A Punk Rock Christmas 2010

or, "How An Inaccurate Label Became a Holiday Tradition"

My family was never huge on tradition. This is not to say we don't have a few scattered over the years, or perhaps informal ones, but never any codified activities and events that mark off the year like many others do. In fact, I'd say that's more our tradition than anything else. That said, I did sort of develop a personal tradition a few years ago that I stick to every year. I create and maintain a playlist of alternative Christmas and Holiday songs to play. It's my non-believer way to celebrate the holiday season and get in the spirit of the month.

The genesis of the Punk Rock Christmas Playlist is hard to pin down. I'd had a few odds and ends from various albums floating around iTunes for a years, but in 2005 I stuck them all together into a playlist to have handy. In searching out other tunes on - LimeWire of all things - I stumbled across a track called "Punk Rock Christmas" inaccurately attributed to The Sex Pistols. (It's actually by The Ravers, though they are performing as the Pistols!) Once I had this song, which serves as the perfect opening to a playlist, I finally had a name for the list of 10 songs I had. In the ensuing 5 years, the list has grown, been trimmed and arranged into is current state. As a rule, I'm not allowed to alter nor listen to the list until Thanksgiving Day and then I am allowed to play the list and add new material to it until January 2.

At one time, Neil Gaiman's spoken word reading of his 100 word story Saint Nick preceded the list, but it didn't quite work as a party list.

Now, there is a bit of a misnomer in the title of the playlist. While it certainly started out as exclusively punk, the list really represents favorite songs from a variety of artists and genres. Most of them fall into either the "indie" (Regina Spektor, Sara Bareilles) or "alternative" genre. Genres so broad they negate the idea of classification. Essentially, the list serves as an overview of tastes in music (Ska, Punk, Emo, some Pop) and ranges in years (from former Beatles to songs no more than a year old!).

The '08 and '09 lists were both shaped into having a very loose narrative. This year's list carries that over, though with the amount of songs it becomes a little diluted, which is a good thing. In general the break down works out to be: Songs About the Season, Songs About/Set On Christmas Eve, Songs About Santa, Songs About Christmas Day, Songs about Winter, Songs about New Years Eve/Day. I liked the idea of the playlist having some structure to it and found it easy to plug the songs into these vague categories. So without further ado, here's the latest Punk Christmas Playlist. It clocks in at 42 tracks and just shy of 2.5 hours.




1. Punk Rock Christmas - The Ravers
2. Come On Christmas - Cheap Trick
3. Oi to the World - No Doubt
4. Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) - The Darkness
5. Come Christmas, Christmas Come On - Ringo Starr
6. Holiday Fortnight - The Specials
7. Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
8. Blue Christmas - The Toasters
9. Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas) - The Decemberists
10. My First Christmas (As A Woman) - The Vandals
11. Christmas with the Devil - Spinal Tap
12. Alone This Holiday - The Used
13. Rudy Spent Christmas In Jail - The Toasters
14. White Christmas - Stiff Little Fingers
15. Last Christmas - Jimmy Eat World
16. Run Rudolph Run - Keith Richards
17. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Joey Ramone
18. A Great Big Sled - The Killers
19. Yellin' at the X-Mas Tree - Billy Idol
20. All I Want for Christmas Is You - My Chemical Romance
21. Christmas Song - Weezer
22. The Holiday Song - Pixies
23. Father Christmas - The Kinks
24. Don't Shoot Me Santa - The Killers
25. There Ain't No Santa Claus - The Damned
26. There Are Much Worse Things to Believe In - Elivs Costello/Stephen Colbert
27. Fairytale of New York - No Use for A Name
28. The First Noel - Bad Religion
29. Yule Shoot Your Eye Out - Fall Out Boy
30. Christmas - The Who
31. Christmas Day - MxPx
32. Song for Ten (from Doctor Who) - Neil Hannon
33. Happy X-Mas (War Is Over) - John Lennon
34. Winter Winds - Mumford & Sons
35. Holiday - Vampire Weekend
36. Winter Song - Sara Bareilles/Ingrid Michaelson
37. A Woman In Winter - The Skids
38. Cold and Camp - Rivers Cuomo
39. Winterlong - Pixies
40. Together We'll Ring in the New Year - Motion City Soundtrack
41. My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year) - Regina Spektor
42. New Year's Day - U2

Regeneration

or, "Yet Another Attempt at a Blog"

Hello again. So I've decided yet again to start up a blog. If I'm not mistaken - and I very rarely am - this marks my fourth attempt at such a thing. Before this blog lasted a glorious 3 posts, I had another blog, now lost to the sands of time, on WordPress. And then I think or Xanga, or some such. There's possibly a LiveJournal in there. But that was more for show or whatever.

But that's all prologue. I hope that this recent spat of motivation to work on this blog lasts longer than previous attempts. I'm excited about talking about my geeky life, my furtive exploration of Popular Culture and some attempts at digital ethnography. Since starting this blog, I've joined a fantastic online community, have become a fairly popular twitter personage and am now employed as a Professor of Anthropology. My perspectives have changed a bit, my drives and motivations as well.

The Regeneration of this blog starts today! I should have a blog post up later today with a late November tradition: The Punk Rock Christmas Playlist. Some be sure to stick around and check it out.