Twelve Songs of Christmas

Donna Summer has been a fascination of mine because she was on the cutting edge of electronic dance music, but since "I Feel Love" and other forays into early electronic music were produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it isn't clear what role she played in her sound. 

Last season I talked to songwriter Bruce Sudano about that among other things. Sudano also wrote songs for Summer and became her husband and manager. This week, I'm running that conversation in its entirety, including material I didn't use then on Sudano's entrance into show business as a member of the one-hit wonder Alive N Kickin', who made their mark in 1970 with "Tighter, Tighter."

He talks about learning songwriting from Tommy James, his early days with Summer, and the story behind her 1994 Christmas album, Christmas Spirit. We talked about her career path between her heyday in the late '70s to her faith-based Christmas album. 

 

A new season of Twelve Songs begins with a conversation that is, frankly, more about AI—artificial intelligence—than it is Christmas music, but since we’re six months from the holiday, it seems like a good time for this conversation.

Last year, I interviewed Steven Wilson of the British prog rock band Porcupine Tree about “December Skies,” a song he recorded on his own with lyrics written in part by Chat GPT, an AI program. We talked about the whys and hows and considered some of the issues connected to AI. At a time when the reflexive stance toward it is skeptical, I was glad to talk to an artist who is working out a more nuanced relationship to it.

Part of this interview ran last year, but this is the first chance I’ve had to run it in its entirety.

This conversation has become more relevant with the success of the AI “group” Velvet Sundown and the recent controversy over an AI imitation of the rock band Toto appearing for a short time on the band’s Spotify page.

The episode ends with The Soul Duo’s “Just a Sad Xmas,” which is on sale now through the Numero Group.

Season seven of 12 Songs comes to a conclusion with three very different conversations and artists. Ha-Sizzle is one of the finest examples of the New Orleans-specific brand of hip-hop known as bounce. I talked to him about his Christmas in New Orleans in front of a live audience. 

The members of the British punk band Goddammit Jeremiah talk about their irreverent approach to Christmas and Christmas music and share a few of their holiday favorites that haven't made much of an impact here in the States. 

At the end of an interview with MacMcCaughan of Superchunk for another story, I got a few minutes to talk about their cover of John Cale's "Child's Christmas in Wales," as well as his other attempts to make music for the season. 

In that conversation, The Kinks' "Father Christmas" was referred to for the second or third time this season, and it took a lot of discipline not to play it again. 

We also hear new music from É Arenas and Saturday Looks Good to Me, the latter from the new compilation Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol. 4. I interviewed its compiler/producer Kevin McGrath in 2022. 

In the episode, I mention a piece I wrote for The New Orleans Advocate. I also mention this year's downloadable Christmas mix, which you can get by writing me at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

12 Songs will return on July 24, 2025. Mark that date on your calendar or subscribe to 12 Songs wherever you get your podcasts. 

 

We're approaching Christmas, so this week I have excerpts from longer interviews that I'll run at full length next season. Steven Wilson is the driving force behind the British art rock band Porcupine Tree, and last year on a challenge he used artificial intelligence to write a Christmas song, something he felt that he couldn't do on his own.

The whole conversation goes deep on the relationship between artists and AI, and the odd experience of encountering an AI version of himself online. Here I tried to capture part of that conversation and keep it relatively focused on Christmas. 

I have a challenge for next season though, because he talked about his favorite album being a Christmas album by The Hiltonaires. I've seen it under two different titles, and he thinks there might be more. Unfortunately, none of them are for sale in any of the digital stores, so I couldn't find any music from it that I could play in this episode. If any of you have digitized a Christmas track from the Hiltonaires, please let me know. 

The second interview is with É Arenas, the long-time bass player with Chicano Batman. We talk about his relationship with the band as it enters an "indefinite hiatus," and how he started a yearly project of making songs that he considered Cumbia Navideña--a genre he invited with cumbias for the holiday. 

We only get part way though his catalogue of seasonal music, but in addition to talking about his own music, he turned me on to the Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón classic Asalto Navideño and music by Rigo Tovar.

