guitar strums, frontman Andy Walker addresses this idea. “The celebrations never end/ But I don’t want to see my friends/ They’ll force me to have fun/  When I just want someone to hold me near/ This time of year/ Cause I need you but you’re not here this Christmas.” The single follows Attendant’s debut EP, Unreality, released in early 2021. Watch the video for “Doomscroller” at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SS-20 - "(No) War Toys On Christmas" from the 1987 EP Daddy's Drunk On Christmas on No Pretense Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. His first selection of the week is a song that I literally cannot find anywhere on the internet, SS-20’s “(No) War Toys On Christmas,” from a 1987 EP of original and (I assume) highly satirical Christmas songs called Daddy’s Drunk On Christmas. This wasn’t the Cincinnati-based hardcore punk band’s first foray into the world holiday music, though. The preceding year SS-20 unveiled a DIY release of fairly straight forward Christmas songs sung with a "couldn't care less," according to Discogs, attitude titled Merry Christmas 1986: Is Santa Listening. Formed by Robert Sturdevant in 1982 and still, at least up until a few years ago, playing shows in Cincinnati about once a month, SS-20 has released more than a dozen full-length albums and shorter EPs and 7-inch singles. They’ve also opened for “every punk and hardcore band that’s every played at the Jockey club,” Sturdevant told a publication in 2013, citing Nirvana, the Ramones, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, among others.  Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Advertisement - "The Matador," a 2021 single on Fire Talk. Hot off the heels of their 4-song EP, Freedom, that came out last month, Seattle quintet Advertisement share the new single "The Matador," a song they say is about “being perceived by others as something different than you perceive yourself.” True to the aesthetic they established on their 2020 debut album American Advertisement, band members Charlie Hoffman, Carl Marck, Ryan Mangione, Jesse Rosenthal, and TJ Main combine Fleet Foxes-esque harmonies with Laurel Canyon-inspired rock nostalgia, tapping into their love of "blues and grooves" along the way.  Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bartees Strange - "Free Kelly Rowland (feat. Armand Hammer)" from the 2021 album Live Forever (Deluxe Edition) on Memory Music. Last year, DC-based musician Bartees Strange wowed us all with his debut full-length Live Forever, a genre-defying release exploring themes of racism and resilience. For the album's one-year anniversary, he reissued the LP in a deluxe edition version, which includes a re-worked rendition of the single “Kelly Rowland”, now titled “Free Kelly Rowland”, featuring New York-based hip-hop duo Armand Hammer. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Otis McDonald - "Keep It Sexy," a 2020 single on TrackTribe. Otis McDonald began as a studio experiment, where San Francisco-based producer and artist Joe Bagale spent three months writing, performing, recording, and sampling his own recordings. When it came time to release the results, Bagale looked towards two music icons to encapsulate the retro-tinged music he was composing: Shuggie Otis and Michael McDonald. "I don’t take myself seriously, but I take my music very seriously," he told Music Connection in 2019.  Bagale has released his music exclusively through a royalty-free audio library via YouTube. "YouTube is the biggest streaming service in the world," he continued. "I thought if the music was good and felt human, hopefully people would put it in their videos and a certain percentage of viewers would want to further explore the music.” He concluded, “If there is one thing I’d like to do with the music it is to give people a little more joy than they had before they heard it.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sweeping Promises - "Pain Without A Touch," a 2021 single on Feel It Records / Sub Pop.  On last year's debut LP Hunger for a Way Out, Sweeping Promises premiered an infectious lo-fi post-punk sound, with angular guitars, synthpop sweeps, and Lira Mondal bold, buoyant vocals. Today's Song of the Day is their first single for Sub Pop, who signed the duo up last month. Their new wave groove still firmly in place, the new track shows the group's evolution — but, with the overdubs recorded in co-founder Caufield Schnug's parents’ bathroom, Sweeping Promises stay true to their lo-fi beginnings. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dina Ögon - "Ficktjuven" from the 2021 album Dina Ögon on Sing a Song Fighter. Self-described as the "bastard love child of Eric B. & Rakim, Fleetwood Mac, Selda Bağcan, and Ted Gärdestad," Swedish pop group Dina Ögon brings a '70s funk vibe to today's Song of the Day.  The group is led by vocalist Anna Ahnlun and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Ögren, who used to play guitar for "doom metal" artist Anna Von Hausswolff. The two collaborated on the single "idag" off Ögren's solo album Fastingen-92, inspiring this new project to form, with the addition of bassist Love Örsan and drummer Christopher Cantillo. On their self-titled debut, the quartet tap into a retro influence, combined with their own psych-folk sound.  Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.