Today's post is ever-so-slightly religious but only in the scornful 'I wish my religion was a little bit more like that one' sense. It's Christmas in three days and the vast majority of the country, whether you believe in Jesus, Allah or, Darth Vader (as many in recent censuses so claim), are absolutely buzzing with thoughts of trees, presents, roasts and all manner of other festive-related crap.
Being prim, proper and more importantly Jewish I've never celebrated a single Christmas in my life and while I hope I never intend to it has lead me to incredible levels of cynicism. Once a housemate spouts the all-too infamous, 'So what's everyone getting for Christmas' line, my yearly torture has officially begun and I sit and wonder what direction my life may have taken if, like the majority of seemingly more Jewish people than me, my parents had given in to consumer pressure and brought out the turkey and cranberry sauce on the 25th December.
Instead, my 25th consists of odd family jaunts to places like Cambridge or Richmond where everyone silently pretends that some miraculous pub or restaurant will be open when it's undeniably obvious that it won't be and we end up wondering around starving all day in some shitty park until we get home to a meal which definitely doesn't consist of turkey and cranberry sauce.
So there you go, a brief Christmas message but one which should bring inspiration to the lucky people out there who may be bloody miserable on Christmas day but at least have the consolation prize of it at least being Christmas.
Wet Nuns aren't my usual cup of tea but they're definitely masters of what their Facebook insists they aim to do, namely 'Death-dick-rock'. Give their stuff at the bottom a listen and you'll get what I mean in an instant. I stumbled upon them on YouTube when I found a remix of one of their songs by self-confessed biggest fan Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys, which form part of the Mixed in Sheffield yearly CD's (the whole CD is worth a listen). Helders has pulled out a couple of cracking remixes which I've linked at the bottom along with recent single, 'Why You So Cold'.
Originating from both Sheffield and Leeds, listeners would be surprised to hear that there are only two regular band members, Rob on vocals and guitar and Alexis on drums. 'Death-dick-rock' spans quite the variety of genres, delving deep into metal at points and back up the spectrum to conventional blues at others. Rob's voice is delightfully hoarse and suits his guitar sound down to a tea, while I also thoroughly enjoyed their list of influences as given on Facebook- 'women, booze, death, Enya' (anyone who's recently caught the first series of Peep Show will particularly enjoy the Enya reference).
So that's your Christmas lot. Haven't said this for a few weeks but if anyone's got any music from Yorkshire they'd like me to have a look at then give me a shout on twitter (@goldbart1).
Cheers for reading,
Max
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