Happy Birthday, Baby Jesusis the CD reissue of two 10-inch vinyl LP's released in 1993 and 1994 by uber indie label Sympathy For The Record Industry - plus, as the CD booklet states, "some stuff that's new." Captured at the height of post-modern, alt-rock mania, the Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus bands fairly ooze irony and drip sarcasm. Nary a single cut has a sincerely festive perspective on the high Christian holiday. Now, that's hardly a bad thing - I love a good piss take, and the Christmas holiday is worthy target - The thing is, I really want to like this album better. I mean, the song titles alone are pretty entertaining. "Little Drummer Bitch" (Red Aunts), "Last On Santa's List" (Fireworks), "Christmastime Is For Sinners" (Mono Men), and especially "Merry Christmas Fuck You" (Jet Boys) merit a belly laugh before needle ever touches vinyl (or laser strikes aluminum, or electrons speed through cyberspace, or whatever). But, well, many of those songs aren't very good. Alternative music, particularly the sort that Sympathy For The Record Industry trafficked in, is often as much about posture as it is about craft. But, musicality has to count for something, and a large slice of Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus borders on unlistenable.But, lest I damn with faint praise, the highlights are unique, memorable, and plentiful - I rated more than half the tracks as essential. And, strangely enough, they tend to be the songs played well, or enthusiastically, or both - not shrugged off with post-modern ennui. A number of notable alternative bands turn in solid - if less than spectacular - performances, including the Muffs ("Nothing For Me"), Rocket From The Crypt ("Cancel Christmas"), and the Supersuckers ("We'll Call It Christmastime"). There's even a couple of rip-roaring traditional instrumentals by Man Or Astroman ("Frosty The Snowman") and the Bomboras ("Little Drummer Boy").Hands down, though, the two very best tracks are El Vez's wacky "Feliz Navi-Nada" and an ebullient, if profane, take on "Christmas Is A-Comin' (May God Bless You)" by the Shitbirds. In the forrmer, El Vez - who specializes in comically mashing up Elvis songs with unexpected rock classics - fuses Jose Feliciano's hispanic classic, "Feliz Navidad," with Sex Pistol John Lydon's solo debut, "Public Image." It's one of his best-ever concepts, and it's a distorted remix of a track that appeared the same year on his album "Merry MeX-mas." "Christmas Is A-Comin'" is just a hoot, really, and it features a young Elinor Blake who, as April March, would go on to create an impressive catalog of indie rock and neo-lounge music - much of it inspired by classic French pop, believe it or not.Indeed, it's moments like that make the Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus releases far more than an artifacts of the mordant 90's - if less than the unqualified post-punk Christmas classics I wish they were. In the years following their release, music and technology changed immensely, and weird-ass Christmas records by disaffected youth became commonplace - meaning, it's hard to imagine what an unusual thing these records were in their day. Back then, punks and alt-rock geeks rarely took the time to do a piss take on Christmas, let alone cobble together a whole double album of the things. That they did is a good thing, even when it hurts my ears to listen.Trivia fans, no doubt, will want to know what vintage LP covers were employed (parodied, ripped off, whatever) by Sympathy for the Record Industry to create the cover art for Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. The three editions, respectively, are derived from Lawrence Welk's Jingle Bells (Coral, 1957), Christmas With Patti Page (Mercury, 1956), and Christmas With the Mexicali Brass (Crown, 1967). Pooping all over history is just part of the fun, I guess.
Ah, it's the time of year again. Crowded malls, holiday decorations and, of course, punk rock. What better way to celebrate the season than by sitting next to the fire with your hot chocolate and listening to Punk Rock Christmas? Containing a few covers of standards (the Dickies do "Silent Night" while Stiff Little Fingers cover "White Christmas") and a few songs that became punk rock classics (the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" and Fear's "Fuck Christmas"), it's a fun record that at the very least has replayable novelty.
