Various Small Flames is proud to present a special features from Audio Antihero’s Jamie Halliday. Part festive mixtape, part retrospective, and something of a rumination on what Christmas means to them…
Nosferatu D2 – ‘It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)’
It makes sense to start at the beginning, doesn’t it? This song comes from Nosferatu D2’s posthumous debut final album: We’re Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise. Audio Antihero started in 2009 to release this album since no one else was going to and I wanted it on CD. Thanks to Gareth Campesinos! and lots of other folk, the album ended up doing really well–and for a long-time it was what this label would be known for.
Honestly, I’ve been telling that same story for fourteen years. If anyone has been paying attention I’m sure they’re bored to tears hearing it again. I don’t get tired of Nosferatu D2 though, which is key because it can otherwise feel a bit sad to still be shilling ancient back-catalogue.
That was the point of this belated release though, I wanted people to hear it and I knew that I always would. As a label, it does feel great to have something new to share but I can’t imagine releasing an album that I didn’t least hope would still be worth talking about fourteen years later.
Like everything Nosferatu D2 did, the recording sounds like it’s held together by tape, and it rattles with the beat–but it might be my favourite ever Christmas song, certainly it’s the one I most relate to. In 2014, Spencer Madsen published ‘You Can Make Anything Sad’, and that title might best describe Nosferatu D2 and my connection to their work.
I often tell people that I “hate Christmas,” but what I truly hate is that I just can’t love Christmas. It’s no-showing the office party each year, it’s looking at the “Pound Shop Santa in a plastic sleigh” and feeling nothing, and it’s sitting down for Only Fools & Horses without comfort or contentment. I’d skip the whole thing if I could, and a few times I have.
It’s funny because Nosferatu D2 really did so well. As a dead band on a first timer one-person DIY label, the album kinda overachieved and found an audience, but that CD-buying fanbase never quite translated to Spotify, which in part is my fault for being a late adapter but is probably also common for inactive independent releases. In recent years however, Nosferatu D2 have been getting a bit of a boost on Spotify at this time of year. This particular song has amassed a modestly respectable 37,000+ streams thanks to playlists like ‘christmas cries‘, ‘Christmas Music for Pretentious People‘, ‘loser christmas playlist‘, and bless them: ‘It’s Christmas time for God’s sake‘.
Between Nosferatu D2, The Superman Revenge Squad Band, and Tempertwig (featured by Various Small Flames here), I’ve worked on a few albums from the Parker brothers. I don’t think that myself or either Parker had particularly aimed for their lasting legacy to be having a very nominal Christmas hit but as their song ‘A Footnote‘ illustrates: you’re lucky to be a part of all this any way that you can be. If you put enough time into it all then you’ll learn that there’s far worse things to be known for in music than having a song people like listening to.
If people should ever want to explore songs like ‘Springsteen’, ‘Broken Tamagotchi’, ‘The Kids From ‘Fame’, ‘The Mojo Top 100’ or ‘Colonel Parker, they’ll all still be there.
Frog – Wish Upon a Bar
If Nosferatu D2 is what Audio Antihero was “known for” (relatively speaking) in its earlier years, then Frog (interviewed by Various Small Flames here) is what Audio Antihero is best known for now (still speaking relatively). ‘Wish Upon a Bar‘ is taken from their Kind of Blah album, which was the first of five that we’ve now worked on together.
This 2015 album is certainly one of the favourites, though they’ve become so eclectic, and seen such an increase in their audience since that I don’t think there’s any clear favourite. Count Bateman has a lot of fans now and, from within my hyperfixation bubble, November’s GROG album is feeling like a phenomenon right now.
‘Wish Upon a Bar’ is highlight of an album filled with highlights (‘Judy Garland’, ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven’, ‘Catchyalater‘, ‘Photograph’, ‘Irish Goodbye’, ‘(Kind of Blah)’) and I think it has that special quality where it’s a song set over Christmas without being a song about Christmas.
