Friday, December 17, 2010

Deck Us All With Blaenavon Charlie

[Weekend Listomania remains on hiatus until the new year. -- Ed.]

From the most recent MOJO sampler CD -- theme: some holiday in December -- here's perennially fresh as a daisy alt-rock funsters Superchunk and a thoroughly charming version of John Cale's great "Child's Christmas in Wales."




Cale's Paris 1919, from whence that song derives, is one of my favorite albums of all time, but I must confess until I heard the Superchunk cover it had never occurred to me that "Child's Christmas" could be done as a straight-ahead pop rocker with jangly guitars. Trust me, if I'd had that insight back in my 80s skinny-tie band days, I would now be annoying you with a poorly recorded live mp3 of yours truly singing the damn thing at some low dive somewhere.

6 comments:

TMink said...

Great guitar sound! Super jangle! Jangle all the way.

Trey

Maude Lange said...

It's Superchunk - so virtually ANY song (from Motorhead to Mozart) can be done as a straight-ahead pop rocker with jangly guitars.

Anonymous said...

Great tune!

Sadly, we'll never know what a Steve-led Flo Mo treatment of this would be like, or what kind of edgy hilarious un-PC intro it would have unleashed. If only there really was a Wayback machine.

AP

jackd said...

OK you guys have made it entirely obvious that I need to acquire some Superchunk. Album recommendations?

Maude Lange said...

The two singles compilations, Tossing Seeds and Incidental Music, are a good place to start.

pete said...

RIP Captain Beefheart.