December 13, 2024 • 52 mins
'Tis the season for more kickass holiday jams! We are joined by our guest Vinnie Favale, a holiday music afficionado best known for his legendary appearances on the Howard Stern Show. Listen as Vinnie shares an incredible collection of holiday songs that will surely be added to your holiday playlist. You think you know all there is to know about holiday music, but trust us, you don't!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What is happening y'all? Welcome back to the Greatest Mixtape Podcast. My name is Eric.
(00:05):
And my name is Mack.
Mack, it is the Christmas season, the holiday season as we like to say, and we've got something
a little special cooked up for our recording this evening. You want to set it up for us?
Yes, tis the season. And we did a holiday episode last year.
Yeah, a lot of fun.
We wanted to go a little bit deeper and maybe get into some songs that we weren't too familiar with.
(00:27):
So we're bringing in what we're going to call an expert.
Yeah, we love to bring in the experts.
Our guest tonight, he's a producer, writer, and director. He's worked at NBC, MTV, A&E,
HBO, Comedy Central, and CBS. He's actually one of the founders of the comedy channel,
which later became Comedy Central. He was the executive in charge of production at the
late show with David Letterman from 1996 until the end of the show's run in 2015.
(00:51):
And all of us old school Howard Stern show fans remember his legendary appearances on the show.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Vinnie Favale.
Yeah.
Thank you, thank you. My reputation exceeds me.
It's so great to be with you guys. Mack and Eric, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed
(01:11):
your Christmas podcast last year, and I've been in the thick of writing this book for
the past three years with no end in sight. So I love anything Christmas related.
Well, thanks for being here, man. We're really excited to have you on. And yeah,
I know you and Mack have known each other for a while now. It's our first time meeting,
but you feel like an old friend already, man.
(01:35):
Oh, yeah.
You know, familiar with your work in the past. So it's great to have you on.
Thank you. Thanks so much, Eric.
Very excited. Vinnie, you mentioned you're working on a book.
Yes, I'm working on a book. The working title is Do You Hear What I Hear, which
is also a great Christmas song. And I'm basically writing a biography of Christmas music,
(01:57):
a biography slash history. And I don't know what I've gotten myself into. It's insane.
There's easily a hundred Christmas songs that everybody knows, that everybody knows. And then
there's over 100. And then there's probably 10,000 cover versions of every genre of those
(02:18):
hundred some odd songs. And when I got into the project, I discovered there's a hell of a lot more
than 100 original Christmas songs. There's maybe a good six, 700 that I think are worthy of all of
those 24 seven Christmas music channels. And so what my book is doing is shining a big light
(02:39):
on just about every Christmas song from the beginning of time, going back to the carols
to modern day. And as you can imagine, it does taper off. I think the last big original Christmas
song is from the nineties, Moriah Carey. And then there were a couple after that. And that's not a
bad one, right? That's a big one. No, no, no. It's just everywhere.
(02:59):
It's diminishing returns. The fifties and sixties are insane because there's so many great
novelty songs. And then but I completed the seventies and eighties, which is really,
really interesting. And, you know, it tells a story in telling the story of every song.
And I get into the inspiration. I talk about the writers as much as the performers, you know,
(03:24):
because I want to shine a light on the people that wrote these songs, you know, that actually
they would exist if two guys, usually Jewish, sit down and write this song, write their song,
you know. But it's been a lot of fun. And I'm really looking forward to diving in here.
You know, I put this list together kind of as an homage partly to your show, the kind of music
(03:50):
that you guys love. So there's some heavy stuff in here that I don't know if you guys have heard
yet before heard of. Well, we were just talking about that before, before you joined us. And there
are there's an obvious, you know, few on this list that you gave us that we were familiar with.
Some of our favorites are in there as well. But yeah, the I was we consider ourselves music nerds.
(04:11):
And there are so many songs in this list that we had never heard of before. So I heard them just
for the first time when you gave us this list. And I was like, Oh my God, like, why did I not
know this song? Yeah, and then, you know, God bless Apple Music, because it's actually well,
and Spotify, you know, sure, they're all there. They're all freaking there. And when if they're
not there, they're on YouTube. Like, that's a whole phenomenon where especially like stuff like old
(04:38):
45s from the 30s and 40s, someone will will record their turntable with the record spinning, and
they're playing the song, you know, and amazing because you can't get it anywhere. Um, you know,
um, on streaming, but but there are there is a lot of great music out there. And you just have to
kind of dig in. Yeah, it's it's wild. You know, I'm of a certain age where, you know, I'm a Spotify
(05:03):
guy, for the most part, as far as you know, what I what I listen to on a daily basis. And I realized
that I'm already like starting to age out because I work with a lot of younger people. And they're
like, Oh, my God, you listen to Spotify. Like, really? Play the song. Yeah,
apparently, it's just getting beamed directly into their heads. Now. I don't know what is going
(05:25):
You know what you know, another place that actually we get a lot of music is on TikTok.
And now has a button at the bottom that syncs up with Spotify or Apple Music. And if you like the
song, it creates goes into a playlist that you have on. Yeah, you have people consume music
so many different ways, even on commercials, you know, songs get get played. Um, but yeah,
(05:49):
it's it's it's crazy. Yeah, we are not kids here for sure. But it is we're like in a candy shop.
I mean, imagine when we were younger, the younger selves guys, when you were trading cassettes and
just getting into it, that if you could just open up this magic box and just about every mainstream
song is there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My brain back then couldn't be able to comprehend.
(06:13):
It's true. I remember one Christmas my brother gave me it was actually he had this thing and
it was so cool. And he just gave it to me a reel to reel tape recorder. Oh, that was it was like
a like almost like one from Mission Impossible. You know, when you see like it was self destruct.
And I'm like, wait a second, like this is mine. I could record like up until then. I just everything
(06:38):
was ephemeral. You know, there's a great song. Oh, it's God. That's it. You know, I got to wait for
cousin Bruce to play the goddamn right again before I could enjoy it. You know, there was no
Alexa. There's no serious like hey, because of Bruce, you're here. You know, like your cold
number 45 of the hotline physical volume because Bruce, the American fight. But but it's crazy.
(07:03):
You know, so getting a recorder, the idea that I could actually capture this stuff. Oh, my God.
And then but then again, like, I can't afford the tape. You know, it's like the VCR. Wait, we could
record SCTV. We can record David Letterman live. Yeah. But unless you do it at the slow speed where
it looks like the moon landing, you know, eight hours on one tape. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's
(07:26):
so true. And I remember because I yes, again, grew up in those days, too. And I remember getting so
annoyed at the you know, at the DJ that and I ultimately talk up. Yes. And I ultimately grew up
to work in radio and I became that guy. But my God, I hated that guy. I'm like, shut up. I'm trying
to record this. I want the intro. And then and then if you had that like DJs, he was really good.
(07:49):
Dan Ingram, Danny, I heard CBS, FM, the oldies, right? Dan Ingram, they were doing shtick. They
would do it like, you know, here's a song about that about the music playing underneath. And it's
like, oh, here we go. You know, there's that the hacky joke that ties into that. Right. Right. But
you know, it was great. Oh, my God. Yeah. The golden days of radio, man. Yes. All right. Hey,
(08:11):
this let's get into the conversation here because these songs are incredible. Let's get let's get
into that that first one. It's it's a Christmas medley of that like nine minutes long by a Swedish
band called a hero for the world. That is I knew that was gonna you want to go back? Go Eric. Go.
(08:32):
No, you're dying. This is you, man. Go for it. OK, so I and I told Mac when we were chatting before
you got on with this, I said, if I don't talk about any other songs for the rest of the night,
I said I have to address this first one because I had never heard of a hero for the world before.
I just I had and so that the Christmas medley is amazing, but it caught me so off guard and I got
(08:57):
so into it that I ended up doing the deep dive and I hope my boss isn't listening. But I spent
half my my my my daytime job today. I spent half my day doing the deep dive on a hero for the world.
Oh, my God. I'm fascinated by them. I was telling Mac and between singles and albums. If you look
at their discography, it's like 30 deep and I'm like, you know, summer singles, some are full length
(09:19):
albums. But what really got me, man, was the covers that they do. Yeah, they do. Yeah. OK. OK. Yeah.
Yeah. And I and I don't I don't generally listen to like power metal, which I guess is the best
way to describe them. It's not my cup of tea as far as like what I listen to on a daily basis.
(09:40):
But I'm weirdly fascinated by it. Like, I love when I see these bands playing live, like if you're
watching YouTube videos of like, you know, the right festival and whatever. And these power metal
bands are playing and people are so into it. I'm fascinated by the scene, not so much the music.
But these guys blew my mind. And oh, my God. So I started doing the deep dive and I'm listening
to cover songs that they did. They do holding out for a hero from the Footloose soundtrack.
(10:05):
Oh, that is so great. Oh, my God. They do a flash dance. What a feeling from the flash dance movie.
I like that they took like especially holding out for a hero is not a quiet song. That's Jim
Steinman, who like Magma, you know, meet little and they and they just, you know, went to 12.
(10:26):
You know. Yes. And my ultimate favorite was they do Ahas take on me. And oh, my God. So, you know,
that main riff, you hear the guitar, then didn't and then didn't and as the song is starting,
the singer does this epic. This huge power metal scream at the beginning. And I was just
(10:49):
I was hooked and blown away. I'm like, oh, my God, this might be my new favorite pan.
It was worth it just for that. Yes, dude. Thank you so much again. I love it. I love it. Well,
your listeners now will have a chance. And I'm going to hold off talking about what I think is
one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time at the end. So I'll do a little click,
(11:09):
baby teasing it now. Nice. Nice. I didn't have time to do the deep dive. I think if I would have
done that same deep dive, I would be going just crazy like Eric is right now. That's great. I'm
so glad that makes me happy. And the medley is amazing. The next one on the list was I was
shocked when this album came out. And it's a great album. Bob Dylan, who is Jewish, converted to
(11:32):
Christianity and recorded music of that genre. And then came back. But it's a great album.
And that's just one of the great songs here. Here comes Santa Claus. But he does must be Santa,
which is another good. This one to me, as soon as I heard him start to sing, I was like,
this doesn't seem natural. Yeah. Because he's turned to be like Holly and Jolly and Mary.
(11:57):
I know. But he's honest and sincere about it. He did three albums of Sinatra songs.
Wow. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Oh, yeah. But like I said, it gave me pause when I heard it. Yeah, yeah.
It was so undillin from what I know of Dylan when I heard it. Yeah. I mean, it's such a melancholic
(12:20):
delivery to his vocals. And then yeah, he's doing this like happy here comes Santa Claus.
It was a weird juxtaposition of his voice. And I would dig deeper if you guys have time,
because there's some great stuff there. The next one on my list was Gary Glitter.
Glam rock. Then sadly, pedophile. Yeah, we had touched on him in those songs
(12:45):
in the past. Yeah, it was always it's always such a weird like, you know, because you can't deny
his place in rock and roll history. But at the same time, you don't want to pump him up to be,
you know, this super cool guy. Such a weird look to him, too. He was like, Oh, my God,
he was such a weirdo alternate Elvis. Yeah, yeah, right. Evil Elvis. Evil Elvis.
(13:07):
Yeah. Before there was Danzig, there was Gary Glitter.
