Yep Rock (2018)
Every year I spend a lot of time fine tuning my Christmas music playlist. It's a yearly tradition where I add some new tunes, remove some that no longer hold up and generally try to set the mood for the holiday season. This year, nothing from 2019 has really jumped out at me, but I have picked up a couple of records from last year, one of which is this Los Straitjackets LP.
This LP compiles their Christmas 10" Yuletide beat, their LP 'Tis The Season For Los Straitjackets and a few 7" and compilation songs. Since I already had the LP and 10", I also already had the vast majority of the songs on this double LP, but for some reason I was still drawn to add this to the collection. Partly for the few extra songs I didn't have, but also so I could have everything in one nice, easy to play package.
These songs are great. Christmas tunes done in the surf instrumental way very similar to what the Ventures did on my favorite ever Christmas album. Maybe too similar from time to time as the Los Straitjackets version of "Sleigh Ride" is essentially a cover version of the Ventures tune. But Los Straitjackets also take on songs that the ventures never did and it's here where their contributions to Christmas really shine. "Marshmallow World" is one of the best and it's actually the song that made me look into these guys in the first place. I think I heard it first in The Gap one year and my wife managed to figure out who it was. I'm glad she did as Los Straitjackets have really become one of my favorite yearly Christmas traditions.
Los Straightjackets - Complete Christmas Songbook:
https://losstraitjackets.bandcamp.com/album/complete-christmas-songbook
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