Starting off on a high note, the Ravers' "Punk Rock Christmas" details what it would be like if the whole country went punk rock for a day with "All those Christmas trees swinging safety pins from their leaves." But the best couplet on the record goes to Pansy Division's "Homo Christmas" (You'll probably get sweaters, underwear and socks / But what you'd really like for Christmas is a nice hard cock"). The Damned and Boquet of Veal are also in full force; I didn't know so many punk bands have Grade-A Christmas related songs under their belt.
Comedy is the center for these songs, and the fun, light tone never really lets up until D.I.'s plodding long, cover of "Mr. Grinch," which brings the record to a grinding halt. But being that we're dealing with punk rock here, the songs are brisk and go by quickly; that one slip-up doesn't ruin its listenability.
An astute reader will notice, being that this came out in 1995, it doesn't include Blink 182's seminal "I Won't Be Home for Christmas." But hey, this is the age of technology! Rip this CD and tack that one at the end (with maybe the Vandals' "Oi to the World" as well), and you have the best collection of songs for a mohawked kid dreading yet another commercialized holiday season.
Bookended by two tracks that essentially are the same piece -- "Everywhere," a quicker, almost dancy number that still sounds uniquely Cranes, and the slower, stripped-down "Rainbows" -- Forever finds Cranes moving from strength to strength. Having reached a new level of variety and elegant restraint combined with brusque power on Wings of Joy, the foursome continued exploring such combinations on Forever without simply rehashing the previous album. If anything, the album went to extremes in both directions -- the quieter moments were even more hushed and shadowed, the louder points all that much more whip-snap cruel. "Cloudless" remains the album's most sweetly beautiful, truly haunting moment. Over what sounds like a synthesized combination of plucked violin and keyboards, doubtless played by Jim Shaw, sister Alison delivers a softly husky vocal that slowly grows in strength. More synth strings swell up in the background, just enough, followed later by gentle electric guitar and at the end distant drums. On a completely different tip, there's "Clear," its searing, blunt lead guitar line matched by a massive rhythm slam, only occasionally interrupted by a quieter moment or two before launching back into the full band attack. "Jewel" ended up being a surprise U.K. and U.S. hit, though thanks to a somewhat transformed remix courtesy of longtime fan Robert Smith (in fact, Forever takes its name from a Cure rarity of the same title). On the album, Jim Shaw's original rougher drums stand out, but the attractive poppy groove of the song remains the same, Alison Shaw's singing at her clearest yet over the simple but effective acoustic guitar rhythms and abrasive electric solo. Other highlights include the minimal piano-led "Far Away," with some of Alison's best vocals; the narcotic guitar chime of "Golden"; and the dramatic, blasting surge of "Adrift." [Cherry Red's 2007 reissue included seven bonus tracks, including the pretty, brittle instrumental "The Puppet" and the slow crawl of "Shine Like Stars'')
Perry and Gerrard continued to experiment and improve with The Serpent's Egg, as much a leap forward as Spleen and Ideal was some years previously. As with that album, The Serpent's Egg was heralded by an astounding first track, "The Host of Seraphim." Its use in films some years later was no surprise in the slightest -- one can imagine the potential range of epic images the song could call up -- but on its own it's so jaw-droppingly good that almost the only reaction is sheer awe. Beginning with a soft organ drone and buried, echoed percussion, Gerrard then takes flight with a seemingly wordless invocation of power and worship -- her vocal control and multi-octave range, especially towards the end, has to be heard to be believed. Nothing else achieves such heights, but everything gets pretty darn close, a deserved testament to the band's conceptual reach and abilities. Slow plainsong chants such as "Orbis De Ignis" mix with the harpischord and overlaid vocals of "The Writing on My Father's Hand" and the slow build and sweep of "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings." Two of Perry's finest vocal moments occur here. The first, "Severance," is a slow, organ/keyboard led number that showcases his rich, warm vocals exquisitely -- it's no wonder that Bauhaus chose to cover it some years later on its reunion tour. "Ullyses," the album's closing track, makes for a fine ending as much as "The Host of Seraphim" did an opening, Perry's delivery almost like a reading from a holy book, the arrangement of strings and percussion rhythmic, addictive and lovely.
