The Best Christmas Songs - This Time Of Year I'm counting down what I think are the best Christmas songs in what I like to call 25 Days of Christmas songs. Today is day 9 and I bring you "This Time of Year" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. This Time Of Year This is a fantastic song with a great message, if you'll allow me to be sappy. Forget all the presents, the shopping, and all the other commercial crap that [...]
Best Christmas Songs - A Great Big Sled It's Day 7 of my yearly 25 Days of Christmas list, in which I list what I feel are the best Christmas songs to move your holiday a bit out of the old traditional chestnuts. A Great Big Sled - The Killers "A Great Big Sled" by The Killers is a -- excuse the pun -- a killer song. It was recorded in November 2006. The song features Toni Halliday, former lead vocalist of [...]
Best Christmas Songs - 8 Days of Hanukkah Well, Day 6 of my 25 Days of Christmas Songs, in which I count down what I think are the best Christmas songs, has to take a brief detour. Today is the first day of Hanukkah so I thought I'd go with a Hanukkah song today. Now Hanukkah isn't known for its songs. In fact, none of the Jewish holidays are known for catchy songs. So the pickings are pretty slim. But I found [...]
Best Christmas Songs -It's Christmas and You're Boring Me It's been a bust Saturday and I'm about to go to The Nutcracker so I'm picking yet another song from last year's list. But even if i wasn't busy this song would be on my Best Christmas Songs list for 2015. It's Christmas and You're Boring Me "It's Christmas and You're Boring Me" is a great song for everyone who's bitter at this time of year. The song is by the English duo [...]
Best Christmas Songs -Slashed Wrists This Christmas Since Fridays are my therapy days I thought I'd post a song I posted last year in my 25 Days of Christmas list. Slashed Wrists This Christmas - Gruff Rhys Oh sure, the holidays are all holly and jolly but where are the songs for the manic depressants? The songs for people like me who suffer from a mental illness or two? (Last count I was at four. I'm like a Vegas buffet of [...]
Best Christmas Songs -What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas It's Day 3 of my 25 Days of Christmas song list so that means it must be "What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas" by The Emotions. This gem is surely one of the best Christmas songs out there. What Do The Lonely Do at Christmas - The Emotions The Emotions is a girl group from Chicago made up of the Hutchinson sisters Wanda, Sheila, and Jeanette Hutchinson. Their first hit [...]
Best Christmas Songs -Merry Christmas Baby My famed "Twenty-five Days of Christmas" is back, baby. Each day I post a new song of what I consider to be the best Christmas songs. These are all songs that put an extra zip into my holiday spirit. This year I have a mix of returning songs and new entries. Let's get to the first one. Merry Christmas Baby "Merry Christmas Baby" is one of the best Christmas songs ever in the history of mankind. [...]
Hello Adele, Thanks for Being Fabulous Hello Adele, can you hear me? As if Adele couldn't rock my world any more, she did a kick-ass version of Hello with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots. But not any version, mind you. A version with classroom instruments. Among the instrument the band used are melodica, tambourine, wood block, toy xylophone, bongos, a banana shaker and kazoos. Adele isn't the first singer to sing with the classroom instruments band. Idina Menzel, Carly Rae Jepsen, [...]
China's Five Year Plan Video is a Trip to 1973 How do you make China’s 13th five-year plan, a far too dense document laying out the country’s future economic strategy from 2015-2020, appeal to the masses? Make a crazy ass video that's the love child of Schoolhouse Rock and Joseph Goebbels. “If you wanna know what China’s gonna do, best pay attention to the shí sān wǔ.” Shí sān wǔ are the Chinese words for "13-five." So you better pay attention to it, man. [...]
Marcus Choi and Evil is a Yellow Face Jon Jon Briones and Marcus Choi If there's one thing Broadway performers like doing more than singing in a Broadway musical, it's singing the night away with other Broadway performers on a Monday night. Stroll over to Joe's Pub any Monday night and there's probably some sort of benefit going on with Broadway performers. In fact, my friend Sharone Tannenbaum just produced Artists for World Peace on Broadway at Joe's Pub. Now [...]
