The Perpetual Three-Dot Column
The Perpetual Three-Dot Column
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by Jesse Walker

Friday, December 26, 2008
DOUBLE PLAYLIST POST: Tuesday night I guest-hosted The Hop,
WCBN's weekly hour-long selection of classic soul, funk, and rhythm and blues. When I do my own show, I usually try not to broadcast songs I've played in previous weeks, but that rule goes out the window when I sit in on a different DJ's shift:

Clarence Carter: Back Door Santa
Jean Knight: Your Six-Bit Change
Joe Tex: Skinny Legs and All
Pigmeat Markham: Here Comes the Judge
Jerry Lee Lewis: Hold On, I'm Comin'
Herbie Mann: New Orleans
Mariann: The Woman in Me
Kip Anderson: I Went Off and Cried
Etta James: Take It to the Limit
Mavis Staples: Hard Times Come Again No More
The Exotics: Let's Try to Build a Love Affair
Candi Staton: Sure As Sin
James Carr: Life Turned Her That Way
The Meters: Live Wire
Parliament: Ride On
Bobby Womack: Across 110th Street
Sly and the Family Stone: If You Want Me to Stay
Slim Harpo: Mohair Sam
Wayne Carson: Soul Deep

On Thursday I hosted a special Christmas edition of Titicut Follies -- or was it a special Titicut Follies edition of Christmas? Maya and Rona came in for the last 90 minutes or so, and the show got a little chaotic with a three-year-old girl running around the studio, but that's what makes community radio fun. (Yes, I played "Back Door Santa" twice in three days. It's a holiday, dammit!)

Bobby Gimby: When Bessie the Cow Helped Santa
Rev. Edward W. Clayborn: Wrong Way to Celebrate Christmas
Rev. J.M. Gates: Death Might Be Your Santa Claus
Bob Rivers Comedy Corp.: O Come All Ye Grateful Dead-Heads
William S. Burroughs: The Junky's Christmas
Big Star: Jesus Christ
The Kinks: Father Christmas
Michael Nyman: Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds
Vince Guaraldi: Linus and Lucy
Mickey Rooney: One Foot in Front of the Other
Thurl Ravenscroft: You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Oscar the Grouch: I Hate Christmas!
Stan Freberg: Green Chri$tma$
The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band: Cooking Bulgars
Tom Waits: Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Asleep at the Wheel: Xmas in Jail
Brave Combo: Must Be Santa
Mary Wells: Silent Night
Saturday Night Live: Christmas for the Jews
The Royal Guardsmen: Snoopy's Christmas
Cheech and Chong: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rick Moranis & Dave Thomas: The 12 Days of Christmas
Michael Nyman: An Eye for Optical Theory
Wynton Marsalis: We Three Kings of Orient Are
Leon Redbone & Dr. John: Frosty the Snowman
Charles Brown: Blue Holiday
Clarence Carter: Back Door Santa
Ray Charles: Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Etta James: Merry Christmas, Baby
Spike Jones: Nutcracker Suite
The Roches: The Hallelujah Chorus
The Impossibles: The Hallelouie Chorus
June Tabor: Young Waters
The Louvin Brothers: A Shut-In at Christmas/Shut-In's Prayer
The Christmas Jug Band: Santa Lost a Ho
Elvis Presley: Santa Claus Is Back In Town
The Blasters: Trouble Bound
John D. Loudermilk: No Playing in the Snow Today
The Roches: Good King Wenceslas
Kirsty MacColl & The Pogues: Fairytale of New York
Bob Dylan: Wigwam

During the first Michael Nyman piece, I read a three-year-old essay of mine, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." (The second Nyman track served as a music bed while I listed the songs I'd been playing. So did the Chanukah-friendly tune by the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band.)

The great discovery of the afternoon is that Bob and Doug McKenzie singing "The 12 Days of Christmas" isn't nearly as funny as I remember it being when I was in the seventh grade. But hearing it gave me a warm nostalgic glow, and isn't that what Christmas is all about?


posted by Jesse 1:03 AM
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