Version of "Little Saint Nick" that was left off this year's Christmas album reissue.

By Fred Mills

Long suffering Beach Boys fans got a special gift this week from BB maestro Brian Wilson: the original, more-or-less unreleased version of "Little Saint Nick" from 1963 that was cut prior to the '64 recording sessions that would yield 1964's The Beach Boys' Christmas Album.

Wilson has posted the track at his BrianWilson.com blog, noting that he "later took this backing track and used it as the foundation for the song ‘Drive In' for the 1964 All Summer Long album.  This version with the ‘Little St. Nick' lyrics remained unreleased until Mark Linett discovered it while preparing the first CD releases of the Capitol Beach Boys catalog, and it first saw the light of day as a bonus track on a now out of print CD edition of The Beach Boys Christmas Album."

As you may remember, Capitol reissued the band's back catalog in 1992, and the CDs typically included a slew of bonus tracks - but after those editions went out of print and Capitol got around to a fresh round of reissues, the extra material went missing. That's the case with this year's CD reissue of the holiday record; it reproduces the 12-song tracklisting of the original '64 LP, with no added bonuses, whereas the '92 CD had 16 cuts.

Listen to the "Little St. Nick" tune at the above link. The Beach Boys recently announced a 50^th anniversary reunion tour (with Brian included) plus a studio album for 2012.

Lo-fi + lo-fi = no fi?

By Blurt Staff

British band Yuck's Daniel Blumberg has a nom du rawk pseudonym, Oupa, and on his recent Forget album released by Boiled Egg, he covers a song by another artist who operates under a nom du rawk. That would be Bill Callahan, aka Smog.

Check out the appropriately lo-fi video of the lo-fi song "It's Rough," directed by Porcelain Raft, below.

Oupa - It's Rough from Boiled Egg on Vimeo.

Hey, why not Dead Kennedys? Or even GWAR?

By Fred Mills

You know, the one thing you probably forgot to put on your Christmas list this year was a Hall & Oates ringtone, right? Right? C'mon, folks, I know you're out there - I can hear you humming "Maneater"...

At any rate, don't laugh. As The Atlantic Wire reports, this week an entrepreneur established the 719-26-OATES phone line, aka the "Callin' Oates emergency hotline," where, we are advised, "you'll be offered a handful of options from the band's catalog, such as, ‘To hear "Rich Girl," please press 2,' or, ‘To hear 'Private Eyes' press 4'."

Hoo boy. Er, no. Well, apparently overt 60,000 people said "yes" as of Tuesday, which made the developer Michael Selvidge happy. He describes San Francisco based Twilio company as offering an API for handling calls and texts, and this was designed to draw attentioni to the startup. He told reporters, "I'm not trying to make fun of Hall and Oates. I do sort of recognize the cheesy factor but I actually do appreciate their music and I do actually listen to it and they are one of my favorite bands. It's definitely an affectionate thing."

Incidentally, this doesn't appear to specifically be a ringtone-download service. As the article points out, calling the number just allows you to reach the answering machine - plus, there's no mention of whether or not Hall or Oates or anyone associated with their publishing has approved of or granted permission for any of this. So you'll have to look elsewhere to get an actual ringtone for your cellphone.

This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl, published by Da Capo Press, offers both a journalistic and fan perspective on the Nirvana/Foo Fighters icon, along with a keen eye for detail and context.

By John B. Moore

Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana/Scream drummer Dave Grohl is the closest thing we have to a real rock star nowadays.

Sure, he doesn't leave trashed hotel rooms in his wake (that's so ‘70s), and groupie love ended years ago now that Grohl is married and father of two little girls living in suburbia, but he can still electrify a stadium like Freddie Mercury in his prime. He's got the musical knowledge of a used record store clerk and is ballsy enough to put out a dark metal album with folks like King Diamond and Venom's frontman at the near height of his popularity. It's hard to picture Coldplay's Chris Martin pulling that one off.

