Donerail's Official Website — Portland Band

Well, well, well. Another year, another Christmas. Tis the season for overeating, fat men in red suits, overbearing relatives, more overeating and overspending. Tis also the season of the Christmas song. (duh. Guess who’s brilliant…this guy over here…me. I tend to have a nose for spotting the obvious) Every year at this time radio stations are hi-jacked by singing chipmunks and dogs barking jingle bells, while it seems that every artist and his/her brother/sister are releasing albums of often sugary feel good Christmas music (99% of which are not even remotely close to being good). This got us over at Camp Donerail thinking, what are our favorite Christmas songs? We’re guessing that you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded with Christmas music since about June, so you won’t see a bunch of traditional carols, cheezy 50′s/60′s holiday pop, or anything by Mannheim Steamroller. We’ll try to keep this entertaining. Without further ado:

10 -“Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)” – The Ramones

Peace and love the Ramones way… begging for it in a poppy surf punk song. Added bonus.

9 – “Twelve Days Of Christmas” – Bob Denver And The Muppets.

It’s The Muppets. Enough said. Oh yeah, there’s some hippie named Denver in there too. Is there anyone in their late 20′s early 30′s that didn’t have this record growing up? Pure genius. From Fozzie forgetting his lines (the best part is when he looks of at Bob Denver and cluelessly asks “…what?”) to Miss Piggy showboating (Ba-dum-dum-dum). Ah Christmas…what would you be with out muppets?

8 – “Santa Claus And His Old Lady” – Cheech And Chong

7 – “You’re a Mean One (Mr. Grinch)” – Thurl Ravenscroft.

6 – “Blue Chistmas” – Elvis Presley.

Even though I can’t help but think of Porky Pig’s version everytime I hear this, The King makes the cut. I will give him one thing, Elvis does inject a little bit of soul into this song, and how can you not sing along with the background singers? (Ah-Whoo-ah-oooo-oooo)

5 – “Christmas In Hollis” – Run DMC.

From the King of Rock, to the Kings of Rap. Run DMC spins a modern day Christmas yarn of the Holidays in Queens. My one question is, why does Santa have a pit bull pulling his sleigh?

4 – “Must Be Santa” – Bob Dylan. Okay, this is a bit of a new one, at least this version (shit, I didn’t realize it, but a lot of artists have covered this, including Skerik and Raffi). I’ll admit when I heard that Bob Dylan was releasing a Christmas album, I was aghast! WTF? Christmas albums routinely turn out nothing short of deplorable, and can seriously tarnish and otherwise great career, I don’t care if you are Bob Dylan. (Just look what happened to the Rev. Horton Heat…wait…) Then I saw this video. In the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing overly special about this song, except for the fact that it reminds me of The International Friendship Song. The thing I love about this version is it seems to have a quality that reminds me of more of a drunken stumble. A big part of it is the imagery in the video: the setting, the lighting, this impromptu fight/chase scene, even Bob’s creepy wigs (at least I think those are wigs…theres’s no way those aren’t wigs) and the special looking cross-eyed drummer.

3 – “Senor Santa Claus” – Jim Reeves. Growing up, there were a lot of intrestesting, and at times bizarre, Christmas songs swirling around the home on Christmas morning. From Polka, to country to folk, to traditional, I think this one by “Gentleman Jim” may be near the top of my list of all time favorites, even with his bad attempt (possibly borderline offensive, depending how well you can take a joke) at a broken Hispanic/English accent. I can’t tell you why I like this song so much. I think a big part of it is that is brings back warm memories of childhood Christmases. Presents, fuzzy Snoopy pajamas, mom bustling around making sure we’re all happy and comfortable, and my dad playing The Jim Reeves Christmas record(s) on the stereo. (please excuse the cheesy video. It isn’t my doing)

2 – “Happy Christmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon.

Instant Classic by a great artist/peace activist/person. I don’t know how anyone cannot like this song, regardless if they like John Lennon, Yoko Ono, The Beatles, the sounds of kids singing, the idea of peace, or the concept of humans being rational beings or not. This is a modern view of what is supposed to be the Christmas Spirit: Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men (read: human kind which includes male and female…just in case anyone was confused.)

1 – “Father Christmas” – The Kinks. This is where I should insert “Merry Christmas” By Donerail, but that would be shameless self promotion (psst…you can find “Merry Christmas” on Destiny & Dishonor – available on iTunes) As far back as I can remember, I have loved this song, with it’s “anti-over consumption while there are needy people”  agenda (Just for the record, I don’t necessarily disagree with it) and it’s “hidden” Christmas cheer. . I’ve eagerly awaited this song arrival on the airways every year since I was about 8 or 9 nine. I think it was probably the first time I had heard anything that was even close to being punk rock. Maybe I liked it because I thought it was silly, I don’t remember. I just know it always brought me joy, and I liked it! In Fact, I still do. (Pardon the fuzzy video.)

Happy Holidays From Donerail!