What I noticed about this song, again, this was the first time I heard it was very similar to rock
and roll. Part one and two was just, you know, limited lyrics. Right, right. And just in just a
sort of a fun beat with the chorus. Yeah, kind of coming in and out. That's it.
Yeah. No, no verses. One of the other bands on the list when we get to it, Slade, you know,
(13:34):
that's another like that. That's that that poppy metal almost Beatles kind of also 50s. I mean,
the whole thing about Glic glam rock was kind of like an homage to 50s rock and roll meets,
you know, whatever they were mixing it up. Sure. Modern sounding. How about how about George
Thurgood and the Destroyers? That's another guy that's a rock star. You know what jumped out at
(13:55):
me? A much appreciated saxophone solo. Yeah, not I'm sorry. I still love every now and again. I
love a good sax. Yeah. And I agree wholeheartedly. And to be totally honest, I know it might be a
controversial statement, but Clarence Clemens is really the reason I like Springsteen. I don't
(14:17):
think if Clarence wasn't there, I don't know if I'd be a fan. That was a he was a big part of the
he really was. Yes, especially on the Born to Run album. Yes. Yeah. And he's just such a charismatic
guy and not just, you know, his visual performance when he's on stage, but even just just his solos.
You just can't help but get sucked in, man. You know, and a super amazing guy. He was awesome.
(14:41):
I mean, the solo in Jungleland was was incredible. Could you imagine being in the studio when
you know, Springsteen wrote it and then there's a certain point you got to let it go and then
the musician takes it on and, you know, and takes it to a whole nother level, you know.
But yeah, that was that was a lot of fun. Okay, okay. This one, did you hear the Greedys?
(15:04):
The Greedys? That was I had finished the 70s chapter, right? Okay. So the way my book is
broken up into each chapter is a decade. And the low hanging fruit are the are the first batch of
songs that I cover, you know, I think the 70s had about like 1819 legitimate, like Christmas songs
(15:26):
that everybody knows, you know, so I did the deep dive on that. And then I do what's called like
stocking stuffers, you know, 45s, one offs an album cut, whatever. And I thought I had everything
cut because I'm like super anal about this. Like I've got to represent everyone that it would kill
me if I missed something. You got to you wouldn't believe how much shit I had to listen to to kind
of like verify whether this was legit or not. And I'm done. And then like I forgot and searching
(15:52):
something else. It showed up because it's kind of weird thing. It's two songs. It's like we wish you
a Merry Christmas and jingle bells, you know, a merry jingle anyway. But it's Phil Linat and his
guitarist whose name escapes me now. And like half the Sex Pistols like there's a punk rock
supergroup, you know, and this is what while these guys were, you know, at their best, you know,
(16:15):
like 79 during the thick of it. Yeah. Yeah. Some weird thing because I looked it up a little bit
today and they started out calling themselves the greedy bastards. Yeah. And then they shortened it
to the greedies. But I never, I never knew your name. There was a super group members of Thin Lizzy
and the same video. I think there's a there's a video online of that. Yeah. That's one of the fun
(16:42):
things. That's what it like. Like I'm like the book is going to have barcodes. Every page will have a
barcode so you can see you can hear what I'm talking about. The barcode will open up your streamer of
choice. You know, you want to hear, you know, assuming it's on Spotify and then and in this
case, this one is not, I don't think, but I got it off of YouTube. So you'll look at it to the YouTube
(17:04):
version. But that's my hope is like your reaction to that. And the other one makes me feel really
great because I really think there's stuff out there that needs to, you know, be uncovered.
Yeah. That one for me in particular, because I'm a huge fan of both of those bands. So I was like,
I had no idea that existed. So now, yeah, I'm super into it. Same here. I was thinking earlier
(17:25):
today, as I'm going through and hearing some of these songs for the first time, I was like,
I want to like get a camera and record my reactions because half the time I'm just sitting with my jaw
open going. Well, I definitely had the same face that we were just talking about for the next song
that you're about to talk about too. I was blown away again. Didn't have any idea that this existed.
(17:45):
Well, here's the interesting thing. So the song is Wonderful Christmas Time. Lennon and McCartney,
each had Christmas songs. They both came out like a year apart, right? And for many, many years,
the Lennon, So This is Christmas, Happy Christmas, War is Over was like the dominant one. Like it's
so beautiful and sentimental. Out of the gate, everyone derided Wonderful Christmas Time, you
(18:10):
know, bouncy, hokey, you know, the part of McCartney that rubbed people the wrong way,
the silly love songs and stuff like that. Boy has to tie turn. If you like look on Spotify now,
not only is Wonderful Christmas Time surpassing Lennon in streams and constantly making like
(18:32):
the top 20 list, both of their songs are like almost like the biggest songs of their catalog.
And when we're talking a catalog, we're talking the Beatles freaking catalog, the Paul McCartney
solo catalog and the Lennon catalog. Again, getting back to the whole phenomenon of Christmas music,
it's rock solid, you know, from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, you know, that's it. It's
(18:59):
constantly playing. So we've teased it long enough. The band is called Helix and it's a crazy,
describe it guys. What did you think? It's a meddled up version of the McCartney classic. I mean,
just it was sped up the tempo. They had the electric guitars. It's going on my playlist
(19:20):
immediately. Oh, I love hearing that. I hadn't heard the name Helix in so long. I don't know
how long and then it popped up. Now, what were they? What was Helix a band that you guys knew?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. What like what year were they? Probably I'm going to say like
84, 85. They had a song, their biggest song that I remember. Rock you. I think it was called Rock
(19:46):
you. But yeah, very anthemic, you know, that that sort of mid 80s fist in the air kind of metal,
you know. And yeah, Helix is a lot of fun, man. I have to research this a little more because,
you know, it's just 2008. Like for all I know, that could have been a reissue because that's
a long time they've been around, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. That's incredible. It really is.
John Anderson, lead singer from where you guys stand with Yes. What do you think of Yes?
(20:09):
I'm a huge fan. Yeah, we're down. Yeah. I love that. John Anderson recruited this like
local band from New York to be his the yes surrogates, you know, like they like they're
releasing an album, they're touring and they're really great musicians. They're amazing. I mean,
you have to be this. I saw Three Ships on Christmas Day. He did a whole album. This is a
(20:32):
whole Christmas album. This version of Oh Holy Night is beautiful. One bit of trivia on this
when when he did this song, when this song came out, I know he was on Howard Stern,
right? Promoting the record. I was working at MTV at the time. And because MTV had a lot of juice
for like several years, the bands that did Christmas songs like Billy Squire, Christmas
(20:57):
Slam, I Love You, The Church Thoregood one. And yes, they shot videos and I was in this video,
this music video. I looked it up today. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so funny. I think I
spotted you. You're watching TV. Yeah, yeah. We were like a good catch. I remember like we're
(21:18):
parading. I got my hands around John Anderson's waist and I'm behind him because we're doing
like a conga line. And I'm like, this is so surreal. It's like, Hey, John, I love you and
Howard Stern today. He's crazy. He's crazy. So much fun. That's amazing. Yeah, I urge everyone
listening to go check out the video for John Anderson, Three Ships. It's all the all the
(21:42):
the original MTV VJs. It's fantastic. That's it's like it's like a pirate sea shanty. I saw
three ships on Christmas Day on Christmas Day on Christmas Day. Christmas Day in the morning.
I'll pick the lock on my 10 foot weight. Easy. All right. So the next one, you need a bleep on me.
(22:04):
Oh, no. Oh, no. This is gold. OK, so I had to put the classic because it's so good. The Kinks.
That's I know you guys knew that one. That is one of my all time favorites. Yeah,
I just it's rock and falling. It kicks ass. But it's it's a story about working class British
kids beat the shit out of a mall Santa. You know, I know. I know it's so great. But how great is
(22:28):
like the music when it comes down at the end? It gets very Christmas. Have yourself a merry merry.
Have yourself a good time. And the jingle bells are going. Oh, yeah. Such a great, great song.
Yeah, I love those guys. And it is it's the ultimate like snotty Brit rock. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's so good. I mean, he really, you know, he was he was the original punk. I mean,
(22:52):
he was just oh, yeah. Hands down. Absolutely. T. Rex. I fell in love with this the second I heard it.
Yeah, it's Christmas bop. And it shockingly sounds a lot like Merry Christmas, Baby,
Please Come Home. Right. Yes, very much. Oh, it absolutely rips off darling love. Yeah.
Sorry, Bart. But Jesus. Yeah. But it's great. I mean, I just love I think there's probably a
(23:15):
video of that online as well. I think there's something. But he was great. Yeah. Yeah. I think
I can speak for Mac as well. I mean, we're both metal kids, but we still had a love for a lot of
the 80s pop that was going on. We might not have talked about it back then. You know, it wasn't
cool to admit you like that stuff when you had long hair and stuff. But, you know, a lot of those
(23:35):
sort of poppy 80s, you know, bands, you know, drew a lot from bands like T. Rex and, you know, sweets.
And even some of the, you know, the glam metal bands that we were kind of in a motley crew and
bands like that, they took a lot from those bands. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm sure. Oh, my God, of course.
We're going to get to Bon Jovi in a little while. Yeah, I'm excited for that. That was a crazy
(23:58):
revelation. That was like insane. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But Mark Mullen, he's a legend that I'm so happy.
Yeah. And that's like, again, that's the kind of stuff that I hope when people are going through
the book and, you know, and I will, you know, there's I cover a lot and I'm very emphatic when
it's like this is one you should listen to. You know, this is this is this is this is an important
one. Yeah. The Ramones. Merry Christmas. I don't want to fight tonight. But one of my favorite.
(24:25):
Yeah. Yeah. So you talk about the Ramones in the context of all metal bands like where do they fit?
Well, I mean, the Ramones, I mean, obviously, yeah, punk. But when you even look at the beginning of
like thrash metal thrash metal, you know, your slayers, Metallica's, Megadeth, that sped up guitar,
those downrifts, that's all derivative of the punk movement and the Ramones and their style of playing.
(24:48):
Ramones especially. But for what as much as they meant to punk, they meant meant just as much,
you know, to metal and thrash. You know, Mack and I, we kind of we came up in a certain era where
we did things in reverse. You know, if you were if you were 10 years older, let's say than we are,
you might have been listening to punk rock first and then went into metal. We kind of did it
backwards. We kind of we were like, OK, like, you know, the ACDCs, the Aerosmiths, the Motley
(25:12):
Cruise bands like that. And then we went backwards and kind of discovered the punk stuff. Yeah.
The band that made us go back. Yeah. So it's probably Motorhead. Oh, Motorhead. Hundred percent.
You know, because as metal kids, you fall in love with Motorhead and you realize that, well,
they're kind of a punk band. They're not really metal. And you kind of do a deep dive on them and
where their sound came from. Yeah. Yeah. There were moans to put a button on that. From my point of
(25:35):
view, I just like love one of my favorite bands of all time and with a strong sense of pop underneath
somehow. They never shied away from their love of like fifties and, you know, early sixties,
like the doo-wop stuff. And they embraced it. They were as much into the bubblegum sound. I mean,
they were on Sha Na Na for Christ's sake. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a great episode.
(26:00):
Yeah. Oh my God. Such a great episode. I mean, they were a cartoon, right? They really were.
