#65: Band Name Bureau's Midnight Mass
#65: Band Name Bureau's Midnight Mass
Our annual look at holiday music, BNB-style
As my fellow lapsed papists can attest, growing up Catholic is a drag. There are a lot of reasons for this, but chief among them is that church is super boring. (And poor suckers pre-Vatican II had to endure it in Latin!) Irritation only builds around Christmas, when you’re forced to go to church on Christmas Eve—or, worse, Christmas Day—though at least those masses tend to be more festive and slightly less boring.
For the full Catholic Christmas experience, you have to go to Midnight Mass. That’s right: church in the middle of the night. It’s one thing for adults to want to be at church the moment Christmas begins, but it’s a lot to ask of children. I have vivid memories of enduring several midnight masses as a kid, including one notorious year when our car ran out of gas on the way home from church.
I have zero interest in Catholicism these days, but this time of year always reminds me of being a kid and trudging to church. In honor of that, this is dropping at midnight on Christmas, because I want to see how low my open rates can go sometimes it’s fun to have a shtick.
Stay awake, everyone. Baby Jesus is watching (and judging).
Social Anxiety, Xanax for Christmas
Maybe you’re home with family right now, and it’s the post-presents comedown after all the Christmas buildup has seemingly vanished in an instant. Hopefully your holiday hasn’t been stressful, but if it has, Social Anxiety can empathize. The Bedford, Texas, duo just released a four-song EP that celebrates the stress and the self-medication of the holidays. Building on the classic “Mother’s Little Helper” is “Momma’s Got a Pill Problem (This Time of Year)”:
But she’s all passed out / On that old gray couch / She left her milk and cookies out / For the kids to see, damn
Hey, at least she’s only popping pills this time of year. Sounds like she keeps it together the rest of the time.
But it’s not all silliness. The title track and “Momma’s Got a Pill Problem” are bookended by, gasp, sincerity! And Jesus-loving sincerity at that! Check out the spoken-word bridge in “A Song About Jesus”:
Christmastime is the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ / It doesn’t matter when it actually happened / All that matters is that it actually happened / And everyone who will believe in him will have everlasting life / So Merry Christmas to all the believers / And even if you’re not, just know we all have a savior
It’s followed by a bunch of “hallelujahs” and a guitar solo, because JC appreciates sweet guitar licks. Looking at this photo of Social Anxiety, I wouldn’t have expected the Jesus talk. This guy may hate people, but he loves Jesus!
Speaking of sincerity, I came across an album called The Great Christmas Experiment by a group called the Rose Factor. There’s nothing noteworthy in the band’s name, the album title, or even the contents (five Christmas songs with electronic flourishes). Let’s talk about the cover, though.
Reflected in your standard red glass ornament are three crosses, like the ones at Calvary where Jesus was crucified along with a couple of small-time crooks. The effect is so perfectly Christian: “Happy birthday to Jesus! Just don’t forget how he died, though!”
The Yogscast, “Carrot for a Cock”
The only natural place to go from here is to something called the Yogscast and this joyful holiday number.
The song came out in 2014, exactly 20 years after Jeff Daniels set the precedent:
Buried in Coal, Buried in Coal
Subtly evocative, Buried in Coal makes me think of a person who was so bad that Santa not only gave them coal instead of a gift, but literally suffocated them in a massive heap of it. The album cover evokes beautiful wintry bleakness:
“Beautifully bleak” is a good descriptor for the three songs on Buried in Coal too. Picture the cinematic soundscapes of Explosions in the Sky with screamy vocals reminiscent of Pink Eyes from Fucked Up. Oh, and also kids singing.
The EP opens with “Christmas Time is Here,” though it’s not a cover of the Vince Guaraldi classic we all know from A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s surprisingly sweet for a Christmas dirge, thanks to children repeating “Christmas time / Christmas time / is here.” That’s how Buried in Coal began, according to the album notes on Bandcamp:
One morning on the way to school while I was listening to the Post metal project I’ve been working on, my six-year-old Zola, began to sing “Christmas time, Christmas time is here” over one of the songs. And so “Buried in Coal” was born in early December and the race to tie up the lyrics and record began so we could have it out for y’all before sweet baby Jesus’s birthday.
Things get more sinister with “Paranoia Paradox/A Slaying Song,” which recontextualizes those magical sounds you hear on the rooftop Christmas Eve—what if they aren’t from Santa and his reindeer?
Is there something in the fire place
Something with a gnarled face
Or just old Santa Claus
Or something with paws and claws
Because no Christmas album is complete without a little climate crisis, “No White Christmas Anymore” closes things out.
We let our children inherit this earth
(This is all we got)
Buried in coal, in soot, and dirt
(This is all we got)
Hmm, my idea for the origin of “Buried in coal” is much more festive.
Kamakazi
Swinging the pendulum to the dumbest side of things as possible, we have a French Canadian pop-punk trio and their numerous holiday-album equivalents of lighting a fart. There’s 2013’s A Very Naughty Kamakazi Christmas, 2014’s A Naughtier Kamakazi Christmas, 2015’s The Naughtiest Kamakazi Christmas, 2016’s Even Naughtier Than the Naughtiest Christmas, a four-year break, then 2020’s A More Angry Than Naughty Kamakazi Christmas (because 2020).
They’re chock-full of groan-worthy titles like “Jingle My Cock,” “Frosty is a Cunt,” “Feliz Navidad (Now Please Slap My Ass),” “Last Christmas (You Sucked on Some Cock),” “All I Want for Christmas is Poon,” etc. Although I did chuckle at “Santa Claus Ain’t Coming to Your Town…Oh Wait…Here He Comes.”
All of these releases contain four or five songs, though the 2020 one offered only two, both pandemic-themed: “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Shitmas” and “Happy X-Mas (Covid’s Over).”
Up until Christmas
So much has gone down
Yeah, we barely made it
’Cause we acted like clowns
And so this is Christmas
We got what we earned
’Cause humans are selfish
Will humans ever learn?
No, but maybe Kamikazi has. The group hasn’t released anything since.
Calvino, What Chill is This?
Mostly I just like this song/EP title, which Calvino describes as “Christmas lofi or study music to get even more chill when it’s cold.” Maybe the chill vibes reflect the rare quietude of a child-free house, as Calvino’s bio says, “Most of these songs written and recorded while my kids do gymnastics.”
A Grindcore Christmas
From 2011 through 2014, these compilations were released yearly, amounting to four volumes of holiday grindcore. Add some space to your holiday playlist for…
Silly Idols feat. the Toilet, “Santa Said Whats [sic] Wrong with You”
Kindergarten Hazing Ritual, “Santa Claus was Jerry Garcia, Jerry Garcia is Dead”
Pukinaman, “Santa is Real, and I Shot Him in the Fucking Face”
POST-SCRIPTS
That’ll do it for BNB 2022. See you in January with more nonsense. Thank you, as always, for reading.
Trivia! According to Wikipedia, Vince Guaraldi’s nicknames were “Dr. Funk” and “The Italian Leprechaun.”
Some of my favorite albums of 2022, in no order: Archers of Loaf, Reason in Decline; Between Bodies, Electric Sheep; Spielbergs, Vestli; Nervus, The Evil One; White Lung, Premonition; Grumpster, Fever Dream.