Tag Archives: los campesinos!

Playlists, Radio, Gotta Hear This Music

It’s a Very Special Peacheater Indie Christmas playlist!

Gremlins know your new favorite band

I used to think I hated Christmas songs. I dreaded the moment when the manufactured atmosphere coming off the Wal-bucks speakers would all be playing songs from the same playlist of all that is snowy and ribbon-wrapped. But in my first December as an obsessed radio-streamer, I discovered many delightful Christmas songs I’d never heard before.

Now that ’tis the season once again I’m looking forward to it. I’ve come to realize that what I hated about Christmas music was the same thing I’ve come to hate about commercial radio: it’s all so overplayed. Based on the narrow selection of songs you hear every holiday, you’d think that a new Christmas song only comes along every other year. This is ridiculous, of course. There are thousands of bands making music every year and even if many don’t have the holiday spirit, still many others must still be tempted to hop on the Christmas-cash-cow band wagon. The oft-praised Sufjan Stevens has released his third Christmas album, for Santa’s sake! And you don’t hear a one of those on the radio. Even Cardiff’s hippest hipsters Los Campesinos! are getting in on the action with their Christmas album, A Los Campesinos! Christmas.

But just as Weird ole’ uncle Al likes to harp on about walking to school buck naked in forty miles of snow, I’ll take any opportunity to complain about the dismal state of radio. The moral to this story is that there are tons of great Christmas songs out there that, just like in every other season, aren’t getting any airplay. Here are a few of my favorite indie Christmas songs.

Pas/Cal – Little Red Radio

An indie rock song that’s as pure as A Christmas Story. Much like the kids of that old Christmas flick, the narrative of this song is all about that one coveted present. And like the young characters in A Christmas Story the crooners’ want is just sweet and naive enough to make the consumerism palatable. “Little Red Radio” is probably the most spirited use of an organ ever used in a Christmas song.

Of Montreal – Christmas Isn’t Safe For Animals

If you like your music weird and if you prefer Buy Nothing Day to Black Tuesday, this is the song for you. Barely a Christmas song and more of an anti-consumer artistic statement. (I wish more of Of Montreal’s music leaned more towards social criticism and less towards whimsical fantasy.) It’s quirks like this that make me love Of Montreal all the more; either you’ll love this or hate it.

The Hives & Cyndi Lauper – A Christmas Duel

Currently this is my favorite Christmas song. Many have voted Fairytale of New York as the best Christmas song of all time, and if you’re in that crowd, you’ll love this track too. Like the couple trapped in the drunk tank on Christmas, this song highlights how Christmas brings together people who aren’t always happy to be in the same room together. Hilarity ensues. It would be a great song if it weren’t the Hives with Cyndi Lauper, but seeing as how it is, double the greatness.

Fallout Boy – What’s This

A punk cover of one of the best songs from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Does singing from the point of view of the Grinch count as punk rebellion?

Sally Shapiro – Anorak Christmas (Anoraak’s Christmas Remix)

For the electro lovers, here’s your sythtastic Christmas song.

Gotta Hear This Music

Great indie lyricists #2: Los Campesinos!

This is song #2 of a playlist for Kat. The subject is great indie lyricists.

Hi Kat,

Since you've been obsessed with the Mountain Goats lately, we've been talking about who some of our favorite modern lyricists are. This playlist was made specifically to answer that question.

Los Campesinos! We Are All Accelerated Readers

There were conversations about what Breakfast Club character you'd be

"I'd be the one that dies" (no one dies)
"Well then what's the point?"
You should have built have a statue, and so I did of you
And you were ungrateful, and slightly offended at the dimensions of it
You said you looked less like the Venus de Milo, 

and more like your mother in a straightjacket.

I've already shared a few Los Campesinos! songs with you. I really want you to fall in love with this band. For a great lyric I picked "We Are All Accelerated Readers" because I think you'll appreciate the humor in these opening lines. Los Campesinos!'s front man mostly writes about his dismal love life. But like any good writer, those conversations are peppered with his obsessions: twee and the musical culture which surrounds it. There's also frequent pessimistic asides about the future of politics, humanity and, well, everything. It's surprising in such upbeat songs. You hear the high voices, shouting, and hand-clapping over lines like "We kid ourselves there's future in the fucking / but there is no fucking future" or, say, "And your very existence is a monument / To how I taught myself to scream" and realize these aren't exactly pop songs. They're punk for tweeny-boppers. Or twee for punks. Whatever, they're fun. Which makes it easy to dismiss the lyrics. But the lyrics are what make this band so great.

Posted via email from Like Dancing About Architecture

Gotta Hear This Music, Concerts

We Are All Accelerated Readers

Here’s a little snippet from my journal from the night of the Los Campesinos show June 26, 2008.

Definitions!

skanking: V.  The dance you do at the Los Campesinos! show when you are hysterical with joy and you have leg room.

pogo: V.  The dance you do at the Los Campesinos! show when you are packed like Mentos in a Coke bottle with other joyful fans.

mosh:  V. What happens when the whole crowd fizzes over, bounding off walls and fleshy sweaty bodies all singing “It’s you…It’s me…It’s dancing!”.

drum solo: N. When the drummer for Los Campesinos runs into the audience and the whole audience keeps the beat with hand claps.

the Jane Fonda Workout: N. What you get when you pogo through the cacophonous segment of “We Throw Parties You Throw Knives”.

thirsty: Adj.  How I feel when I see Tom Campesinos! sweat.

ugly: Adj.  What your chest will look like when you proudly brandish your new Los Campesinos! T-shirt, for all their merch looks like nightmares illustrated by pre-schoolers.

satisfaction: N. The feeling associated with having shouted and sang and squirmed your heart out. Synonyms: spent, glowing, Rawr. Cross-reference to: Los Campesinos!, “with your chin on your knees like you belong.”

Los Campesinos! Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math

Los Campesinos! – We Are All Accelerated Readers