Then I talk to Kelcy Wilburn of New Orleans' Americana band Ever More Nest. In 2015, I wrote a story for The New Orleans Advocate on her first Christmas song, "Christmas with You (Merry Me)," which at the time doubled as a Christmas song and a celebration of the Supreme Court affirming the rights of same-sex couples to marry. As she explains, it also served as a quasi-proposal to her partner. 

We talk about that, the Christmas music of her youth, and the way life as a working musician led to her new Christmas EP, Merry Little Thing. 

This episode also features new Christmas music from Sara Noelle, Kristian Noel Pederson, and Popular Muzak.  

If you'd like this year's exclusive listeners-only Christmas mix, email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

Finally, follow, subscribe or do what you have to do to get 12 Songs in your podcast feed. We only have one more episode after this in 2024, then we'll return in time for Christmas in July 2025. If we're in your feed, new episodes will show up without you having to hunt for them. 

 

 

We're officially in December, the Christmas season, and I have more interviews than I can get through in the weeks leading up to Christmas. From here on in, I'll run excerpts from the interviews I've done, and I'll run them in their entirety next season. 

This episode starts with some clean-up business after last week's conversation with Midge Ure on "Do They Know it's Christmas." I referenced Ed Sheeran's complaint that he would have preferred to be left off the 40th anniversary mega-mix, and the charges against the song by Fuse ODG. In the episode, I reference Bob Geldof responding to criticisms of the song. 

I also mentioned one of my favorite new releases of the season, Dadi Freyr's How Dadi Stole Christmas. 

This episode, I talk to Joey Williams, musical director for The Blind Boys of Alabama. In the episode, I mention that they surprised me with a new release, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" with Jay Buchanan. We talk about their album, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and when we revisit this conversation next season, we'll also talk about their collaboration with Taj Mahal, Talkin' Christmas. 

Another new track comes from Nick Bhalla, who recorded the album Saint Nick with his jazz piano trio. As this version of "Christmas Time is Here" shows, it borders on lo-fi in its emphasis on mood and melody. Hopefully I'll be able to get him for the show next season. 

I also interview Bruce Sudano, who has a new album, Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies. When I revisit this interview in its entirety next season, we'll get into that and his start with Alive and Kicking, the band that recorded the one-hit wonder "Tighter, Tighter" in 1970. 

We talk about his relationship with Donna Summer, who he wrote songs for, married, and managed. We start talking about Bad Girls, the first album he worked on, then move to Summer's 1994 Christmas album, The Christmas Spirit, which was reissued on vinyl this holiday season. 

After that, I talk to singer, songwriter, and friend of 12 Songs Alexandra Scott about Sia's Everyday is Christmas. It's a loose conversation as we work through some thoughts about a Christmas album we both really like, but with a few reservations.

Finally, on Black Friday I appeared on WBUR's "Here and Now" to talk about songs you might want to add to your holiday playlists. The segment is online now, and even if you've already heard it, you might want to visit the page since it has a playlist with some additional songs that I would have featured if we had another hour. 

Finally, DJ David Kunian invited me to join him on his radio show to spin and talk about Christmas music on WWOZ in New Orleans on Tuesday night. The show is online for the next two weeks if you'd like to check it out.

 

Midge Ure from The Rich Kids, Ultravox and Visage co-wrote and produced "Do They Know it's Christmas" 40 years ago this week on November 25, 1984. He recently released a new live album, Live at the Royal Albert Hall 04.10.23, so we talked about that, touring, the Blitz club and his memories of the sessions for "Do They Know it's Christmas." 

In this episode, I talk a little more than usual to contextualize the song and the interview. We talk about the new 40th anniversary mega-mix, which is due out Friday but the video is already out. I'll talk more about it next week.

I also mention the documentary Band Aid the Song that Rocked the World, where Midge Ure tells the story of the song in 2004. 

I also found it interesting to think about this next to USA for Africa's "We Are the World." Band Aid led the way, and the American version feels very American because, as the Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop showed, it threw cool out the window and simply marshaled the biggest names in music that they could get, whereas Geldof and Ure bet on the cutting edge of British pop to not only raise money but make charitable donations cool. 