Yeah. Okay. So this next one is great for so many reasons. The song is called Donner and Blitzen.
Yes. By who guys? The metal god. Rob Halford. Hell yeah. You know, it's so funny that that's who
(26:21):
we chose to focus on. Donner and Blitzen. There were nine reindeer and Donner and Blitzen were
originally called Donner and Blitzen. Yes. It's like a cherry blue sound. Blitzen ladies.
But I love it. He's put all his eggs in one basket. It's like, fuck Rudolph. It's Donner and Blitzen.
(26:42):
That's what I love about this song. It's such a metal thing to do to write a story about the
underdogs. Yes. Exactly. Or the under deer, if you will. Yeah, the under deer.
But to me, like that's what I took from like, I'm listening to Halford. I'm like, that's so fucking
metal, man. He took the underdogs. He's like, he's going to little guy, you know, like that.
(27:05):
That made it for me. Yeah. No, that's really, really good. Yeah. Rudolph really is like,
sucks all the life out of the room. It's all about the overrated. It's the claymation special,
you know, yeah, that's not fair. And Donner and Blitzen. I mean, they come from the words are
lightning and thunder. So really look at that. Yeah. So Dunder is the word that it came from
(27:27):
in Latin or German or whatever was thunder and then Blitzen was lightning. So what's more metal
than thunder and lightning? That is so great. Yeah, dude, those are fun facts. Fun. I'll come
in with the fun facts. There it is. You're very cunning linguist. Okay, the next one is really sad.
(27:47):
I don't know what was I kept on like I was going through the album. We're talking about Scott
Wylan. Am I pronouncing it right? Yes. I'm not sure what year he died. This came out in 2011.
And it's not done, you know, sarcastically. No, I just recorded, I guess it's heartfelt,
which is beautiful. But it's so like, I don't know, man, I think he needs to sing faster song.
(28:13):
You know, these are like that, like the white Christmas is very, very dark. I just, it was
one of the, I was listening to it today. Just sitting there with my jaw on the floor and going,
what the fuck? I went through every song in the album. There's gotta be one that just like,
okay, the single, you know, and now there was nothing there. Yeah, I listened to it today as
(28:38):
well. And I was like, I was waiting for, you know, the moment where, you know, you hear like the
bop, the snare and then it kicks in and goes fast. And I'm like, nope, straight forward all the way
through. Super depressing. And maybe it's depressing because we know how his story ends. Unfortunately,
I don't know, but we know how great he is. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. The next one is
(29:04):
talk about low hanging fruit, Slade, Mary Exvis. That was this signature, good either the way they
spell things. Merry Christmas everybody, which as recently as last year earned Noddy Holder, I think
$600,000 a year. It's used in commercials. It's used in, you know, it's just royalties alone,
(29:27):
publishing and then the performance royalty. Wow. Yeah. Another one just blew my mind today. Yeah.
That was recorded in New York, same studio. Oh, you'll like this. The same studio that
Lennon had recorded in, I think I want to say the power station maybe, but that Mellotron was one
that John Lennon let them use. No kidding. It wasn't the Beatles one, but like in the song,
there's that part. It's very Lennon-esque. Yeah. As you can tell. That's a great one. That's a
(29:54):
classic. And in England, it's a big deal. Yeah. Like classic just glam rock song. Yeah. Yeah.
Soaring chorus, like great harmonies, vocal harmonies, just a lot of fun, man. I loved it.
That was one where the other guy in the band wrote it with him. They merged two different songs. They
had two different things. They're like, okay, you know, let's put them together. Very Lennon,
McCartney-like. That's cool. Spinal tap, Christmas with the Devil, and she's back there. You know,
(30:20):
they're so good. Like there's supposed to be a parody and then they're not a parody anymore.
I know. Can I just read the first verse? Oh my God, please do. Absolutely. I was dying when I
heard this today. The elves are dressed in leather and angels are in chains. The sugar plums are
rancid and the stockings are in flames. There's a demon in my belly and a gremlin in my brain.
(30:42):
There's someone up the chimney hole and Satan is his name. Oh my God. I like the chimney hole too.
It feels like a hole you'll go down. It somehow sounds dirty. I don't know.
It's so great. I'm telling you, what a body of work those Spinal Taps. They're fantastic.
They just filmed it. It's going to be so much fun. I can't wait for that. Yes. Yeah. 40 years
(31:08):
later. Yes. Okay. This is the one no one's been waiting for. This Car Wars Christmas album,
R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Now, okay, recorded at the power station,
which was managed by Tony Bon Jovi, whose cousin, young kid, he calls him up and said,
(31:31):
hey, you want to be on a record? Yeah. Yeah. But it's not going to be one of your songs. It's
going to be with R2D2. It took me a while, a couple of listenings to really appreciate,
oh, that's Bon Jovi for sure. I wouldn't have known it unless you told me. Sure.
Yeah. I listened to it three times today trying to like, is that really John Bon Jovi? Then I
(31:53):
realized it's John Bon Jovi, but he's probably 15. Yeah. Yeah. He was very, very young. I mean,
it goes back to 1980s. So yeah. Yeah. And same, I was listening to it today and I was like, no,
I just don't hear it. I don't hear it. And then every once in a while you'd hear a certain
inflection or a certain note. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, there it is. There it is. But if you had just
(32:14):
played that for me and said, who's singing? Yeah. Not a million years. No way. I would not have
gotten it. And then, you know, it's interesting. I just probably a few years after that, not much
longer is when his cousin again said, listen, you could, you know, I think he was working, he was
like a janitor at the studio for a while to make some money. It's like, hey, after hours, the studio
(32:34):
is yours, you know, if you want to do that. He didn't run away with whatever musicians he was
able to pull together. Amazing. It's a Christmas miracle. Okay. Waitress is one of my favorite
Christmas songs of all time. Yes. Yes. Yes. 100%. It is so perfect. It could be a Hallmark movie,
you know, this couple destined to be together. They keep on missing each other. But I interviewed
(33:02):
Chris Butler. The story is amazing. They were on Z Records, which was an uber like New Wave punk
late 70s record label, right? And it had like August Darnell, Christmas on Riverside Drive,
which was that that was his big song. And that was on the album. It had a lot of hardcore bands on
it. And on the label, head to the head of the label goes, okay, we're going to make our version
(33:27):
of the Phil Spector Christmas album, A Christmas Wish for You, you know, but everything's going to
the original. Like that, you know, that's the garbage. This poor guy, Chris Butler, he just
got into New York, overwhelmed, they had recorded the album. But they were holding up the release of
the album because they wanted to get the Christmas. So we're losing momentum, basically, they lost all
(33:48):
their momentum. He doesn't want to write this song. He's roughing. He's doing the finishing the lyrics
on a cab ride going to electric lady land studios where Hendrix studio, he talks about like he's in
a cab and he's finishing it up. And you know, the song's amazing. I mean, it's so beautifully
produced. It's so heartwarming. It's so clever in the rapping versus rapping, you know. But what did
(34:13):
you guys do you guys remember from back in the day? Or is it like, oh, I definitely. Again, I worked
in radio God in the early 90s and early 2000s. And that it was already a classic at that point,
I worked for a radio station where the format was so super tight, you couldn't ever, you know,
stray from from, you know, your log, except for Christmas time. It was like, oh, play a Christmas
(34:38):
song here, play a Christmas. So it's kind of DJ's choice. And I probably played Christmas rapping
way more than I should have. It's good. You know, especially if that 12. Oh, totally, totally. It
was a great time to go to the bathroom. Yeah. To hear that story that, you know, he was finishing
the lyrics in a cab. It sounds like they spent years writing this song. I know it's like now
(35:01):
the calendar is down to just one page or my favorite line, hardly dashing through the snow
piled up so tight. Come on. Yeah, it's genius. It's truly it's it's in my my top five. Yeah. Oh,
mine too. Mine too. I love, love, love that song. Another band. I know you guys the next one we're
(35:22):
talking about that you guys are familiar with is a cover of Oh, Carp Holy Faithful. Yes. My
Reezer. Yes, absolutely. I think they're the Beatles of pop metal, right? They're so freaking
great. Oh, Reezer is amazing. Reezer is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Love their songs. So talented. And
that EP has got some other good stuff on it, but he could do anything. Yeah, he's he's amazing.
(35:43):
Yo, and their cover songs too. Yeah. Oh, I love it. And they just cover like
Enter Sandman a couple years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Non ironically, what he did it with
love. Yeah. Okay. This is the next this is the penultimate song because the song is going to be
the greatest Christmas song of all time. But we're talking William William Shatner. I love that one
(36:04):
of his name is Shat because that's right. Yes. Shatter unintentionally. But he I mean, really,
Todd Rundgren, these guys are like, you know, he gets them all heavy hitters, man. But he talks
to them. Remember, I love Howard Stern. Oh, my God. He was playing Mr. Tambourine Man.
(36:29):
Right. But I know exactly where I was. I was on 57th and Fifth Avenue. Listen to headphones.
Hysterical Crying because then he played Shatner's Lucy, This Guy with Dimes.
That's another classic. Picture yourself. And then he goes, and then you answer quite slowly.
It was so literal. Slowly, slowly. Oh, my God, Howard. Brilliant. Brilliant. So good.
(36:55):
I was listening to what I loved about this. And I guess what I love about everything Shatner does
is the the the words or syllables he chooses to emphasize. Exactly.
Sabotage. Remember on the Howard Stern thing, he pronounces the recording session.
Sabotage. Sabotage. Excuse me, Shatner. It should be sabotage. No, you disgust me.
(37:16):
Sabotage. Yeah. Went to Wonderland. Oh, my God. It's his own style. You know, it's incredible.
Oh, yeah. That's again, you know, closing the loop in some ways on Christmas music.
It encompasses everything the way music encompasses everything. You know, we're not talking a genre,
(37:38):
even though that's how it's classified, DJs and all that. No, I really think for the three months
of the year, music becomes Christmas music. You know, that's it. And everyone's satisfied because
what kind of mixtape can you have a Ramones, you know, and a Ray Charles and a Frank Sinatra
and the goddamn hero for the world? Yes, my new favorite band.
(38:00):
Yeah. All right. Let's get to my favorite song, Maddock. I think we've talked about this before.
It was on a compilation, an Australian rock and roll compilation, rock and roll Christmas
compilation. But it's Christmas time again by Chris Pondyke Mazouac. I couldn't find a lot of
information on him. And I'm not going to give up on this. It holds such a big part of the book.
(38:24):
It's got one of the smallest ribets on it, other than me just waxing how much I love it.
And maybe you could end the podcast with a chunk of it, you know, because it's such a great song.
I don't think you'll have any copyright issues with this one. But I don't know what you guys
thought of it. No, I fell in love with it immediately. I love the Kamali, fateful solo
(38:47):
guitar. It's just so perfect. You know, it was a very Weezer like. Yeah, bouncy and light kind of,
you know, real catchy chords. The story's great too. You know, my girlfriend's bugger me. My mom's
been bugging me for years, you know, but he's like that surly teenager at home, still at home, you
know, we're at home. Maybe not a teat. One year, one Christmas longer than he should have been at
(39:08):
home, you know? Right. But it's just, it's a beautiful song. I think it's up there. I mean,
it's in my top five. Yeah, I'm super stoked that you turned us onto that because yeah, I absolutely
loved it as well. And what really kind of caught my attention too, and I had to go back and look at
the date. So that came out in 1989. Right. That song could have easily come out last year. Yeah,
(39:31):
you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So timeless in that sound, that sort of punky rock.
