Alternative Christmas carols: How did Santa and reindeers suddenly become cool?

By Fiona Shepherd
Published on Friday 16 December 2011 14:50

From the Fence Collective to the Phantom Band, Scotland’s indie musicians are getting all festive this month...

Move over Michael Buble and tell Justin Bieber the news: Christmas is being soundtracked by the kind of alternative musicians you might have presumed would hibernate through the entire festive season with only a Cliff Richard voodoo doll for company. These days you’d better make room in your Christmas stocking or calendar for something a little less naff.

The reclamation of the Christmas song began with our American cousins Low and Sufjan Stevens, but in recent years these lone voices in the wilderness of good festive taste have been joined by homegrown acts, keen to cover a standard or add their own musical spin on the Yuletide season. Who could forget Malcolm Middleton’s ultimately ill-fated bid for the Christmas No 1, the Grinch-like We’re All Going To Die, complete with jakey Santa video?

This year, his former Arab Strap compadre Aidan Moffat has got in on the act with his online festive EP, the lugubrious Oh! What A Not So Silent Night Before Christmas, and he is not alone in wishing us a very indie Christmas. Tom Smith of Editors and former Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows have teamed up (as Smith & Burrows) to record the album Funny Little Angels, She & Him wish you A Very She & Him Christmas, while Ash frontman Tim Wheeler and Emmy the Great proudly add their new collection This Is Christmas to the alternative Christmas canon.

In addition to these albums, there is also a spate of alternative Christmas parties doing the rounds. Fife’s Fence Collective have long been generous festive hosts and are set to embody the spirit of Christmas Present with no fewer than three shindigs in the Central Belt this weekend. Who needs Gary Glitter’s Christmas tour when you can attend the Fence Records Secret Xmas party and James Yorkston’s Christmas Jamboree in Glasgow or Kid Canaveral’s Christmas Baubles II in Edinburgh?

Whatever next – carol singing with Biffy Clyro? Don’t bet against it. This year The Phantom Band are hosting a pantomine – or, rather, a phantomime – for two nights only, which may or may not feature cross-dressing and sweetie showers but will, according to the band’s keyboard player and chief costumier Andy Wake, provide “a dark twist on Christmas”. Wake also adds that “it’s Hallowe’en all year round for us guys” which gives some indication that this will probably not be your typical camp festive romp.

Helping them to put the show on right here are the 85a Collective, a grouping of visual and graphic artists, costume and set designers, described by Wake as “quite handy – which is handy”. According to collective member Judd Brucke, their speciality is transforming “abandoned places in the forgotten side ways of cities. If it’s all mod cons we tend to shy away from it because there are so many places in Glasgow with an inherent character and history.”

Rock venue Stereo is already very much a thriving space but is sufficiently rough and ready for a radical 85a Christmas makeover. The Phantomime company are keen to preserve the element of surprise regarding their production but will say that patrons can expect an atmospheric theatrical evening with a loose narrative involving murky deeds, seasonal hauntings and musical visitations across the two nights from some of The Phantom Band’s favourite Glasgow groups including The Muscles of Joy, Tut Vu Vu and Jacob Yates & The Pearly Gate Lock Pickers. Plus karaoke for afters.

“Ghosts and Christmas have always gone hand in hand,” says Wake. “We’re drawing on the idea of Saturnalia and all the old festivals that Christmas has ripped off.”

The central character in their revels is a demon-like bogeyman called Krampus, a character who features heavily as Santa’s malevolent henchman in the festive lore of Alpine countries. “There’s so much cheese surrounding the whole Christmas season,” says Brucke, “and this character comes along and stomps all over it.”

In a casting coup, Krampus will be portrayed by a special guest from the relatively exclusive world of Scottish broadcasting who has been chosen “not because of his celebrity status but because he’s amazing at storytelling and voices”. Just don’t expect to recognise him behind the mask.

The Phantom Band themselves are no strangers to the art of disguise. In early photographs, the group were pictured with paper bags on their heads, like a cut-price Residents. “I like the idea of taking on the role of a performer,” says Wake. “If you’re dressed up you can do that, you’re outside yourself a little bit. Weirdly I’m less self-conscious than I would be if I was standing there in jeans and T-shirt, thinking, ‘What’s my hair like?’”

As Wake and cohorts prepare to tread the boards, he throws down the festive gauntlet to his peers. “Maybe this could become an annual thing and we could pass it on and another band could curate it.” What are you waiting for, Belle & Sebastian? Oh yes, you can.

• The Phantom Band’s Phestive Phantomime is at Stereo, Glasgow, tonight and Saturday

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  CHRISTMAS music is usually considered a taste-free zone. With the shelves of record shops stacked high with schmaltzy horrors and cheesy compilations, it's hard to find something to get you in that festive spirit without making you reach for the sick bucket. But there are a handful of great Christmas albums out there, just waiting to be the soundtrack to your present-opening and turkey-chomping. Here are ten musical Christmas crackers.

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Carsick Phil

Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 09:37 AM

I have an alternative carol to offer: "God Rest You Merry Bankers". You can find it at http:www.youtube.comwatch?v=jmEm7ciehxc

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Iain Bhern

Friday, December 16, 2011 at 04:27 PM

The plural of reindeer is reindeer not reindeers. Elementary error from a national newspaper !!

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