Christmas

As it's Christmas Eve and you're no doubt sick of hearing cheesy Christmas songs everywhere you go...have another one;

"The Magic of Christmas" was written by Bright Light, Bright Light's Rod Thomas and features a whole host of musicians such as; Copy Haho, Los Campesinos!, Slow Club, Sparky Deathcap, Sky Larkin, Dananananaykroyd + many more. It makes a nice change to hear a good, wholesome Christmas song by decent artists instead of the usual commercialised pop bands, I've listened to this non stop for the past few weeks and don't even feel guilty! Anyway you can download it for a mere 69p from here. All proceeds go to the RSPCA so support the cause.

While you're at it check out one of my favourite Christmas songs; "It's Christmas So We'll Stop" by the wonderful Frightened Rabbit. This is 5 minutes of pure perfection. It may not be your typical cheery festive song but Scott Hutchinson's sheer passion mixed with heartfelt lyrics and a well placed string section and choir makes this a poignantly beautiful song. Obviously they only get to play it live once each year and I was lucky enough to catch their Christmas show at the ABC in Glasgow a few days back and I must say it was one of my favourite gig moments of 2009!

(credit to Susied89)

This year the newspaper The Sun ran their own "12 Days of Christmas" which involved 12 different artist covering festive classics. I haven't watched most of them (to be fair I'm not really interested in Mika or The Twang) but The Rifles and Jersey Budd were on fantastic form with their fun filled version of Sleigh Ride.

And finally, it may not be music but I think this is worth checking out. Jon McClure (Aka Reverend of Reverend and the Makers) has written a series of short films, the first one being about the lies children are told at Christmas etc. The main guy in the film also stars in R&TM's No Soap (In A Dirty War) video and there's also appearances from the lovely Laura Manuel and Andy Nicholson (former Arctic Monkey, current Book Club-er and soon to be Maker).

Merry Christmas!