World, right? Yeah, absolutely. That whole wave of those bands, they blink 182. Yeah, all break.
It's timeless. Yeah. And that sound and that style of singing and playing it, it's just,
it never gets old. It never gets old. And yeah, that song could have come out last year.
(39:55):
Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, I loved it. Absolutely loved
it. So yes, that's going to be on my playlist this year as well, for sure. A couple of songs,
just to wrap it up, I guess, if you want, were just song titles. I might not have included them
on the playlist, but the 70s was weird, man. John Denver, Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk for Christmas.
(40:17):
Command Cody, Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas. Merle Haggard, if we make it through December,
that's a really toadstapper. And Merle Haggard again, Daddy Won't Be Home Again for Christmas.
So he's not only disappointed in this year, apparently he's been disappointed in every year
because he never got home again. Shit was dark in the 70s apparently. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Then
(40:39):
we also had Martin Moe, Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope, which I love. Yeah, in the 1980s,
Santa Came Home Drunk. It's crazy. I mean, there's categories. There's the novelty,
which is basic novelty, but then there's specific categories like drunk. You could do a whole
(41:01):
playlist on that topic. And another big one was Vietnam. Christmas music was holding a mirror up
to whatever was going on, whatever songs they were writing. I Won't Be Home This Christmas by
Barry Sadler, who did the Ballad of the Green Beret. No Christmas Tree in Vietnam. Christmas
(41:23):
without Daddy because he just was shot by the Viet Cong. I mean, it's crazy. That's wild. Yeah.
I went and actually looked up some of these songs today and gave them a listen.
So fucking depressed.
It really is. It really is. I suffered my art. Now it's your turn.
(41:48):
Oh my God.
Listen, it's a great topic and you guys have a great podcast. Your podcast is literally all about
these clumps of music that we share with each other. Someone might want to make the ultimate
Christmas mixtape. Someone put a gut to your head and said, you only get 20 songs. I'd be dying.
(42:11):
You only get 20 metal songs. Then you really have to hone in on that. But it's great. I enjoyed
being on here and I'm afraid of this lightning round. Eric, I think it's time. Oh, I'm so excited
for this. This is my favorite. When I was a kid, I thought it was Donna. I thought it was Donna.
(42:35):
Donna. Hey, it's Donna. In Brooklyn, they didn't pronounce it wrong. It was like Donna.
All right, here we go. It's time for the ride to lightning round.
All right, Vinny, I'm going to hit you with 10 holiday theme, this or that.
And we just got to roll through them. And we get through the end, you can go back and defend
and explain anything you want. Here we go. Okay, true or false? Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
(43:00):
True. Jingle Bell Rock, Bobby Helms or Hall and Oates? Oh, fuck Bobby Helms. Of course,
Bobby Helms. Fuck Hall and Oates, Bobby Helms. I should have said fuck yeah, Bobby Helms.
Brenda Lee.
Brenda Lee, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree or Jose Feliciano Feliz Navidad.
(43:22):
Oh, that's that's a tough one. But I got to go with Brenda.
Okay, agreed. Bing Crosby, White Christmas or Burl Ives, a Holly Jolly Christmas.
I got to go with Bing. I love Holly Jolly, but I got to go with Bing.
The Kinks, Father Christmas or Billy Squire, Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You.
I'm going to go with Christmas. Don't yell at me. It's the time. I know. I know, right?
(43:46):
Blasphemy. Home Alone or Elf?
Home Alone. Mariah Carey, All I Want for Christmas is You or Wham, Last Christmas.
All I Want for Christmas is You. Okay. Adam Sandler, the Hanukkah Song
or Elmo and Patsy, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
I got to go with Elmo. That's a good one. Kudos to you.
(44:07):
That is a good one. Paul McCartney, Wonderful Christmas Time
or Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. The Waitresses, Christmas Wrapping
or Run DMC, Christmas and Hollis. Oh, wrapping, Christmas wrapping.
Okay. And I've got a bonus, a Christmas bonus. Keep it in your pants.
(44:30):
Yes, a bonus. Oh, a bonus.
We've talked about reindeer a lot tonight. Most metal reindeer name, Blitzen or Vixen?
Blitzen. Okay. All right.
Well done, Vinnie. Well done.
Nice. Thank you.
Anything you want to defend or discuss? Go from the top again. Real quick, just remind
(44:51):
me. Number one was? Die Hard is a Christmas movie, true or false?
Yeah, that's one, Eric. You don't agree, right?
No, I do. You said yes, right?
You do agree. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great debate. I'm using that into,
I'm going to use it in the book because there's my favorite things from The Sound of Music
in recent years has become a Christmas song and it's really not.
(45:13):
Yeah. Yeah, of course.
I'm going to allude to the Die Hard when I get to that. But okay, Bobby Helms, as good as the other
one was, that was a horrible, I mean, you know, Hall and Oates and Bobby Helms. Come on. Jesus
Christ. Sometimes you got to go old school. Yeah.
Yeah. What was Brenda Lee up against? Yeah, Brenda Lee or Jose Feliciano.
(45:35):
Yeah. I love listening to Jose Feliciano. It's fantastic. It really is. Damn, I hate the
lightning round. I went with Bingo for who? Who was the other?
Burl Ives. Oh yeah.
Yeah, you know, Burl's okay. But you know, I mean, Burl's actually made some really great
Christmas music, some old stuff too. But yeah, you got to go with White Christmas.
(45:57):
And then you took Billy Squire over to Kinks.
Yeah. You know, that was a shocker.
Yeah. I did that one because when I'm, I like melody, I like singalong,
and I like, you know, stuff that like that's a great for a playlist with a lot with a lot of
different ages that are listening. I mean, the Kinks could be on that playlist as well.
(46:20):
But there's something about this that makes you stop and go, oh, that's it's a pretty,
I love it. It's one of my favorite Christmas songs.
It is a great, great song.
And it doesn't wear out. I don't think it wears out.
Like, oh no, I love that song too. It totally stands up.
Yeah. And I think I was there when he did that one, because that was MTV. I'm not in the video,
but that was another one that he did it. Oh yeah.
Yeah. What was the one after that?
(46:40):
You took Home Alone over Elf.
Oh yeah. Yeah. That looks great.
Yeah. I think it's a generational thing maybe, you know, although I was like,
and my forties when Home Alone came out. And then what was...
It took Mariah Carey over Wham.
(47:01):
That was easy.
This surprised me. You took Grandma Got Run Over by a Ranger over Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song.
Yeah. And I think that Adam Sandler is such a great, it's so funny, you know, it's really,
really, but it's like, it's not really a Christmas song at the end of the day,
but it's a great song too. That's why I hate the lighting round. I got to defend it.
(47:22):
You have to pick.
What else? What was after that?
You took Springsteen Over McCartney.
That was a no brainer, right?
Yeah.
And then you took The Waitresses Over Run DMC.
Yeah. That was easy for me. That was crazy easy.
And of course, Blitzen has the most metal reindeer name.
Right. Do you agree?
Oh, hands down.
(47:44):
He moved me just from what he said earlier.
Vixen is close.
Yeah. I mean, I did enjoy Vixen back in the day.
Vixen sounds like a drag queen though.
Well, Vixen was an all girl metal band back in the day. Remember that? Edge of a Broken Heart.
Yeah.
Yeah. Written by Richard Marks, by the way.
(48:07):
Is Richard Marks Yacht Rock? Does he fall into the Yacht Rock category? I forget.
I think he could.
I think he could. I don't think we touched on that.
No, he didn't come up in our Yacht Rock episode.
We have to save that for another podcast.
Yeah. We can revisit Yacht Rock and get a different perspective on it.
Love it.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you what, Vinnie, this has been so much fun.
(48:27):
This is great. I knew when I was putting it together, oh, we're going to have a lot to talk
about. I just split through. Blitz, there we go again. Let's just go.
Yeah. Well, again, yeah, we could easily go on for hours and hours. I mean, it's such a fun topic
and you're a wealth of knowledge. Again, man, you turned us on to some amazing stuff that we
just didn't even know existed. So.
(48:48):
I'm really glad you liked it.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that.
Yeah, Vinnie, thank you so much, man. This was so much fun. We loved it.
Yeah. Let's do it again very soon.
Let me be the first to wish you guys a very Merry Christmas.
Oh my God. Thank you so much. You as well.
Same to you. And before you go, Vinnie too, when can we expect the book to come out?
I'm hoping now. I decided to do it by decade and not wait for the whole thing because it would
(49:11):
be forever. So I'm hoping to get the 70s out by Christmas of next year, 25.
Okay.
Nice.
Yeah.
Well, we'll have to have you back and put the book.
Yeah, I'll be back to promote that. Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Blow our minds again with.
Yeah, for sure.
Just the incredible music.
I love the blow your mind. I love these three lame threes company,
(49:32):
Devil and Tondra Jones.
Right. Yes. We're big fans as well.
Jack.
Oh, and he's Mr. Roper to look into the camera.
Wait, hold on.
Breaking the fourth wall. Oh my God.
So great. Well, Merry Christmas, guys.
You as well, man. Thank you so much.
Take care.
Take care, buddy.
Bye-bye.
All right, Eric, let's close this episode out with some shout outs.
(49:54):
Sounds good.
We got new listeners, Capitol Heights, Maryland, Reston, Virginia,
Shreveport, Louisiana, Owasso, Oklahoma, Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania,
East Providence, Rhode Island, Tempe, Arizona, Gualala, California.
Eric, say it with me. Gualala.
Gualala.
(50:16):
That is fun to say.
Calgary, Canada, Mannheim, Germany, Mannheim steamroller.
There you go.
Coimbatore, India.
Well done.
Swansea in the UK.
The Hague.
Yeah.
The Hague.
Just any place that starts with the is cool in my book.
(50:36):
And that really they like lock up like international war criminals and shit.
I think so.
The Hague.
I don't ever want to find out for myself.
But thanks for listening.
Ulst in the Netherlands.
All right.
Feels like they could use a vowel.
Rahini, Ireland, Rahini and Paramaribo Suriname.
All right.
(50:57):
All right.
I love it.
I hope I didn't fuck them up too bad.
I'm sure you did, but that's okay.
Yeah, I guarantee I did.
But anyways, we love you.
Thank you for listening.
Follow us on the socials.
We are on Instagram and on YouTube.
We are getting so many cool comments to some of our content on YouTube.
Yeah.
And now even on Instagram.
(51:18):
So we love the positivity.
How much people are just sharing their love of music with us.
So keep it coming.
Yeah, absolutely.
Rate us, review us, subscribe.
Anything you can do to help us out.
We appreciate 100%.
All right.
Well, that's going to wrap it up for us.
Thanks again so much for hanging out with us.
Thank you, Vinny Favali for your wealth of knowledge and your just that was so much fun.
(51:40):
I can't stop saying how much fun and greeting from ear to ear.
That was a great time.
Vinny can't thank you enough.
Yeah, man.
