Still Love Christmas - Christmas Rock & Roll, part four (Bonus Video Thursday)

Lotta Watershed and Colin Gawel & The Lonely Bones gigs coming up to close out December, here's the rundown;

1) Watershed broadcasting from CD102.5's Andyman-A-Thon, an annual charity event running at least 48 hours from Friday December 14th at 7 pm until Sunday December 16th at whenever it ends.  Watershed will be live on the air from CD105's Big Room at midnight Saturday night.  Call in and pledge money, it's all for the kids.

2) Watershed, 9 pm. at the concert closing out the Andyman-A-Thon festivities at The Bluestone, 583 E. Broad Street.  Doors at 5 pm.  Also on the bill: Miranda Sound, Los Gravediggers, The Girls! and Two Cow Garage.   For more details on the concert, click here.


3) Colin Gawel & The Lonely Bones, December 21st, happy hour 6-9 pm at the Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit Street.  (author's note: Some solo acoustic guy named Ricki C. is opening that show, those of us here at Growing Old With Rock have been told he's kinda good.)  For a really good rundown on all these gigs, visit Colin's website.

inspirational verse; "And I want you to know I still love Christmas / I want you to know the spirit is near / I want you to know I still love you / Even if I don't show it this year" - Colin Gawel & Joe Oestreich, 1998

2000 Miles - Christmas Rock & Roll, part three (Bonus Video Tuesday)

From the pride of Akron, Ohio - Chrissie Hynde (easily my second-favorite female rocker after the 1970's-era Patti Smith) - continuing our rock & roll Christmas tunes series, one of two contenders for our loveliest song entry....

inspirational verse; "2000 miles is very far through the snow / I'll think of you, wherever you go" - Chrissie Hynde, 1983

Father Christmas - Christmas Rock & Roll, part two (Bonus Video Tuesday)

What can I say about The Kinks that hasn't already been said better somewhere else?  That they're my third-favorite English rock & roll band behind The Who and The Rolling Stones, but ahead of The Beatles?  (see blog entry, The Best Of Everything, January 2012)  That Ray Davies is a genius rock & roll songwriter?  That "You Really Got Me," "Waterloo Sunset," and "Celluloid Heroes" are three of the greatest rock & roll songs of all time?  That "Too Much On My Mind" from the 1966 Face To Face album might be one of the five best rock & roll songs that you've never heard?  (One day in 1969, when I was 17 years old, I was sitting in the newsroom of our high school newspaper listening to "Too Much On My Mind" and the 14-year-old kid sister of my then-girlfriend said wistfully, "This is exactly how my brain  feels."  How world-weary could we have been at 17 and 14?)

notable video moments: Ray Davies wearing what appears to be a League Bowlers shirt in the video; The Kinks giving up any notion of actual lip-synching at the 1:50 mark (wait, I just realized, that's the footage from the bridge flown in from the 2:24 mark later in the song - why would Top Of The Pops edit like that?); drummer Mick Avory's Santa get-up;

inspirational verse; "The last time that I played Father Christmas / I stood outside a department store / A gang of kids came over and mugged me / And knocked my reindeer to the floor"

AND

"Have yourself a Merry Merry Christmas / Have yourself a good time / But remember the kids who got nothing / While you're drinking down your wine" - Ray Davies, 1977

neatly encapsulating that dichotomy of simultaneously funny and heartbreaking that has characterized Ray Davies' writing though the years from 1965 until the most recent song he wrote.

Run Run Rudolph - Christmas Rock & Roll, part one (Bonus Video Saturday)

Today, December 1st, begins the Ricki C. Growing Old With Rock & Roll Christmas Gala.  This will include videos of my favorite rock & roll Christmas tunes because the incessant carols playing in every store I enter and all the local radio stations’ non-stop Christmas coverage RARELY touch on rock & roll.  It will also detail some holiday gift suggestions and possibly some seasonal Ricki C. stories.  (Providing I can get signed clearances from family members indemnifying me from defamation suits.)

We begin, as so many things in rock & roll do, with Mr. Chuck Berry of St. Louis, Missouri.....

inspirational verse; "Said Santa to a girl, 'Child, what would please you most to get?' /
'A little baby doll that can cry, sleep, drink and wet.' / And then away went Rudolph,
whizzin' like a Sabre jet" - Johnny Marks & Marvin Brodie, 1958


(author's note - Until I started to research what year Chuck Berry released "Run Run Rudolph" I had NO IDEA he didn't write the song, that it was written by Johnny Marks, the same guy who wrote "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" for Gene Autry, "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" for Brenda Lee and "Holly Jolly Christmas" for Burl Ives. (Yeesh.)  Mr. Marks was also the brother-in-law of the guy who wrote the original story of Rudolph.  (Man, what CAN'T you find on the internet.)  But let's face facts, people, I seriously doubt Marks or Brodie wrote that guitar intro or established that absolutely killer rock & roll rhythm groove, without which The Rolling Stones would not exist.)