He has a well-documented reputation as being the nicest guy in rock, but as This is a Call shows, his rise to the rock star stage has had more than a few pitfalls including strained relationships with former band members, ODs (not his own) and near breakups.   

UK journalist Paul Brannigan has spent years interviewing Grohl from the early stages of Foo Fighters up through their massive global success, so the book includes plenty of direct quotes culled from years of conversations with Grohl, his band mates and former scene buddies in D.C./Virginia and Seattle. While This is a Call is clearly about Grohl, Brannigan does a commendable job of putting everything into context beginning with quite possibly the best written documentary of the D.C. punk and hardcore scene Grohl was raised in as part of Scream and other lesser known bands.

The Nirvana years are obviously covered in great detail and while nothing too shocking is revealed (Courtney Love was/is a massive pain in the ass, Kurt Cobain was not the easiest guy to get along with), there are obviously some deep wounds that haven't completely healed over yet. There are some touching first person anecdotes about the trio recording their seminal albums, but also some honest insights into Cobain that would make you question the saint-like adoration he receives after his death Grohl nearly quit Nirvana after Cobain, seeing how successful Nevermind was doing, decided to change the agreed upon three-way split of royalties ensuring he would be paid far more than his two other band mates. In fact, with this new scenario, Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic would end up having to pay back their royalties to Cobain. (Pretty dick move for an anti-corporate rocker).

Much of the Foos' story, including tension with original drummer William Goldsmith and the hiring and eventual firing of guitarist and one-time Scream bandmate  Franz Stahl, has been covered in the band's documentary Back and Forth, released earlier this year. Regardless This is a Call is still well-researched, passionately written book by an author who is a clearly an unabashed fan, but still objective enough to give an unvarnished look at a great band that has struggled through some rough waters at times but ultimately righted the ship.  

Tom Maxwell (late of Squirrel Nut Zippers) & the Minor Drag invoke the ghost of Marley - Jacob, not Bob - for bone-chilling results. Bankers of America, your mission is clear.

By Fred Mill

Former Squirrel Nut Zippers leader Tom Maxwell just released a brand new Christmas song "Jacob Marley" (it's on iTunes). It's the first Christmas song he's released since the Zippers' Christmas album back in 1998, and he also filmed a video for it, recorded live on November 26 at The Murphey School, Durham NC. We at BLURT are big TM fans and are stoked to show ya the clip right here:

Tom Maxwell and The Minor Drag "Jacob Marley" from All Aces Media on Vimeo.

Here's some info from Tom on the track:

"I wrote ‘Jacob Marley' after the economy tanked and the banks got bailed out.  It was a disaster - and ripoff - of almost mythic proportions.  In the song, cultural icons like Brother Rabbit (a nod to the trickster character Br'er Rabbit from the Uncle Remus stories) and Jacob Marley (Scrooge's dead business parter and spiritual benefactor in A Christmas Carol) appear but can't change the situation.  

"Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions, and I believe the Occupy movement and the social and political consciousness it represents is our last and best hope.  Jacob Marley may not come back again, but we can handle this one on our own."

Video credits:

Tom Maxwell - vocals, guitar
James Wallace - piano
Mark Simonsen - vibraphone
FJ Ventre - string bass
Evans Nicholson - drums

Engineered and mixed by Thom Canova; Filmed by Andy Coon, Blake Faucette and Nic Beery; Edited by Andy Coon

3-song digital EP hits Soundcloud, fans froth.

 By Fred Mills

This week Swedish chanteuse Lykke Li offered up, for free, the 3-song Lost Sessions Vol. 1, comprising demo versions of tunes that wound up on Wounded Rhymes (which, incidentally, is destined to be in BLURT's Top 10 (or pretty close) of 2011. The tracks are "I Follow Rivers", "Jerome", and "Youth Knows No Pain". Check ‘em out, below.