Thank you so much.
We'll be back again very soon with a full length episode.
And until then, it's the greatest mixtape podcast.
My name is Eric and my name is Mac and we will talk to you really soon.
What is happening y'all? Welcome back to the Greatest Mixtape Podcast. My name is Eric.
(00:05):
And my name is Mack.
Mack, it is the Christmas season, the holiday season as we like to say, and we've got something
a little special cooked up for our recording this evening. You want to set it up for us?
Yes, tis the season. And we did a holiday episode last year.
Yeah, a lot of fun.
We wanted to go a little bit deeper and maybe get into some songs that we weren't too familiar with.
(00:27):
So we're bringing in what we're going to call an expert.
Yeah, we love to bring in the experts.
Our guest tonight, he's a producer, writer, and director. He's worked at NBC, MTV, A&E,
HBO, Comedy Central, and CBS. He's actually one of the founders of the comedy channel,
which later became Comedy Central. He was the executive in charge of production at the
late show with David Letterman from 1996 until the end of the show's run in 2015.
(00:51):
And all of us old school Howard Stern show fans remember his legendary appearances on the show.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Vinnie Favale.
Yeah.
Thank you, thank you. My reputation exceeds me.
It's so great to be with you guys. Mack and Eric, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed
(01:11):
your Christmas podcast last year, and I've been in the thick of writing this book for
the past three years with no end in sight. So I love anything Christmas related.
Well, thanks for being here, man. We're really excited to have you on. And yeah,
I know you and Mack have known each other for a while now. It's our first time meeting,
but you feel like an old friend already, man.
(01:35):
Oh, yeah.
You know, familiar with your work in the past. So it's great to have you on.
Thank you. Thanks so much, Eric.
Very excited. Vinnie, you mentioned you're working on a book.
Yes, I'm working on a book. The working title is Do You Hear What I Hear, which
is also a great Christmas song. And I'm basically writing a biography of Christmas music,
(01:57):
a biography slash history. And I don't know what I've gotten myself into. It's insane.
There's easily a hundred Christmas songs that everybody knows, that everybody knows. And then
there's over 100. And then there's probably 10,000 cover versions of every genre of those
(02:18):
hundred some odd songs. And when I got into the project, I discovered there's a hell of a lot more
than 100 original Christmas songs. There's maybe a good six, 700 that I think are worthy of all of
those 24 seven Christmas music channels. And so what my book is doing is shining a big light
(02:39):
on just about every Christmas song from the beginning of time, going back to the carols
to modern day. And as you can imagine, it does taper off. I think the last big original Christmas
song is from the nineties, Moriah Carey. And then there were a couple after that. And that's not a
bad one, right? That's a big one. No, no, no. It's just everywhere.
(02:59):
It's diminishing returns. The fifties and sixties are insane because there's so many great
novelty songs. And then but I completed the seventies and eighties, which is really,
really interesting. And, you know, it tells a story in telling the story of every song.
And I get into the inspiration. I talk about the writers as much as the performers, you know,
(03:24):
because I want to shine a light on the people that wrote these songs, you know, that actually
they would exist if two guys, usually Jewish, sit down and write this song, write their song,
you know. But it's been a lot of fun. And I'm really looking forward to diving in here.
You know, I put this list together kind of as an homage partly to your show, the kind of music
(03:50):
that you guys love. So there's some heavy stuff in here that I don't know if you guys have heard
yet before heard of. Well, we were just talking about that before, before you joined us. And there
are there's an obvious, you know, few on this list that you gave us that we were familiar with.
Some of our favorites are in there as well. But yeah, the I was we consider ourselves music nerds.
(04:11):
And there are so many songs in this list that we had never heard of before. So I heard them just
for the first time when you gave us this list. And I was like, Oh my God, like, why did I not
know this song? Yeah, and then, you know, God bless Apple Music, because it's actually well,
and Spotify, you know, sure, they're all there. They're all freaking there. And when if they're
not there, they're on YouTube. Like, that's a whole phenomenon where especially like stuff like old
(04:38):
45s from the 30s and 40s, someone will will record their turntable with the record spinning, and
they're playing the song, you know, and amazing because you can't get it anywhere. Um, you know,
um, on streaming, but but there are there is a lot of great music out there. And you just have to
kind of dig in. Yeah, it's it's wild. You know, I'm of a certain age where, you know, I'm a Spotify
(05:03):
guy, for the most part, as far as you know, what I what I listen to on a daily basis. And I realized
that I'm already like starting to age out because I work with a lot of younger people. And they're
like, Oh, my God, you listen to Spotify. Like, really? Play the song. Yeah,
apparently, it's just getting beamed directly into their heads. Now. I don't know what is going
(05:25):
You know what you know, another place that actually we get a lot of music is on TikTok.
And now has a button at the bottom that syncs up with Spotify or Apple Music. And if you like the
song, it creates goes into a playlist that you have on. Yeah, you have people consume music
so many different ways, even on commercials, you know, songs get get played. Um, but yeah,
(05:49):
it's it's it's crazy. Yeah, we are not kids here for sure. But it is we're like in a candy shop.
I mean, imagine when we were younger, the younger selves guys, when you were trading cassettes and
just getting into it, that if you could just open up this magic box and just about every mainstream
song is there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My brain back then couldn't be able to comprehend.
(06:13):
It's true. I remember one Christmas my brother gave me it was actually he had this thing and
it was so cool. And he just gave it to me a reel to reel tape recorder. Oh, that was it was like
a like almost like one from Mission Impossible. You know, when you see like it was self destruct.
And I'm like, wait a second, like this is mine. I could record like up until then. I just everything
(06:38):
was ephemeral. You know, there's a great song. Oh, it's God. That's it. You know, I got to wait for
cousin Bruce to play the goddamn right again before I could enjoy it. You know, there was no
Alexa. There's no serious like hey, because of Bruce, you're here. You know, like your cold
number 45 of the hotline physical volume because Bruce, the American fight. But but it's crazy.
(07:03):
You know, so getting a recorder, the idea that I could actually capture this stuff. Oh, my God.
And then but then again, like, I can't afford the tape. You know, it's like the VCR. Wait, we could
record SCTV. We can record David Letterman live. Yeah. But unless you do it at the slow speed where
it looks like the moon landing, you know, eight hours on one tape. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's
(07:26):
so true. And I remember because I yes, again, grew up in those days, too. And I remember getting so
annoyed at the you know, at the DJ that and I ultimately talk up. Yes. And I ultimately grew up
to work in radio and I became that guy. But my God, I hated that guy. I'm like, shut up. I'm trying
to record this. I want the intro. And then and then if you had that like DJs, he was really good.
(07:49):
Dan Ingram, Danny, I heard CBS, FM, the oldies, right? Dan Ingram, they were doing shtick. They
would do it like, you know, here's a song about that about the music playing underneath. And it's
like, oh, here we go. You know, there's that the hacky joke that ties into that. Right. Right. But
you know, it was great. Oh, my God. Yeah. The golden days of radio, man. Yes. All right. Hey,
(08:11):
this let's get into the conversation here because these songs are incredible. Let's get let's get
into that that first one. It's it's a Christmas medley of that like nine minutes long by a Swedish
band called a hero for the world. That is I knew that was gonna you want to go back? Go Eric. Go.
(08:32):
No, you're dying. This is you, man. Go for it. OK, so I and I told Mac when we were chatting before
you got on with this, I said, if I don't talk about any other songs for the rest of the night,
I said I have to address this first one because I had never heard of a hero for the world before.
I just I had and so that the Christmas medley is amazing, but it caught me so off guard and I got
(08:57):
so into it that I ended up doing the deep dive and I hope my boss isn't listening. But I spent
half my my my my daytime job today. I spent half my day doing the deep dive on a hero for the world.
Oh, my God. I'm fascinated by them. I was telling Mac and between singles and albums. If you look
at their discography, it's like 30 deep and I'm like, you know, summer singles, some are full length
(09:19):
albums. But what really got me, man, was the covers that they do. Yeah, they do. Yeah. OK. OK. Yeah.
Yeah. And I and I don't I don't generally listen to like power metal, which I guess is the best
way to describe them. It's not my cup of tea as far as like what I listen to on a daily basis.
(09:40):
But I'm weirdly fascinated by it. Like, I love when I see these bands playing live, like if you're
watching YouTube videos of like, you know, the right festival and whatever. And these power metal
bands are playing and people are so into it. I'm fascinated by the scene, not so much the music.
But these guys blew my mind. And oh, my God. So I started doing the deep dive and I'm listening
to cover songs that they did. They do holding out for a hero from the Footloose soundtrack.
(10:05):
Oh, that is so great. Oh, my God. They do a flash dance. What a feeling from the flash dance movie.
I like that they took like especially holding out for a hero is not a quiet song. That's Jim
Steinman, who like Magma, you know, meet little and they and they just, you know, went to 12.
(10:26):
You know. Yes. And my ultimate favorite was they do Ahas take on me. And oh, my God. So, you know,
that main riff, you hear the guitar, then didn't and then didn't and as the song is starting,
the singer does this epic. This huge power metal scream at the beginning. And I was just
(10:49):
I was hooked and blown away. I'm like, oh, my God, this might be my new favorite pan.
It was worth it just for that. Yes, dude. Thank you so much again. I love it. I love it. Well,
your listeners now will have a chance. And I'm going to hold off talking about what I think is
one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time at the end. So I'll do a little click,
(11:09):
baby teasing it now. Nice. Nice. I didn't have time to do the deep dive. I think if I would have
done that same deep dive, I would be going just crazy like Eric is right now. That's great. I'm
so glad that makes me happy. And the medley is amazing. The next one on the list was I was
shocked when this album came out. And it's a great album. Bob Dylan, who is Jewish, converted to
(11:32):
Christianity and recorded music of that genre. And then came back. But it's a great album.
And that's just one of the great songs here. Here comes Santa Claus. But he does must be Santa,
which is another good. This one to me, as soon as I heard him start to sing, I was like,
this doesn't seem natural. Yeah. Because he's turned to be like Holly and Jolly and Mary.
(11:57):
I know. But he's honest and sincere about it. He did three albums of Sinatra songs.
Wow. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Oh, yeah. But like I said, it gave me pause when I heard it. Yeah, yeah.
It was so undillin from what I know of Dylan when I heard it. Yeah. I mean, it's such a melancholic
(12:20):
delivery to his vocals. And then yeah, he's doing this like happy here comes Santa Claus.
It was a weird juxtaposition of his voice. And I would dig deeper if you guys have time,
because there's some great stuff there. The next one on my list was Gary Glitter.
Glam rock. Then sadly, pedophile. Yeah, we had touched on him in those songs
(12:45):
in the past. Yeah, it was always it's always such a weird like, you know, because you can't deny
his place in rock and roll history. But at the same time, you don't want to pump him up to be,
you know, this super cool guy. Such a weird look to him, too. He was like, Oh, my God,
he was such a weirdo alternate Elvis. Yeah, yeah, right. Evil Elvis. Evil Elvis.
(13:07):
Yeah. Before there was Danzig, there was Gary Glitter.
What I noticed about this song, again, this was the first time I heard it was very similar to rock
and roll. Part one and two was just, you know, limited lyrics. Right, right. And just in just a
sort of a fun beat with the chorus. Yeah, kind of coming in and out. That's it.
