[Sca-cooks] OT, OOP: Holiday Music

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

It has been a distressing year for me, and i need a little holiday cheer. I don't indulge in much of the alcoholic kind, although i'm not a tee-totaler. But i prefer something aural to something oral.

So i thought i'd recommend it here... a bit late for Xmas, but not too late for next year.

This will not appeal to everyone, or even most people, but perhaps a few on this list. I find it lifts my spirits when i'm feeling glum: A Toolbox Christmas by "Woody" Phillips
Mr. Phillips (Barry, really) is actually a musician in a more "normal" sense, performing and/or producing albums of more standard fare, including some period music, although perhaps not SCA-period
http://www.gourd.com/toolbox.html

The album consists of thirteen familiar holiday pieces performed on hand and power tools, including, but not limited to: hammers, saws, drills (including an antique hand drill), ratchets, 2x4s, pipes, planers, a drill press, bag of nails, saw, ratchet, table saw, shop vacuum, an old-fashioned broom, anvil, T-square, level, and pipes (as in tubing). And occasionally there's a hint of mandolin, dulcimer, and/or oboe. Here's the list of tunes and instruments:
http://www.gourd.com/124S.HTML

The result is surprisingly musical, and doesn't make me want to rip my ears off, the way other holiday novelty albums of yowling cats, yelping dogs, buk-buking chickens, or Kenny G do.

I purchased direct from the music makers at Gourd - the CDs were actually less expensive from them than from Amazon. But if your want to, you can hear 29 seconds of each of the Xmas pieces on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Toolbox-Christmas-Woody-Phillips/dp/B000005C3F

It will go in rotation with my other holiday albums, which consist of various instrumental jazz renditions of standards, and some humorous jazz and blues holiday-oriented songs.

I also ordered "Toolbox Classics", a send-up of some old but still pleasurable warhorses. It will be good all year, randomly sampled along with the Symfunny Orchestra "Classics on Toys" album (1994), various classical pieces played on toy musical instruments, for non-holi-days when i'm feeling down. They later recorded "Christmas on Toys" and "Jazz on Toys", now all apparently long out-of-print :-(

There is, after all, a well-known piece known as The Toy Symphony, actually Cassation in G for Orchestra and Toys, from the late 18th c. variously attributed to Haydn, Leopold Mozart, and others. If Baroque musicians can do it, why not 20th and 21st C. musicians?

So, along with all the good food people are mentioning, have some joyful music with your happy holiday.
--
the person sometimes called Urtatim