Don’t tell me where you are
don’t send me holiday cards
I’ma drop dead drunk on the FDR
I wish upon a barIt’s almost Christmas time
the bartender’s cutting limes
and he asks you about your kids
you respectfully decline
The pain that Bateman describes in ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ existed in November and it’ll exist in January too. If anything, Christmas exists in ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ as a threat–it’s the looming presence of what feels like state-mandated closeness, and the pressure of expectation to feel what you maybe don’t and to be who you maybe aren’t.
To make a Cinematic comparison, 1974’s Black Christmas (considered by many to be the first North American-made slasher) is a brilliant horror film set over the holidays. The season informs the mise-en-scene and influences the circumstances of the plot, but what makes that film so haunting is the sheer randomness of the violence. This could have happened in any home at any time, but it happened here and now. Compared to a film like Silent Night, Deadly Night which relies on the novelty of a psycho-Santa killer, it’s clear how special Black Christmas is–and while it is a brilliant film to gather the children together for on Christmas morning, it shouldn’t be isolated in novelty sub-genre. If you’re not a horror fan, then think Die Hard vs. Jingle All the Way.
Just as there’s plenty of tedious Festive horror films, there’s a lot of shite Christmas songs too–and “Alternative” Christmas songs are no different. Punk covers of ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ with bonus-swears are just not for me. ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ and Black Christmas are works that can be appreciated all year round–but they do gain some unsettling powers as the weather gets colder.
Slotted onto Kind of Blah at track three, the Christmas A Go Go! blog called it a “hidden Christmas track,” and I liked that.
Papernut Cambridge – ‘93 Million and One’
People tend to know Ian Button from his work in Death in Vegas, which is funny because I knew Death in Vegas for their work with Ian Button. Ian drummed for Audio Antihero alumni Paul Hawkins & The Awkward Silences, but there’s no way to express his contribution to the group. As a producer, he helped to channel Hawkins’ raw talent and creativity into a blistering debut record for Jezus Factory Records. On stage, Ian helped to contain much of the chaos and was the foundation for increasingly ambitious arrangements.
He had been quietly releasing his own songs for a while but when Ian’s new Papernut Cambridge monicker debuted with ‘93 Million and One’ in the Darren Hayman & Fika Recordings 2011 advent calendar, I was pretty blown away.
From here, Papernut Cambridge became a fully-fledged project, and with the subsequent founding of Gare Du Nord Records, he seemed to really find the freedom to be as prolific and experimental as he truly wanted to be.
There’s lots of great Papernut Cambridge songs, clever, touching, funny, and eclectic, but this little Christmas surprise is the one I always come back to. Whether it’s leading the charge or as a helping hand for the works of others, Ian is a real gift to music and a joy to know.
Benjamin Shaw & Fighting Kites – ‘This Christmas (I Just Want to be Left Alone)’
This was Audio Antihero’s only halfway earnest attempt at a Christmas single. Fighting Kites (featured by Various Small Flames here) were a brilliant band, instrumental and experimental without being pretentious. Their songs were danceable, melodic, beautiful, and fun. I have many joyful memories from their shows.
Conversely, Benjamin Shaw (reviewed by Various Small Flames here), who has since been reborn in Australia as a progressive house DJ called Megadead, was a relentlessly pretentious singer-songwriter with a daft tiny guitar. You were not dancing at this gloomy gut’s shows, and had you even tried, he’d probably have mumbled something rude into the microphone.
Though very different, these friends and labelmates collaborated on a Christmas charity single for Shelter. In a similar vein as ‘It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake)’ (which Benjamin Shaw also has a version of), it’s a grudging shrug into the happiest time of the year. The song explores the gnawing feeling of knowing that the one thing you want for Christmas (a day off work without pressure and performance) would be a heartbreaking insult to all around you for reasons you’ll never understand.
It’s not really a representative introduction for either artist but there’s clear chemistry here, which it would have been great to see expanded on with more recordings. I have a great memory of seeing them performing this together live and it was great to see Ben stop moping about in his box room and have a bit of fun with his friends for a change.
