Christmas Party With Eddie G.

I am not a celebrationist when it comes to the holidays. I HATE winter. I hate the cold, I hate the snow, I hate the freezing rain, and I HATE the complexities of dealing with splintered families and hearing awful holiday songs over and over again. I heard The 12 Pains Of Christmas on the radio today and I nearly killed everyone within a mile of me. That's supposed to be a funny song, but I find Barbara Streisand's crack-fueled version of Jingle Bells far funnier for all the wrong reasons. Generally though, and I'm sure many agree, holiday music SUCKS! If I'm going to listen to holiday stuff, it's got to be skewed! That doesn't mean it's not necessarily heart-felt, but covering the same songs over and over again with no real feeling is awful. Mel Torme's version of The Christmas Song is the only version I need to hear, although I know there have to be some decent versions other than his own.

If you hate popular holiday music like I do, then this post should be wonderful. Eddie Gorodetsky is famous for his holiday mixtapes which he makes yearly and sends to family and friends. They feature none of the usual holiday crap you hear on the radio, focusing instead on wonderful obscurities from big and small names alike. The tapes achieved enough popularity that in 1990, Columbia Records released one of Eddie's compilations, Christmas Party With Eddie G., AND THE WORLD WAS CHANGED SO DRAMATICALLY IT WAS NEVER THE SAME!!!!! Okay, that's a hell of an overstatement, but for those that heard the CD, it became an instant classic.

Eddie has continued to release mixtapes privately since the CD's issue in 1990, but the CD is sadly out of print. Well, after hunting for a copy long and hard, I found one in a notoriously awful used CD shop shortly after Christmas 2008. It had an insane price tag around $40 dollars, but had been marked down to get rid of the Xmas stock. Their loss, my gain and now yours too!

This is a great CD and you should definitely hunt down Eddie's other mixtapes if you can find them. The disc also features interludes starring Eddie and Billy West, the voice of Ren & Stimpy and Fry from Futurama, as The Three Stooges in a fruitless attempt to record a Stooge-themed Xmas record. Wonderful stuff! Enjoy!


Christmas Party With Eddie G.

01 The Eddie G. Singers - Here Comes Eddie
02 Detroit Junior - Christmas Day
03 Eddie Lawrence - Merry Old Philosopher #1
04 Bobby Lloyd and The Skeletons - Do You Hear What I Hear / You Really Got Me
05 ...Late Slap...
06 Augie Rios - Donde Esta Santa Claus
07 Byron Lee and The Dragonaires - Winter Wonderland
08 ...Eye Pokes...
09 Louis Prima - What Will Santa Claus Say When He Finds Everybody Swinging?
10 Huey Piano Smith and The Clowns - All I Want For Christmas (Is A Little Bit Of Music)
11 ...Five More Slaps...
12 Tony Rodelle Larson - Cool Yule
13 Untamed Youth - Santa's Gonna Shut 'Em Down
14 Eddie Lawrence - Merry Old Philosopher #2
15 Rufus Thomas - I'll Be Your Santa Baby
16 ...I Hope He Stays In Germany...
17 Debbie Dabney - I Want To Spend Christmas With Elvis (Heartbreak Noel)
18 Foghat - All I Want For Christmas Is You
19 ...Shemp Tribute...
20 The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Merry Christmas Darling
21 Monty & Marsha Brown - Cajun Christmas
22 ...Our 49th State...
23 Arthur Lyman - Mele Kalikimaka
24 George Jones & Tammy Wynette - Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus
25 Soloman Burke - Christmas Presents
26 NRBQ - Christmas Wish
27 ...A Final Try...
28 Eddie Lawrence - Merry Old Philosopher #3
29 The Eddie G. Singers - So Long Eddie


In case you'd like more info about Mr. Gorodetsky, here is a short bio circa 1990 included with the CD:

No relation at all to Kenny, Eddie G. is a shadowy presence darting about the entertainment industry. An Emmy Award-winning writer, his work can be seen on SCTV, Letterman, Saturday Night Live, The Comedy Channel and assorted Penn & Teller projects.

Each year Eddie plunders perhaps the world's largest collection of yuletide recordings to craft his Christmas tapes. Privately circulated up 'til now, these tapes have become legends in the show biz community. This year, Eddie is proud to be able to make this material available to the home enthusiast.


Also, visit A Christmas Yuleblog for a few more of Eddie's tapes.

Talking Heads - 1975 CBS Records Demos

The original Talking Heads lineup consisted of David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. Jerry Harrison didn't join until 1976, partly due to his experience in the original Modern Lovers with Jonathan Richman. They secured the opportunity to record some demos for CBS Records in 1975 but it didn't get them a contract. Just growing pains, because Seymour Stein signed them up to Sire Records shortly thereafter and the band released their first album, '77, in 1977 (what an inventive title for an album!).

These demos started circulating a few years ago, probably after having been dug out of the vaults while the TH catalog was being remastered. There are a few other interesting finds available, but most everything circulating has been released. Thirteen of these tracks are exceptions, never having been released officially in any form and showing a young but very developed band. There are some differences between these and the final versions, like the tempos of Psycho Killer and I Wish You Wouldn't Say That, but these are minor. The most notable differences are the less hearty arrangements which would come when the band's lineup was finalized and they went into the studio. It's also interesting to hear songs like Love --> Building On Fire without Toni Bongiovi's production excesses like horns or Psycho Killer without strings.

This isn't my favorite period of Talking Heads' work, but I still love these songs and it's great to study their early work closer. If you dig the Heads, give this a listen, I'm sure you'll find it interesting.


Talking Heads - 1975 CBS Records Demos

01 Psycho Killer
02 Sugar On My Tongue
03 Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
04 I Want To Live
05 I Wish You Wouldn't Say That
06 The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
07 Who Is It
08 With Our Love
09 Stay Hungry
10 Tentative Decisions
11 Warning Sign
12 I'm Not In Love
13 The Book I Read
14 Love --> Building On Fire
15 No Compassion


PS - The two tracks from these sessions which were released are Sugar On My Tongue and I Want To Live, both initially available on the two disc Sand In The Vaseline retrospective compilation. Also, for those wondering, yeah, Tony Bongiovi is Jon Bon Jovi's cousin. And yeah, while I said he brought some unnecessary elements to the '77 album, he's still a great producer and is also responsible for several of the Ramones early records. He's also responsible for getting Jon his first professional singing gig on R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas from the Star Wars Christmas album, Christmas In The Stars. There is also a Meco connection there for anyone so enamored with that man's weird-ass productions. Okay, none of that has anything to do with Talking Heads but I thought you'd find it interesting nonetheless.