Yeah. No, no verses. One of the other bands on the list when we get to it, Slade, you know,
(13:34):
that's another like that. That's that that poppy metal almost Beatles kind of also 50s. I mean,
the whole thing about Glic glam rock was kind of like an homage to 50s rock and roll meets,
you know, whatever they were mixing it up. Sure. Modern sounding. How about how about George
Thurgood and the Destroyers? That's another guy that's a rock star. You know what jumped out at
(13:55):
me? A much appreciated saxophone solo. Yeah, not I'm sorry. I still love every now and again. I
love a good sax. Yeah. And I agree wholeheartedly. And to be totally honest, I know it might be a
controversial statement, but Clarence Clemens is really the reason I like Springsteen. I don't
(14:17):
think if Clarence wasn't there, I don't know if I'd be a fan. That was a he was a big part of the
he really was. Yes, especially on the Born to Run album. Yes. Yeah. And he's just such a charismatic
guy and not just, you know, his visual performance when he's on stage, but even just just his solos.
You just can't help but get sucked in, man. You know, and a super amazing guy. He was awesome.
(14:41):
I mean, the solo in Jungleland was was incredible. Could you imagine being in the studio when
you know, Springsteen wrote it and then there's a certain point you got to let it go and then
the musician takes it on and, you know, and takes it to a whole nother level, you know.
But yeah, that was that was a lot of fun. Okay, okay. This one, did you hear the Greedys?
(15:04):
The Greedys? That was I had finished the 70s chapter, right? Okay. So the way my book is
broken up into each chapter is a decade. And the low hanging fruit are the are the first batch of
songs that I cover, you know, I think the 70s had about like 1819 legitimate, like Christmas songs
(15:26):
that everybody knows, you know, so I did the deep dive on that. And then I do what's called like
stocking stuffers, you know, 45s, one offs an album cut, whatever. And I thought I had everything
cut because I'm like super anal about this. Like I've got to represent everyone that it would kill
me if I missed something. You got to you wouldn't believe how much shit I had to listen to to kind
of like verify whether this was legit or not. And I'm done. And then like I forgot and searching
(15:52):
something else. It showed up because it's kind of weird thing. It's two songs. It's like we wish you
a Merry Christmas and jingle bells, you know, a merry jingle anyway. But it's Phil Linat and his
guitarist whose name escapes me now. And like half the Sex Pistols like there's a punk rock
supergroup, you know, and this is what while these guys were, you know, at their best, you know,
(16:15):
like 79 during the thick of it. Yeah. Yeah. Some weird thing because I looked it up a little bit
today and they started out calling themselves the greedy bastards. Yeah. And then they shortened it
to the greedies. But I never, I never knew your name. There was a super group members of Thin Lizzy
and the same video. I think there's a there's a video online of that. Yeah. That's one of the fun
(16:42):
things. That's what it like. Like I'm like the book is going to have barcodes. Every page will have a
barcode so you can see you can hear what I'm talking about. The barcode will open up your streamer of
choice. You know, you want to hear, you know, assuming it's on Spotify and then and in this
case, this one is not, I don't think, but I got it off of YouTube. So you'll look at it to the YouTube
(17:04):
version. But that's my hope is like your reaction to that. And the other one makes me feel really
great because I really think there's stuff out there that needs to, you know, be uncovered.
Yeah. That one for me in particular, because I'm a huge fan of both of those bands. So I was like,
I had no idea that existed. So now, yeah, I'm super into it. Same here. I was thinking earlier
(17:25):
today, as I'm going through and hearing some of these songs for the first time, I was like,
I want to like get a camera and record my reactions because half the time I'm just sitting with my jaw
open going. Well, I definitely had the same face that we were just talking about for the next song
that you're about to talk about too. I was blown away again. Didn't have any idea that this existed.
(17:45):
Well, here's the interesting thing. So the song is Wonderful Christmas Time. Lennon and McCartney,
each had Christmas songs. They both came out like a year apart, right? And for many, many years,
the Lennon, So This is Christmas, Happy Christmas, War is Over was like the dominant one. Like it's
so beautiful and sentimental. Out of the gate, everyone derided Wonderful Christmas Time, you
(18:10):
know, bouncy, hokey, you know, the part of McCartney that rubbed people the wrong way,
the silly love songs and stuff like that. Boy has to tie turn. If you like look on Spotify now,
not only is Wonderful Christmas Time surpassing Lennon in streams and constantly making like
(18:32):
the top 20 list, both of their songs are like almost like the biggest songs of their catalog.
And when we're talking a catalog, we're talking the Beatles freaking catalog, the Paul McCartney
solo catalog and the Lennon catalog. Again, getting back to the whole phenomenon of Christmas music,
it's rock solid, you know, from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, you know, that's it. It's
(18:59):
constantly playing. So we've teased it long enough. The band is called Helix and it's a crazy,
describe it guys. What did you think? It's a meddled up version of the McCartney classic. I mean,
just it was sped up the tempo. They had the electric guitars. It's going on my playlist
(19:20):
immediately. Oh, I love hearing that. I hadn't heard the name Helix in so long. I don't know
how long and then it popped up. Now, what were they? What was Helix a band that you guys knew?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. What like what year were they? Probably I'm going to say like
84, 85. They had a song, their biggest song that I remember. Rock you. I think it was called Rock
(19:46):
you. But yeah, very anthemic, you know, that that sort of mid 80s fist in the air kind of metal,
you know. And yeah, Helix is a lot of fun, man. I have to research this a little more because,
you know, it's just 2008. Like for all I know, that could have been a reissue because that's
a long time they've been around, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. That's incredible. It really is.
John Anderson, lead singer from where you guys stand with Yes. What do you think of Yes?
(20:09):
I'm a huge fan. Yeah, we're down. Yeah. I love that. John Anderson recruited this like
local band from New York to be his the yes surrogates, you know, like they like they're
releasing an album, they're touring and they're really great musicians. They're amazing. I mean,
you have to be this. I saw Three Ships on Christmas Day. He did a whole album. This is a
(20:32):
whole Christmas album. This version of Oh Holy Night is beautiful. One bit of trivia on this
when when he did this song, when this song came out, I know he was on Howard Stern,
right? Promoting the record. I was working at MTV at the time. And because MTV had a lot of juice
for like several years, the bands that did Christmas songs like Billy Squire, Christmas
(20:57):
Slam, I Love You, The Church Thoregood one. And yes, they shot videos and I was in this video,
this music video. I looked it up today. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so funny. I think I
spotted you. You're watching TV. Yeah, yeah. We were like a good catch. I remember like we're
(21:18):
parading. I got my hands around John Anderson's waist and I'm behind him because we're doing
like a conga line. And I'm like, this is so surreal. It's like, Hey, John, I love you and
Howard Stern today. He's crazy. He's crazy. So much fun. That's amazing. Yeah, I urge everyone
listening to go check out the video for John Anderson, Three Ships. It's all the all the
(21:42):
the original MTV VJs. It's fantastic. That's it's like it's like a pirate sea shanty. I saw
three ships on Christmas Day on Christmas Day on Christmas Day. Christmas Day in the morning.
I'll pick the lock on my 10 foot weight. Easy. All right. So the next one, you need a bleep on me.
(22:04):
Oh, no. Oh, no. This is gold. OK, so I had to put the classic because it's so good. The Kinks.
That's I know you guys knew that one. That is one of my all time favorites. Yeah,
I just it's rock and falling. It kicks ass. But it's it's a story about working class British
kids beat the shit out of a mall Santa. You know, I know. I know it's so great. But how great is
(22:28):
like the music when it comes down at the end? It gets very Christmas. Have yourself a merry merry.
Have yourself a good time. And the jingle bells are going. Oh, yeah. Such a great, great song.
Yeah, I love those guys. And it is it's the ultimate like snotty Brit rock. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's so good. I mean, he really, you know, he was he was the original punk. I mean,
(22:52):
he was just oh, yeah. Hands down. Absolutely. T. Rex. I fell in love with this the second I heard it.
Yeah, it's Christmas bop. And it shockingly sounds a lot like Merry Christmas, Baby,
Please Come Home. Right. Yes, very much. Oh, it absolutely rips off darling love. Yeah.
Sorry, Bart. But Jesus. Yeah. But it's great. I mean, I just love I think there's probably a
(23:15):
video of that online as well. I think there's something. But he was great. Yeah. Yeah. I think
I can speak for Mac as well. I mean, we're both metal kids, but we still had a love for a lot of
the 80s pop that was going on. We might not have talked about it back then. You know, it wasn't
cool to admit you like that stuff when you had long hair and stuff. But, you know, a lot of those
(23:35):
sort of poppy 80s, you know, bands, you know, drew a lot from bands like T. Rex and, you know, sweets.
And even some of the, you know, the glam metal bands that we were kind of in a motley crew and
bands like that, they took a lot from those bands. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm sure. Oh, my God, of course.
We're going to get to Bon Jovi in a little while. Yeah, I'm excited for that. That was a crazy
(23:58):
revelation. That was like insane. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But Mark Mullen, he's a legend that I'm so happy.
Yeah. And that's like, again, that's the kind of stuff that I hope when people are going through
the book and, you know, and I will, you know, there's I cover a lot and I'm very emphatic when
it's like this is one you should listen to. You know, this is this is this is this is an important
one. Yeah. The Ramones. Merry Christmas. I don't want to fight tonight. But one of my favorite.
(24:25):
Yeah. Yeah. So you talk about the Ramones in the context of all metal bands like where do they fit?
Well, I mean, the Ramones, I mean, obviously, yeah, punk. But when you even look at the beginning of
like thrash metal thrash metal, you know, your slayers, Metallica's, Megadeth, that sped up guitar,
those downrifts, that's all derivative of the punk movement and the Ramones and their style of playing.
(24:48):
Ramones especially. But for what as much as they meant to punk, they meant meant just as much,
you know, to metal and thrash. You know, Mack and I, we kind of we came up in a certain era where
we did things in reverse. You know, if you were if you were 10 years older, let's say than we are,
you might have been listening to punk rock first and then went into metal. We kind of did it
backwards. We kind of we were like, OK, like, you know, the ACDCs, the Aerosmiths, the Motley
(25:12):
Cruise bands like that. And then we went backwards and kind of discovered the punk stuff. Yeah.
The band that made us go back. Yeah. So it's probably Motorhead. Oh, Motorhead. Hundred percent.
You know, because as metal kids, you fall in love with Motorhead and you realize that, well,
they're kind of a punk band. They're not really metal. And you kind of do a deep dive on them and
where their sound came from. Yeah. Yeah. There were moans to put a button on that. From my point of
(25:35):
view, I just like love one of my favorite bands of all time and with a strong sense of pop underneath
somehow. They never shied away from their love of like fifties and, you know, early sixties,
like the doo-wop stuff. And they embraced it. They were as much into the bubblegum sound. I mean,
they were on Sha Na Na for Christ's sake. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a great episode.
(26:00):
Yeah. Oh my God. Such a great episode. I mean, they were a cartoon, right? They really were.
Yeah. Okay. So this next one is great for so many reasons. The song is called Donner and Blitzen.