Fun fact: Benjamin Shaw did briefly have a regular backing band and they sounded incredible together. When I asked him to record a session of his solo songs with this expanded line-up he said “I’m not Tom Jones, Jamie!” and refused. Too bloody right you aren’t, Ben.
pen pin – ‘Office Party’
If you’ve followed Audio Antihero or Various Small Flames, you might already know the great Jeni Magana who comprises half of the pen pin duo with Emily Moore. ‘Office Party’ is their second single, a delightful song about seeking love at the office Christmas party.
By touching on the absurdity of “celebrating” within your workplace, and seeking a romance with your colleagues (the smallest fish in the smallest pond), it casually offers a terrifying message about capitalism without dropping its gorgeous sheen of 60s pop naivete. Naturally, I prefer their Halloween song but this is stil a really good one.
If there’s a positive to the season, it’s the reminders it offers you of the friends and loved ones you don’t get to see very often. Love you, Jeni, miss you, mama. Glad you’re doing well. Jeni’s solo work is all over Various Small Flames, so when four pen pin singles just isn’t enough for you, there’s still plenty more to dig into within the VSF vault.
Frog – ‘Space Jam’
It would be daft to go on about Frog’s seasonless (but not unseasoned) seasonal offerings after discussing ‘Wish Upon a Bar’ at length–but ‘Space Jam’ from their debut (reviewed by Various Small Flames here), offers something similar:
Thursdays I met you ‘neath the Garibaldi statue
And I held my breath as you came over,
Looking like the best of Auld Lang Syne
Lip-synced Sinatra blarin’ out an idling mack truck…There’s a bar outside my window and they’re playing My Sharona.
It’s Christmas time, I think so, and the air feels just like home…
Danny Bateman writes songs that understand that Christmas isn’t one unshiftable block of good cheer. We get scraps of time off work where we’re required to be the jolliest versions of ourselves like you can just flip a switch. All the while, loss, regret, grief, illness, exhaustion, anxiety, insecurity, and desire persist. “‘cus it hurts” indeed.
This year is as good an example as any. I’ve bought mince pies and Christmas crackers to amuse my American in-laws, the TV and radio will get shitter and shitter, decorations will go up, and thoughtful gifts will be exchanged. But nothing has stopped. The UK and US governments are supporting Israel in committing a white supremacist genocide against Palestinians this December. If God allows it, Christmas doesn’t stop it.
Broken Shoulder – ‘Stille Nacht’
Broken Shoulder (featured by Various Small Flames here) is former Fighting Kites guitarist Neil Debnam, he began working on solo material due to the physical limitations he experienced when he, as you might have guessed, broke his shoulder. I was already a big Fighting Kites fan and was lucky to release his debut solo album, Broken Shoulderrr, which was all gorgeous sprawling soundscapes, looping guitars, drones, fuzz and lovely lovely NOISE.
It was a bit of a departure for Audio Antihero but I did a few records with him, and hopefully I didn’t do too bad a job. Sensing my limited understanding of the genre, he joked gently once about how he’d need to prepare “a riffy song for Jamie” when I asked him to contribute to one of our compilations. My mum always called his music “strangely beautiful,” which is a happy memory I have of her now.
There’s a slightly more festive ‘Stiller Nacht‘ version which I also love, but the original is perfect as it is. The composition is performed primarily with a khene, a mouth organ and Laos’ national instrument. It produces the most beautiful sound.
Though themed on a silent night, this composition gives me images of daybreak–but one reserved for cinema, a sunrise intended to express both the power of nature and the terror of pollution. My eyes burn when I hear it.
Whether Broken Shoulder offers a silent night or the dawning of a new day is pretty irrelevant. For me, he offers exactly what I spend most of Christmas day pining for: a few wordless, solitary minutes, ushering in the end of Christmas day or the beginning of a new day. However bittersweet both might be.
In my quasi-annual Christmas shilling of back-catalogue, this eight-and-a-half-minute instrumental never quite makes it on the radio–but I optimistically continue to include it. I don’t know how you do this sort of thing but part of me will always believe that it’s destined for the big screen. Love you, Neil, miss you, king. I hope you’re doing well, mate.
I’ve put all the above songs together here. Frog’s “GROG” LP is out now via Audio Antihero. It’s good to be back, lads.
