Thursday, December 10, 2020

Punk Xmas with Brian Foss

For this special report, we now switch to our punk xmas reporter in the field:
"My name is Brian Foss, and I am a Christmas song collector and DJ. It's been 3 days since my last holiday record purchase. Let us open this guest post on remarkable punk Xmas tracks with a moment of silence to do with as you wish, followed by the Good music Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the songs I am tired of hearing,
Courage to be open to songs I don't like on the first hearing,
and Wisdom to know the difference

I've been an on-air DJ at KEXP 90.3fm in Seattle since 2004. My show is on Saturday nights and it just so happened that in 2004 Xmas fell on a Saturday, so with some help I did my first punk Christmas broadcast, which I've done every year since. This Saturday, December 19, will be my 17th annual show. Around 10 years ago I also started being the Xmas day DJ, and I also do holiday themed podcasts hosted by KEXP as well.
At first I was just getting punk rock tracks and one of my holy grail purchases I recently found was the 1983 track "Xmas In Reverse" by Denver punks The Lepers. My deal is to not pay more than $20 for a 7-inch so I have to be patient



Seattle and Washington State is deep with interesting bands. The Beakers were only together for a year circa 1980/81, but had the chance to open up for bands like Delta 5 & Gang Of Four. K records put out a nice compilation with the funky sax-y track "Christmas Letter From Home".


This one is also on Spotify, HERE

My main job is booking shows and running nightclubs so I've fallen into the habit of asking bands I work with to record me holiday songs to use on the KEXP podcasts. So I get tracks by bands like The Dumps, Warning Danger, Mud On My Bra & this cougher of a track by Sir Coyler & His Asthmatic Band:


There's also those wonderful times when I get informed of local stuff I wasn't aware of, like the band Dead Hots' amazing "Santa Claus Is Coming In Gas Form":

The video is A W E S O M E:


Finally wanted to share a track that was recorded for an old punk club I used to own. The original Funhouse was shut down in 2012 after the building got sold, but we put out two comps of bands (inventively called The Funhouse Comp Thing ! & II) and young punks The Freak Outs provided the tender little track "Santa Claus Is Going to Eat Your Brains Tonight" Well, shortened down to just Santa Claus.



Merry whatever and happy etcetera to you all!

Brians Punk Rock Xmas broadcast is Sat 12/19/2020 from 9pm to Midnight PST. On Christmas day he's on air from noon to 7pm. Holiday themed podcast will be launched starting Mon 12/21 at kexp.org.
KEXP 90.3fm in Seattle, worldwide via kexp.org & the KEXP apps. All shows are archived for 14 days.

3 comments:

Brian Foss said...

Thanks for letting me play in your sandbox!

Stubby said...

I'm digging that Sir Coyler tune.

Brian Foss said...

I really loved Sir Coyler.
Chris Coyler moved to Portland Or and his band is no more.
He's working on a book about Estrus Records - here's that FB page -
https://www.facebook.com/estrusrecordsbook/

they put out like 3-4 records but it looks like thier bandcamp is gone -
If you like good garage Sir Coyler & His Asthmatic Band are always worth a listen.
https://youtu.be/oQ2ArJDLePI