Christmas Train by SAVAK

Recorded for Jon Solomon’s 33rd-annual edition of the 25-Hour Holiday Radio Show on WPRB!

http://wprb.com/
http://keepingscoreathome.com/
https://marathon.christmas/

We were remiss to have let the 32nd edition of Jon's show pass us by without contributing anything, as we have a proper, rootin'-tootin' good time doing these. They kinda let us walk around wearing only crew socks and a polka dot bow tie—musically-speaking, that is. Plus Jon rules and who wouldn't want to juggle a jam together for that fella?

This year Geoff, Jaws, and I met up at our practice space in Gowanus with a few ideas rumbling around, some beers, and an Original Soho Square pie, made lovingly by our buddy Sal.

(NOTE: If you're near Gowanus and feeling peckish, go talk to Sal and ask him to make you one of his pizzas. He knows what he's doing. Just look at his hands. No joke. https://www.sohosquarepizza.com/)

Our initial conceit was to make an 80s electro-reggae song, so for inspiration we combed through tracks by Black Uhuru, Steel Pulse, early UB40 and, of course, Musical Youth's obligatory "Pass the Dutchie." As we started, though, we realized we were drawn more to the sounds on "Ghost Town" by The Specials and the general vibe of Black Market Clash. We wanted to sprinkle some M&Ms (Morricone & Mancini) on our Sugar (and spice) Minott.

We landed on the chorus pretty quickly, which was lucky, and then carved out sections for the verses with a very loose sense of the basic arrangement. Later we would chop off a rather long outro that meandered interestingly, but unnecessarily, into a mutating loop that riffed on Twelve Days of Christmas as if it had been written by Steve Reich for Robert Fripp to play at the site of John Denver's plane crash. It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gon It's Gon It's Gon It's Gon It's Gon It's Gon It's It's It's It's It's Gonna Snow Gon Snow Gon Snow Gon Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow It's Gon It's Gon It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow It's Gonna Snow.

Then I had to figure out how actually approach the verses. First the lyrics were cobbled together from a bunch of reggae song titles that suggested partying or celebrating in some way: Puff She Puff Caught You Dancing Coming In Hot Keep On Moving etc. That DID NOT work. So I just kept pushing the words around, deleting stuff and filling in blanks until there was enough to do something with. Catching that the theme coming together was about a very poorly behaved Santa, I rewrote what I had to include a concern about how the reindeer might react if they saw their boss getting sauced on the big day.

Barking the words out, which is my default, was attempted, but it flattened the emotional tone, short-changing our cuddly caribous. Staring at the tangled microphone cable on the floor, I asked myself, "How would Elvis sing this?" Then I asked myself, "How would Alan Vega imagine Elvis singing this?" Then I asked myself, "How would Ian Svenonius imagine Alan Vega imagining Elvis singing this?" Unfortunately the answer to all those questions is much better than what we're able to give you, even if you're blasting this track through Lil' Wayne's million dollar, diamond-studded headphones, but hey, we're here to celebrate the amateurs and hobbyists, right?

I hope you enjoy our latest, house-stirred, small batch eggnog while we close the moth-eaten curtains on 2021 and pray to Jah there's some form of our regular programming available in 2022. Meantime maybe we'll all get crazy-wazy lucky and run into the entire Canty clan in the park. All of them. Literally ALL OF THEM.

XOXO,
-Sohrab & the Tri-State Santa roof repair team.

SAVAK was formed in 2015 by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), who play guitars and trade off singing songs, along with drummer Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Enon). The live band features bassist Matt Hunter (New Radiant Storm King, Silver Jews).

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