Yes. By who guys? The metal god. Rob Halford. Hell yeah. You know, it's so funny that that's who
(26:21):
we chose to focus on. Donner and Blitzen. There were nine reindeer and Donner and Blitzen were
originally called Donner and Blitzen. Yes. It's like a cherry blue sound. Blitzen ladies.
But I love it. He's put all his eggs in one basket. It's like, fuck Rudolph. It's Donner and Blitzen.
(26:42):
That's what I love about this song. It's such a metal thing to do to write a story about the
underdogs. Yes. Exactly. Or the under deer, if you will. Yeah, the under deer.
But to me, like that's what I took from like, I'm listening to Halford. I'm like, that's so fucking
metal, man. He took the underdogs. He's like, he's going to little guy, you know, like that.
(27:05):
That made it for me. Yeah. No, that's really, really good. Yeah. Rudolph really is like,
sucks all the life out of the room. It's all about the overrated. It's the claymation special,
you know, yeah, that's not fair. And Donner and Blitzen. I mean, they come from the words are
lightning and thunder. So really look at that. Yeah. So Dunder is the word that it came from
(27:27):
in Latin or German or whatever was thunder and then Blitzen was lightning. So what's more metal
than thunder and lightning? That is so great. Yeah, dude, those are fun facts. Fun. I'll come
in with the fun facts. There it is. You're very cunning linguist. Okay, the next one is really sad.
(27:47):
I don't know what was I kept on like I was going through the album. We're talking about Scott
Wylan. Am I pronouncing it right? Yes. I'm not sure what year he died. This came out in 2011.
And it's not done, you know, sarcastically. No, I just recorded, I guess it's heartfelt,
which is beautiful. But it's so like, I don't know, man, I think he needs to sing faster song.
(28:13):
You know, these are like that, like the white Christmas is very, very dark. I just, it was
one of the, I was listening to it today. Just sitting there with my jaw on the floor and going,
what the fuck? I went through every song in the album. There's gotta be one that just like,
okay, the single, you know, and now there was nothing there. Yeah, I listened to it today as
(28:38):
well. And I was like, I was waiting for, you know, the moment where, you know, you hear like the
bop, the snare and then it kicks in and goes fast. And I'm like, nope, straight forward all the way
through. Super depressing. And maybe it's depressing because we know how his story ends. Unfortunately,
I don't know, but we know how great he is. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. The next one is
(29:04):
talk about low hanging fruit, Slade, Mary Exvis. That was this signature, good either the way they
spell things. Merry Christmas everybody, which as recently as last year earned Noddy Holder, I think
$600,000 a year. It's used in commercials. It's used in, you know, it's just royalties alone,
(29:27):
publishing and then the performance royalty. Wow. Yeah. Another one just blew my mind today. Yeah.
That was recorded in New York, same studio. Oh, you'll like this. The same studio that
Lennon had recorded in, I think I want to say the power station maybe, but that Mellotron was one
that John Lennon let them use. No kidding. It wasn't the Beatles one, but like in the song,
there's that part. It's very Lennon-esque. Yeah. As you can tell. That's a great one. That's a
(29:54):
classic. And in England, it's a big deal. Yeah. Like classic just glam rock song. Yeah. Yeah.
Soaring chorus, like great harmonies, vocal harmonies, just a lot of fun, man. I loved it.
That was one where the other guy in the band wrote it with him. They merged two different songs. They
had two different things. They're like, okay, you know, let's put them together. Very Lennon,
McCartney-like. That's cool. Spinal tap, Christmas with the Devil, and she's back there. You know,
(30:20):
they're so good. Like there's supposed to be a parody and then they're not a parody anymore.
I know. Can I just read the first verse? Oh my God, please do. Absolutely. I was dying when I
heard this today. The elves are dressed in leather and angels are in chains. The sugar plums are
rancid and the stockings are in flames. There's a demon in my belly and a gremlin in my brain.
(30:42):
There's someone up the chimney hole and Satan is his name. Oh my God. I like the chimney hole too.
It feels like a hole you'll go down. It somehow sounds dirty. I don't know.
It's so great. I'm telling you, what a body of work those Spinal Taps. They're fantastic.
They just filmed it. It's going to be so much fun. I can't wait for that. Yes. Yeah. 40 years
(31:08):
later. Yes. Okay. This is the one no one's been waiting for. This Car Wars Christmas album,
R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Now, okay, recorded at the power station,
which was managed by Tony Bon Jovi, whose cousin, young kid, he calls him up and said,
(31:31):
hey, you want to be on a record? Yeah. Yeah. But it's not going to be one of your songs. It's
going to be with R2D2. It took me a while, a couple of listenings to really appreciate,
oh, that's Bon Jovi for sure. I wouldn't have known it unless you told me. Sure.
Yeah. I listened to it three times today trying to like, is that really John Bon Jovi? Then I
(31:53):
realized it's John Bon Jovi, but he's probably 15. Yeah. Yeah. He was very, very young. I mean,
it goes back to 1980s. So yeah. Yeah. And same, I was listening to it today and I was like, no,
I just don't hear it. I don't hear it. And then every once in a while you'd hear a certain
inflection or a certain note. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, there it is. There it is. But if you had just
(32:14):
played that for me and said, who's singing? Yeah. Not a million years. No way. I would not have
gotten it. And then, you know, it's interesting. I just probably a few years after that, not much
longer is when his cousin again said, listen, you could, you know, I think he was working, he was
like a janitor at the studio for a while to make some money. It's like, hey, after hours, the studio
(32:34):
is yours, you know, if you want to do that. He didn't run away with whatever musicians he was
able to pull together. Amazing. It's a Christmas miracle. Okay. Waitress is one of my favorite
Christmas songs of all time. Yes. Yes. Yes. 100%. It is so perfect. It could be a Hallmark movie,
you know, this couple destined to be together. They keep on missing each other. But I interviewed
(33:02):
Chris Butler. The story is amazing. They were on Z Records, which was an uber like New Wave punk
late 70s record label, right? And it had like August Darnell, Christmas on Riverside Drive,
which was that that was his big song. And that was on the album. It had a lot of hardcore bands on
it. And on the label, head to the head of the label goes, okay, we're going to make our version
(33:27):
of the Phil Spector Christmas album, A Christmas Wish for You, you know, but everything's going to
the original. Like that, you know, that's the garbage. This poor guy, Chris Butler, he just
got into New York, overwhelmed, they had recorded the album. But they were holding up the release of
the album because they wanted to get the Christmas. So we're losing momentum, basically, they lost all
(33:48):
their momentum. He doesn't want to write this song. He's roughing. He's doing the finishing the lyrics
on a cab ride going to electric lady land studios where Hendrix studio, he talks about like he's in
a cab and he's finishing it up. And you know, the song's amazing. I mean, it's so beautifully
produced. It's so heartwarming. It's so clever in the rapping versus rapping, you know. But what did
(34:13):
you guys do you guys remember from back in the day? Or is it like, oh, I definitely. Again, I worked
in radio God in the early 90s and early 2000s. And that it was already a classic at that point,
I worked for a radio station where the format was so super tight, you couldn't ever, you know,
stray from from, you know, your log, except for Christmas time. It was like, oh, play a Christmas
(34:38):
song here, play a Christmas. So it's kind of DJ's choice. And I probably played Christmas rapping
way more than I should have. It's good. You know, especially if that 12. Oh, totally, totally. It
was a great time to go to the bathroom. Yeah. To hear that story that, you know, he was finishing
the lyrics in a cab. It sounds like they spent years writing this song. I know it's like now
(35:01):
the calendar is down to just one page or my favorite line, hardly dashing through the snow
piled up so tight. Come on. Yeah, it's genius. It's truly it's it's in my my top five. Yeah. Oh,
mine too. Mine too. I love, love, love that song. Another band. I know you guys the next one we're
(35:22):
talking about that you guys are familiar with is a cover of Oh, Carp Holy Faithful. Yes. My
Reezer. Yes, absolutely. I think they're the Beatles of pop metal, right? They're so freaking
great. Oh, Reezer is amazing. Reezer is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Love their songs. So talented. And
that EP has got some other good stuff on it, but he could do anything. Yeah, he's he's amazing.
(35:43):
Yo, and their cover songs too. Yeah. Oh, I love it. And they just cover like
Enter Sandman a couple years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Non ironically, what he did it with
love. Yeah. Okay. This is the next this is the penultimate song because the song is going to be
the greatest Christmas song of all time. But we're talking William William Shatner. I love that one
(36:04):
of his name is Shat because that's right. Yes. Shatter unintentionally. But he I mean, really,
Todd Rundgren, these guys are like, you know, he gets them all heavy hitters, man. But he talks
to them. Remember, I love Howard Stern. Oh, my God. He was playing Mr. Tambourine Man.
(36:29):
Right. But I know exactly where I was. I was on 57th and Fifth Avenue. Listen to headphones.
Hysterical Crying because then he played Shatner's Lucy, This Guy with Dimes.
That's another classic. Picture yourself. And then he goes, and then you answer quite slowly.
It was so literal. Slowly, slowly. Oh, my God, Howard. Brilliant. Brilliant. So good.
(36:55):
I was listening to what I loved about this. And I guess what I love about everything Shatner does
is the the the words or syllables he chooses to emphasize. Exactly.
Sabotage. Remember on the Howard Stern thing, he pronounces the recording session.
Sabotage. Sabotage. Excuse me, Shatner. It should be sabotage. No, you disgust me.
(37:16):
Sabotage. Yeah. Went to Wonderland. Oh, my God. It's his own style. You know, it's incredible.
Oh, yeah. That's again, you know, closing the loop in some ways on Christmas music.
It encompasses everything the way music encompasses everything. You know, we're not talking a genre,
(37:38):
even though that's how it's classified, DJs and all that. No, I really think for the three months
of the year, music becomes Christmas music. You know, that's it. And everyone's satisfied because
what kind of mixtape can you have a Ramones, you know, and a Ray Charles and a Frank Sinatra
and the goddamn hero for the world? Yes, my new favorite band.
(38:00):
Yeah. All right. Let's get to my favorite song, Maddock. I think we've talked about this before.
It was on a compilation, an Australian rock and roll compilation, rock and roll Christmas
compilation. But it's Christmas time again by Chris Pondyke Mazouac. I couldn't find a lot of
information on him. And I'm not going to give up on this. It holds such a big part of the book.
(38:24):
It's got one of the smallest ribets on it, other than me just waxing how much I love it.
And maybe you could end the podcast with a chunk of it, you know, because it's such a great song.
I don't think you'll have any copyright issues with this one. But I don't know what you guys
thought of it. No, I fell in love with it immediately. I love the Kamali, fateful solo
(38:47):
guitar. It's just so perfect. You know, it was a very Weezer like. Yeah, bouncy and light kind of,
you know, real catchy chords. The story's great too. You know, my girlfriend's bugger me. My mom's
been bugging me for years, you know, but he's like that surly teenager at home, still at home, you
know, we're at home. Maybe not a teat. One year, one Christmas longer than he should have been at
(39:08):
home, you know? Right. But it's just, it's a beautiful song. I think it's up there. I mean,
it's in my top five. Yeah, I'm super stoked that you turned us onto that because yeah, I absolutely
loved it as well. And what really kind of caught my attention too, and I had to go back and look at
the date. So that came out in 1989. Right. That song could have easily come out last year. Yeah,
(39:31):
you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So timeless in that sound, that sort of punky rock.