I Follow Rivers - The Lost Sessions Vol 1. by LykkeLi

Jerome - The Lost Sessions Vol 1. by LykkeLi

Youth Knows No Pain - The Lost Sessions Vol 1. by LykkeLi

Taken from most recent album Tomboy, natch.


By Blurt Staff


This week Panda Bear unveiled his new video - it's for the Tomboy track "You Can Count On Me" and was directed by Danny Perez. Watch it, below. Incidentally, in early November Paw Tracks released the deluxe edition 4-LP vinyl box set of Tomboy, which includes the original LP, the Tomboy single mixes on one LP and several Tomboy unreleased instrumentals and a cappellas, plus "The Preakness" on one LP. Meanwhile, read our interview with Panda Bear from earlier this year.

Web exclusive performance bizarrely cut from the over-air broadcast.

By Fred Mills

How many of you caught VHI Divas Celebrate Soul on cable TV earlier this week? Yeah, us neither; there's nothing particularly soulful about either "VH1" or "Divas," not even when considering that Chaka Khan and Mary J. Blige closed out the broadcast. Ironically, it turns out that the closing act was actually Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings doing "He Said I Can," and VH1 has made the performance available as a web-only exclusive. One can only surmise the thinking that went into cutting this from the actual broadcast, as Jones can pretty much mop the floor with any other so-called "soul diva" on the planet - as the below footage suggests.

SJ&tDK's latest record is the rarities collection Soul Time!, initially offered as a Black Friday special from Daptone. You know you need it....

Rod Stewart syndrome takes hold?

By Blurt Staff

Paul McCartney is about to offer a glimpse into "the songs which inspired the songs" with the upcoming release of a brand new album of those standards he grew up listening to in his childhood-plus two brand new McCartney compositions:  the album, which is currently untitled, will be released on Hear Music/Concord Records on February 7^th. A tracklisting for the album is tba.

With the help of Grammy Award-winning producer Tommy LiPuma and Diana Krall and her band-as well as guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder, McCartney's new album is billed as a "deeply personal journey through classic American compositions that, in some cases, a young Paul first heard his father perform on piano at home." Intriguingly, he does not play bass or any other instrument on the album - just vocals.

 Said Macca, in a statement, "In the end it was 'Look, if I don't do it now, I'll never do it," adding that it is about time "the songs me and John based quite a few of our things on" received the recognition they deserve. The record also features a couple of new original McCartney compositions in the spirit of those classics.

"When I kind of got into songwriting, I realized how well structured these songs were and I think I took a lot of my lessons from them," he explains. "I always thought artists like Fred Astaire were very cool. Writers like Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, all of those guys - I just thought the songs were magical.  And then, as I got to be a songwriter I thought it's beautiful, the way they made those song'.

 "It was very spontaneous, kind of organic, which then reminded me of the way we'd work with The Beatles. We'd bring a song in, kick it around, when we found a way to do it we'd say 'Okay, let's do a take now' and by the time everyone kind of had an idea of what they were doing, we'd learnt the song. So that's what we did, we did the take live in the studio.

"It was important for me to keep away from the more obvious song choices so, many of the classic standards will be unfamiliar to some people.  I hope they are in for a pleasant surprise."

"A Case Of You" from the recent Enough Thunder EP


By Fred Mills


While it's possible, though not particularly likely, that UK singer-songwriter James Blake will figure in this year's Top 50 Albums roundup - his Mercury Prize-nominated self-titled debut has its moments, but overall feels lightweight - we have to admit that his cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case Of You" has a lingering charm that's hard to ignore. It appears on the recent EP Enough Thunder (which also includes Blake's collaboration with Bon Iver, "Falls Creek Boys Choir").


This week Blake released a video for the song, and as directed by Seb Edwards and comprising a series of lingering shots of Rebecca Hall, it also has a haunting quality that will get under your skin. Watch it, below.