Check out this cool color film of San Francisco made by amateur filmmaker Tullio Pellegrini in 1955. The film opens with a drive across the Bay Bridge exiting on the Embarcadero Freeway which was damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and subsequently torn down making way for a thriving neighborhood oriented to the waterfront. Take note Seattle residents.
Check out blues singer and guitarist Huddie 'Leadbelly' Ledbetter performing 'Christmas Is A-Coming'. The footage here is from George Albert Smith's 1898 film 'Santa Claus', which features Santa Claus visiting a house on Christmas Eve, is believed to be the cinema's earliest known example of parallel action and, when coupled with double-exposure techniques that Smith had already demonstrated in the same year, one of the most conceptually sophisticated British films made up to that point.
Giving The Pogues a run for their money this soon-to-be-released song 'Christmas In A Chinese Restaurant' from Diamond Rugs featuring members of Deer Tick, Los Lobos, The Black Lips, Dead Confederate, and Six FInger Satellite is destined to be a Christmas classic.
'How's the turkey? How's the ham? I can't finish my moo goo gai pan.'
The Pogues 'Fairytale Of New York' featuring Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl. Punk rockers agree that this is arguably the greatest Christmas song of all time.
Steve Earle's 'Christmas In Washington', from the 1997 album 'El Corazón', seems particularly pertinent this year as we enter an election season, and in light of the recent political gridlock in Washington over the payroll tax cut. Come back Woody Guthrie, indeed.
Check out this video for Robert Earl Keen's classic Christmas song 'Merry Christmas From The Family'.
Feliz Navidad, y'all!
From this years eponymous album here's the English band 'Yuck' performing the song 'The Wall'. The 1990's indie rock sound is alive and well in this band.
'Hell On Heels' from MIranda Lambert's new girl group called 'Pistol Annies'.
Here's Luke Bryan performing 'Run Rudolph Run', the 1958 Christmas classic popularized by Chuck Berry but covered by a host of notable rockers, including: Dave Edmonds, Cheryl Crow, Hanson, Brian Setzer, Los Lonely Boys, Reverend Horton Heat, Keith Richards, Dwight Yoakam, The Tractors, Dave Grohl, and The Grateful Dead. This countrified version, which I discovered on the album 'Now That's What I Call A Country Christmas', is the only recording to have charted in the U.S.
The 2011 Christmas album from Cigar Box Nation is now available for FREE download. All the songs on the album are played/performed by the artists on hand made instruments. Check it out!