Okay, now this is just brilliant.
The Punk Rock Advent Calendar will be offering one free punk rock Christmas song every day from December 1 to Christmas Day. According to an email I received from the artist, Jimmy Severe:
"Each song comes with its very own classic punk intro/riff/solo "borrowed" from a variety of all-time punk classics. Singalong with your turkey to the festive noise, whilst at the same time playing "Spot The Punk Cliché". The Ruts, The Ramones, The Pistols, The Jam and many, many more – they're all in there somewhere!"
I am not the biggest fan of punk rock in the world, so unfortunately many of these little "clichés" will probably be lost on me. However, I do enjoy me some Clash, Ramones, and Pistols from time to time, and I obviously love Christmas music, so that makes this a winning combination.
In order to give people a taste of what is to come, the first five songs can already be downloaded. If you're willing to take a look at the source code for the site, though, you can find a lot more than just the first five songs - there are in fact working links to all of the songs there. I discovered this by accident, and I felt a little guilty about it, so I actually contacted the artist (who had initially emailed me to tip me off about the calendar) to let him know about it, and he said that it's all right to let people know about it. So just like a real Advent calendar, the choice is yours whether to wait until the right day for your treats, or give in to temptation and take all of them now. It probably wouldn't surprise anyone to know that I went ahead and downloaded them all at once, although I still haven't listened to all of them - I'll get around to that soon enough, though.
Among the first five downloads are some pretty cool versions of songs like "Stop the Cavalry", "Lonely This Christmas", and "Angels We Have Heard On High". "Santa Baby" is in there too (for December 4), and its fake intro had me wondering if I had accidentally gotten my MP3 tags mixed up with another, more traditional version of that song, but then the drums kicked in, the tempo picked up, and everything felt right again - it's a nice little musical gag. I get the impression that a lot of care has been put into rearranging these old songs into punk versions, as they all sound quite excellent. Looking ahead at the tracks I've downloaded, I can't wait to hear what has been done to some of them, but I won't spoil anything for those who choose not to download them ahead of time.
Whether you choose to experience it all at once or a day at a time, as intended, I hope you find The Punk Rock Advent Calendar to be an enjoyable little treat. If any punk rock fans out there happen to recognize any of the clichés in these songs, please share them here, as I would love to know what they are. Happy listening!
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