World, right? Yeah, absolutely. That whole wave of those bands, they blink 182. Yeah, all break.
It's timeless. Yeah. And that sound and that style of singing and playing it, it's just,
it never gets old. It never gets old. And yeah, that song could have come out last year.
(39:55):
Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, I loved it. Absolutely loved
it. So yes, that's going to be on my playlist this year as well, for sure. A couple of songs,
just to wrap it up, I guess, if you want, were just song titles. I might not have included them
on the playlist, but the 70s was weird, man. John Denver, Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk for Christmas.
(40:17):
Command Cody, Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas. Merle Haggard, if we make it through December,
that's a really toadstapper. And Merle Haggard again, Daddy Won't Be Home Again for Christmas.
So he's not only disappointed in this year, apparently he's been disappointed in every year
because he never got home again. Shit was dark in the 70s apparently. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Then
(40:39):
we also had Martin Moe, Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope, which I love. Yeah, in the 1980s,
Santa Came Home Drunk. It's crazy. I mean, there's categories. There's the novelty,
which is basic novelty, but then there's specific categories like drunk. You could do a whole
(41:01):
playlist on that topic. And another big one was Vietnam. Christmas music was holding a mirror up
to whatever was going on, whatever songs they were writing. I Won't Be Home This Christmas by
Barry Sadler, who did the Ballad of the Green Beret. No Christmas Tree in Vietnam. Christmas
(41:23):
without Daddy because he just was shot by the Viet Cong. I mean, it's crazy. That's wild. Yeah.
I went and actually looked up some of these songs today and gave them a listen.
So fucking depressed.
It really is. It really is. I suffered my art. Now it's your turn.
(41:48):
Oh my God.
Listen, it's a great topic and you guys have a great podcast. Your podcast is literally all about
these clumps of music that we share with each other. Someone might want to make the ultimate
Christmas mixtape. Someone put a gut to your head and said, you only get 20 songs. I'd be dying.
(42:11):
You only get 20 metal songs. Then you really have to hone in on that. But it's great. I enjoyed
being on here and I'm afraid of this lightning round. Eric, I think it's time. Oh, I'm so excited
for this. This is my favorite. When I was a kid, I thought it was Donna. I thought it was Donna.
(42:35):
Donna. Hey, it's Donna. In Brooklyn, they didn't pronounce it wrong. It was like Donna.
All right, here we go. It's time for the ride to lightning round.
All right, Vinny, I'm going to hit you with 10 holiday theme, this or that.
And we just got to roll through them. And we get through the end, you can go back and defend
and explain anything you want. Here we go. Okay, true or false? Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
(43:00):
True. Jingle Bell Rock, Bobby Helms or Hall and Oates? Oh, fuck Bobby Helms. Of course,
Bobby Helms. Fuck Hall and Oates, Bobby Helms. I should have said fuck yeah, Bobby Helms.
Brenda Lee.
Brenda Lee, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree or Jose Feliciano Feliz Navidad.
(43:22):
Oh, that's that's a tough one. But I got to go with Brenda.
Okay, agreed. Bing Crosby, White Christmas or Burl Ives, a Holly Jolly Christmas.
I got to go with Bing. I love Holly Jolly, but I got to go with Bing.
The Kinks, Father Christmas or Billy Squire, Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You.
I'm going to go with Christmas. Don't yell at me. It's the time. I know. I know, right?
(43:46):
Blasphemy. Home Alone or Elf?
Home Alone. Mariah Carey, All I Want for Christmas is You or Wham, Last Christmas.
All I Want for Christmas is You. Okay. Adam Sandler, the Hanukkah Song
or Elmo and Patsy, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
I got to go with Elmo. That's a good one. Kudos to you.
(44:07):
That is a good one. Paul McCartney, Wonderful Christmas Time
or Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. The Waitresses, Christmas Wrapping
or Run DMC, Christmas and Hollis. Oh, wrapping, Christmas wrapping.
Okay. And I've got a bonus, a Christmas bonus. Keep it in your pants.
(44:30):
Yes, a bonus. Oh, a bonus.
We've talked about reindeer a lot tonight. Most metal reindeer name, Blitzen or Vixen?
Blitzen. Okay. All right.
Well done, Vinnie. Well done.
Nice. Thank you.
Anything you want to defend or discuss? Go from the top again. Real quick, just remind
(44:51):
me. Number one was? Die Hard is a Christmas movie, true or false?
Yeah, that's one, Eric. You don't agree, right?
No, I do. You said yes, right?
You do agree. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great debate. I'm using that into,
I'm going to use it in the book because there's my favorite things from The Sound of Music
in recent years has become a Christmas song and it's really not.
(45:13):
Yeah. Yeah, of course.
I'm going to allude to the Die Hard when I get to that. But okay, Bobby Helms, as good as the other
one was, that was a horrible, I mean, you know, Hall and Oates and Bobby Helms. Come on. Jesus
Christ. Sometimes you got to go old school. Yeah.
Yeah. What was Brenda Lee up against? Yeah, Brenda Lee or Jose Feliciano.
(45:35):
Yeah. I love listening to Jose Feliciano. It's fantastic. It really is. Damn, I hate the
lightning round. I went with Bingo for who? Who was the other?
Burl Ives. Oh yeah.
Yeah, you know, Burl's okay. But you know, I mean, Burl's actually made some really great
Christmas music, some old stuff too. But yeah, you got to go with White Christmas.
(45:57):
And then you took Billy Squire over to Kinks.
Yeah. You know, that was a shocker.
Yeah. I did that one because when I'm, I like melody, I like singalong,
and I like, you know, stuff that like that's a great for a playlist with a lot with a lot of
different ages that are listening. I mean, the Kinks could be on that playlist as well.
(46:20):
But there's something about this that makes you stop and go, oh, that's it's a pretty,
I love it. It's one of my favorite Christmas songs.
It is a great, great song.
And it doesn't wear out. I don't think it wears out.
Like, oh no, I love that song too. It totally stands up.
Yeah. And I think I was there when he did that one, because that was MTV. I'm not in the video,
but that was another one that he did it. Oh yeah.
Yeah. What was the one after that?
(46:40):
You took Home Alone over Elf.
Oh yeah. Yeah. That looks great.
Yeah. I think it's a generational thing maybe, you know, although I was like,
and my forties when Home Alone came out. And then what was...
It took Mariah Carey over Wham.
(47:01):
That was easy.
This surprised me. You took Grandma Got Run Over by a Ranger over Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song.
Yeah. And I think that Adam Sandler is such a great, it's so funny, you know, it's really,
really, but it's like, it's not really a Christmas song at the end of the day,
but it's a great song too. That's why I hate the lighting round. I got to defend it.
(47:22):
You have to pick.
What else? What was after that?
You took Springsteen Over McCartney.
That was a no brainer, right?
Yeah.
And then you took The Waitresses Over Run DMC.
Yeah. That was easy for me. That was crazy easy.
And of course, Blitzen has the most metal reindeer name.
Right. Do you agree?
Oh, hands down.
(47:44):
He moved me just from what he said earlier.
Vixen is close.
Yeah. I mean, I did enjoy Vixen back in the day.
Vixen sounds like a drag queen though.
Well, Vixen was an all girl metal band back in the day. Remember that? Edge of a Broken Heart.
Yeah.
Yeah. Written by Richard Marks, by the way.
(48:07):
Is Richard Marks Yacht Rock? Does he fall into the Yacht Rock category? I forget.
I think he could.
I think he could. I don't think we touched on that.
No, he didn't come up in our Yacht Rock episode.
We have to save that for another podcast.
Yeah. We can revisit Yacht Rock and get a different perspective on it.
Love it.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you what, Vinnie, this has been so much fun.
(48:27):
This is great. I knew when I was putting it together, oh, we're going to have a lot to talk
about. I just split through. Blitz, there we go again. Let's just go.
Yeah. Well, again, yeah, we could easily go on for hours and hours. I mean, it's such a fun topic
and you're a wealth of knowledge. Again, man, you turned us on to some amazing stuff that we
just didn't even know existed. So.
(48:48):
I'm really glad you liked it.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that.
Yeah, Vinnie, thank you so much, man. This was so much fun. We loved it.
Yeah. Let's do it again very soon.
Let me be the first to wish you guys a very Merry Christmas.
Oh my God. Thank you so much. You as well.
Same to you. And before you go, Vinnie too, when can we expect the book to come out?
I'm hoping now. I decided to do it by decade and not wait for the whole thing because it would
(49:11):
be forever. So I'm hoping to get the 70s out by Christmas of next year, 25.
Okay.
Nice.
Yeah.
Well, we'll have to have you back and put the book.
Yeah, I'll be back to promote that. Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Blow our minds again with.
Yeah, for sure.
Just the incredible music.
I love the blow your mind. I love these three lame threes company,
(49:32):
Devil and Tondra Jones.
Right. Yes. We're big fans as well.
Jack.
Oh, and he's Mr. Roper to look into the camera.
Wait, hold on.
Breaking the fourth wall. Oh my God.
So great. Well, Merry Christmas, guys.
You as well, man. Thank you so much.
Take care.
Take care, buddy.
Bye-bye.
All right, Eric, let's close this episode out with some shout outs.
(49:54):
Sounds good.
We got new listeners, Capitol Heights, Maryland, Reston, Virginia,
Shreveport, Louisiana, Owasso, Oklahoma, Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania,
East Providence, Rhode Island, Tempe, Arizona, Gualala, California.
Eric, say it with me. Gualala.
Gualala.
(50:16):
That is fun to say.
Calgary, Canada, Mannheim, Germany, Mannheim steamroller.
There you go.
Coimbatore, India.
Well done.
Swansea in the UK.
The Hague.
Yeah.
The Hague.
Just any place that starts with the is cool in my book.
(50:36):
And that really they like lock up like international war criminals and shit.
I think so.
The Hague.
I don't ever want to find out for myself.
But thanks for listening.
Ulst in the Netherlands.
All right.
Feels like they could use a vowel.
Rahini, Ireland, Rahini and Paramaribo Suriname.
All right.
(50:57):
All right.
I love it.
I hope I didn't fuck them up too bad.
I'm sure you did, but that's okay.
Yeah, I guarantee I did.
But anyways, we love you.
Thank you for listening.
Follow us on the socials.
We are on Instagram and on YouTube.
We are getting so many cool comments to some of our content on YouTube.
Yeah.
And now even on Instagram.
(51:18):
So we love the positivity.
How much people are just sharing their love of music with us.
So keep it coming.
Yeah, absolutely.
Rate us, review us, subscribe.
Anything you can do to help us out.
We appreciate 100%.
All right.
Well, that's going to wrap it up for us.
Thanks again so much for hanging out with us.
Thank you, Vinny Favali for your wealth of knowledge and your just that was so much fun.
(51:40):
I can't stop saying how much fun and greeting from ear to ear.
That was a great time.
Vinny can't thank you enough.
Yeah, man.
Thank you so much.
We'll be back again very soon with a full length episode.
And until then, it's the greatest mixtape podcast.
My name is Eric and my name is Mac and we will talk to you really soon.
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