Stocking Stuffers

Happy holidays, everyone! As you may have noticed, blogging has been in the decline the last few weeks... Christmas stuff and general lack of enthusiasm. But hopefully I'll get back to regular posting in the new year. I still intend to do my annual year-end monster post whether you want it or not. In the meantime, here's a roundup of cool stocking stuffers for you.

• DJ Muranao of the Nagoya, Japan based electro unit I'm So Look You e-mailed me this stocking stuffer, an irresistible electro cover of Wham's Last Christmas:
  
  I'm So Look You - Last Christmas [originally by Wham!]
  I'm So Liking it!
  
  
• If you're looking for a TON of free Christmas music, head on over to Suburban Sprawl Music's 2008 Holiday Sampler, a 2-disc, 44 song behemoth of a compilation. Not only that, but you can also download their X-mas compilations dating back to 2002! If you scour the track listing, you'll find covers of Happy X-Mas (War is Over), I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, The Chipmunks' Christmas Don't Be Late, the Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg Dick in a Box, and a unique indie rock cover of Run DMC's Christmas in Hollis by Thunderbirds are Now. You'll even find a cover of Christmas Vacation... that's right, the theme song to the National Lampoon Christmas classic! I still get a chuckle out of Chevy Chase hiding presents in the attic and finding previously hidden presents of past Christmases. I stumbled on this Santa sack of Christmas tunes via a link in Boyhowdy's x-mas post over at Star Maker Machine.
  
  
• Kindercore has a 4-song Xmas/Hannukah EP, including a cover of Tom Petty's Christmas All Over Again, which brings back fuzzy memories of the Very Special Christmas compilations
  
  
• Speaking of which, Butch Walker and Taryn Manning recently recorded a cover of that same Tom Petty Christmas song (a new standard now?). Stream it here or find it on iTunes.
  
  
• Some cool news for fans of Danny Michel. As of couple days ago, Danny now has full control of ALL his music digitally worldwide and his entire back catalogue has been re-released under his own indie label on iTunes and Zunior. Many of the re-released albums have bonus tracks including unheard demos. Physical discs and other merch will still be available from Maple Music.
  
  
• You lucky UK readers... the brand new Wallace & Gromit short, A Matter of Loaf and Death, debuts Christmas day on BBC One at 8:30pm. Jealous!!

Alright, time to get to bed before I run into Santa...

Happy Christmas Birthday

Merry Christmas everyone! It's also one of my best friend's birthday today (and I don't mean Jesus). A few years ago, I made this track for him. I guess you could call it a mash-up, though I've never really had the technical know-how to do complicated stuff like matching beats and stripping vocals. However, this one was pretty simple. I had the not particularly clever idea of mixing The Beatles' Birthday and the Bob Rivers parody of it, Jesus' Birthday. Bob Rivers is like a more topical, cruder Weird Al and many mislabeled parodies are often one of Bob Rivers Twisted Tunes. Generally, his parodies are spot on imitations of the originals so slapping them together sounds remarkably seamless for the most part. So now you have a theme song for all your Christmas Birthday friends!

Fongo Bongo Productions - Happy Christmas Birthday [originally by The Beatles; Bob Rivers]

Lyrics:
John: "So this is Christmas..."
Jimi: "Happy Birthday!"
John: "...Christmas."
Jimi: "...Birthday!"
John: "...Christmas."
[Crazy Milhouse laughter]

They say it's your birthday
Well it's my birthday too--yeah
They say it's your birthday
So have a happy Yuletide
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Yes, we're going to a Christmas party
Yes, we're going to a Christmas party
Yes, we're going to a Christmas party

I would like some presents (Holiday...)
See my uncles and aunts (Birthday...)
I would like you to dance (Birthday...)
DAAAAAAANNCCCE!

[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer instrumental]

I would like some presents (Holiday...)
See my uncles and aunts (Holiday...)
Get some socks and some pants (Holiday...)
PAAAANNNTTTSSS!

They say it's your birthday
It's Hanukkah too, yeah
You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy Christmas to you.

Happy X-Mas B-Day, dude!

Tooning in For Christmas

Hello cover fans! I am Kurtis and I run a Disney cover blog called Covering the Mouse and I am happy to be a part of the holiday festivities here at Fong Songs!

I'm not just a Disney fan. I love cartoons of all sorts! Many great songs have come from the cartoon world and many people have covered them. Christmastime is Here from A Charlie Brown Christmas and You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch from How the Grinch Stole Christmas are two of the more popular songs to cover [Note: look for covers of the latter in an upcoming post...].

But what about the other way around? Since cartoons and Christmas specials seem to go hand in hand, it only makes sense that there would be a whole bunch of Christmas covers by famous cartoon characters.

Blue Christmas - Porky Pig (Most people don't know that this is not actually Porky Pig, but Denny Brownlee A.K.A "Seymour Swine".)

O Holy Night - South Park (This version of Eric Cartman singing O Holy Night has become a holiday standard on the radio since it's debut.)

Deck the Halls/We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Alvin and the Chipmunks (The Chipmunks' first hit single was a Christmas song and since then they have gone on to record three Christmas albums!)

Twelve Days of Christmas - Shrek (This one's new. I'm pretty sure it's authentic, although I haven't heard of Shrek releasing a Christmas album. I have no idea where you can find it, except right here!)

Twelve Days of Christmas - Disney (Disney, one of the biggest names in animation had their cast of characters record Christmas albums. These are all the real voice actors doing what they do best!)

Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Looney Tunes (Warner Bros, the other biggest name in animation, also had their cast record an album. Although the voices don't all sound exactly right since it was recorded after the death of Mel Blanc, the voice of almost all the Looney Tunes.)