I guess you could say that Donerail said goodbye to aught nine in grand fashion, figuratively…not literally. If you’ve ever been to Langano Lounge, you’ll know what I mean. This is a small basement lounge, located under an Ethiopian restaurant on the city’s SE side. Even though it not a big venue, I don’t think you could call it cramped. Cozy…intimate…I think that these would be better descriptors.  I think it was Duncan that described it as “feeling like you’re hanging out in your parents basement”, after they let you fix it up with old Christmas lights, rugs, rock posters and beanbag chairs. Another great thing about a place like Langano is that the crowd never seems small, especially when the crowd is filled with old friends, which come to think of it, made it feel even more like your parents basement. “Dude, my parents are out of town for the weekend! I’m having a kegger and my band is gonna play!”

We were able to squeeze all of the momentum from  the last month and a half of live shows into a 2 1/2 to 3 hour period and all-in-all, this was just a really fun and relaxed (but energetic) show, comprised of a mix of of covers and Donerail originals that that garnered the best reaction over the past 4 shows. It was almost like a live greatest hits album, just not one made for housewives and little girls. On second thought, I guess you can say that we did end 2009 in grand fashion…literally.

Highlights:

• Handle With Care: Dude, it’s the Traveling Wilburys. Of course it’s a highlight, especially because Duncan sings a bulk of the song and drums. Phoo!
• Push It: An impromptu, and really brief, lighthearted moment while tuning. Non stop entertainment. Don’t judge…you know you like Salt ‘N Pepa. Salt salt salt salt salt salt ‘N Pepa’s here…
• Talk 2 Me: It’s okay, It’s okay.

Next Stop: 2010 – Donerail will be taking the month of December to work on recording some of our newer material and set up some live shows for the first part of the year. Stay tuned!

A couple things happened on our trip to Klamath Falls  that I thought were pretty cool. 1) I realized that yes, I miss snow. Call me crazy, but snow is awesome! If it had been treacherous going through the Willamette Pass, I may be singing a different tune, but it wasn’t so I’m not… yay snow! 2) I got to learn something interesting about the venue that we played Saturday night. As it turns out, Waldo’s dates back to the early 1900′s and used to be the Waldorf hotel. Supposedly, During the prohibition era The Waldorf flipped the government the ol’ middle finger and ran a speakeasy in a secret room about where the stage currently sits. Now, I don’t really know if any of that is true, but they had the original bar, liquor cabinets, and really old vending machines for candy and cigarettes so I’m inclined to believe them, especially since it made the trip that much more interesting.

Duncan and I hit town pretty early. Anticipating nasty weather through the pass, we loaded up and headed out of Portland pretty early. We ended up at Waldo’s about4 hours before we needed to load in and 6 before we were scheduled to go on. You can accused Donerail of being a lot of things, but not being punctual is not one of them. Ridiculous. I wish I could say that this was the worst thing to happen, but it was about to get a little worse before it got better. Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending to the story and at least everyone, and all the gear made it to the show.

Despite our sound board not being compatible with out the adapter that we forgot at home and then only having one vocal speaker, we finally got the show on the road and things went pretty well.  I’ll admit that we all started to get a wee bit nervous after people kept walking in and then out after a couple minutes, but we realized that part of it was that you could hear us fine in the main bar and it was enough to get people to interrupt their dinner to quench their curiosity.  It’s a good thing that we saved our best for the 2nd set. The rest of the went about as flawless as we could have hoped and the crowd’s energy was contagious. By the end of the night, I kinda sounded like Cookie Monster, and I was an exhausted and sweaty mess, but definitely satisfied and glad I made the trip.

Another thing that I learned is that people in Klamath Falls (at least the people that were at Waldo’s Saturday night) sure are a friendly lot. Definitely made 11 hours (round trip) of driving worth it. Thanks to Travis and crew at Waldo’s, and especially Darcy and Trish for putting us up for the night.

Highlights:

• Duncan’s Retort To A Request for Freebird: Concert goer: “PLAAAYYY FREEEEEEEBIIIRD!” – Duncan: “I got free bird for ya right here.”
  Note to concert goers: Please stop requesting Freebird. It really is played out. And no you can not play our instruments so please stop asking.
• Mother – If Jake was 5’0, looked like he ate 5 pounds of steroids and tried to bench press everything in sight, I’d be convinced that he really was Glen Danzig. Especially after hearing him sing Mother. He doesn’t so I know he’s not, but he does a damn good imitation. This is another instant crowd pleaser. It’s kinda like a magic spell…it turns pool cues into guitars just like that!
• The Weight – We ended up inadvertently turn this classic by The Band into a sing along. Anytime a good portion of the crowd sings along, it’s a good sign you’re doing something right.

Next Stop: 11/22/09 Langano Lounge – Portland OR

Donerail’s second album, Destiny And Dishonor, was reviewed recently on Seattle music blog Fensepost.com. You can see it here.