Next week I'll talk a little about the 40th anniversary mega-mix and some developments that have sprung up around it. 

In the episode, I mentioned this year's playlist. I envision it as an alternative to the all-Christmas radio stations and recommend you listen to it on shuffle so you don't know what's coming next. It will also grow as I hear more songs that I want to share or listen to and decide what's missing.

Once again, I'm also making a special, listeners-only downloadable Christmas mix. If you want one, email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com and I'll send it over. 

Husband and wife duo Dean & Britta have a sound that suits contemporary Christmas music beautifully. They've done a few movie soundtracks including 13 Most Beautiful, an album of songs commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum to perform songs beneath Warhol's silent films shot between 1964 - 1966. 

Their sound is evocative but spare, with deeply reverbed guitars and melodic touches that bring '60s scenes to mind without being stuck there. On A Peace of Us, they and frequent collaborator Sonic Boom from Spaceman 3 work a similar magic. It's easy to envision it as part of the soundtrack to an evening during the Christmas season, entertaining enough to get your attention and hold it, but it doesn't demand your time and focus. 

As Britta Phillips and Sonic Boom - Pete Kember - explain, that's in part because the album is an expression of their relationship, and something they have been working on in bits and pieces since 2007 when Dean & Britta recorded a 45 with "Old Toy Trains" and "He's Coming Home." Kember talks about how he suggests covers, and how that too is part of their relationship.

In the episode, I reference my 12 Songs conversation with the Drive-By Truckers' Jay Gonzalez.

The episode also premieres a new Christmas song by the folk-rock band Dawes. I'm very entertained by the seasonal story-song "Christmas Tree in the Window," and you can stream it or download it at Dawes' Bandcamp page.

I'm also happy to feature a new song by Gina Birch, who you know from the British post-punk band The Raincoats or from her art career, if you know her at all. (I recognize those are very specific bona fides, but they're meaningful to me) This holiday season, Birch covered Yoko Ono's Christmas song, "Listen, the Snow is Falling," which appeared as the b-side of "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." You can download it at her Bandcamp page.

Finally, at the end of the episode I talk about the version of "Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown" by Jackie DeShannon. It's available in the main digital marketplaces, so you can check it out first and see if it's for you.   

Twelve Songs goes to Las Vegas this week, first to talk with Sally Olson and Ned Mills of the tribute act Carpenters Legacy about The Carpenters and their Christmas music. This year, they took their affection for both subjects to the natural conclusion and recorded "Christmas Time with You," a Christmas song made in the mold of the Carpenters. 

After that, I talk to comedian and ventriloquist April Brucker, who released a song sung by her and her puppet May Wilson, "Merry Christmas I'm So Glad I Didn't Marry You." We talk about ventriloquism, novelty songs, and the age-old tradition of using Christmas music to draw attention to your thing, whatever that thing is.

In the episode, I mentioned ChristmasUnderground.com and my interview with its creator, Jim Goodwin. I also talked about the Holly Jolly X'masu podcast focused on Japanese Christmas music, and mentioned my interview with its host, Scott Leopold. Also in the hype department, I talked about appearing on Gerry Davila's Totally Rad Christmas podcast to talk about "Do They Know it's Christmas " by Band Aid Mk I and Band Aid Mk II. 

The episode closes with a great version of "Christmas Time is Here" by Kelli Jones and Daniel Coolik from the EP A Very Melancholy Christmas. 

Earlier this season, I interviewed The Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood about his ambivalent relationship with Christmas music. This week I talk to the Truckers' long-time guitarist Jay Gonzalez, who takes a different path to a similar place. We talk about his relationship to the band as a full-time member since 2008 who isn't Hood, Mike Cooley, or long-time drummer Brad Morgan, and his love of Christmas songs that might or might not be Christmas songs.

Along the way, I play music from his Roll Up a Song by Gonzalez Smith and Jay Gonzalez Inflatable Orchestra Vol. 1.  

I've been out of the country, so this week is an encore presentation with two very different artists--pop instrumental piano player Jim Brickman and Jeff Plate, the long-time drummer for the arena rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra. When I conducted these interviews in 2020, I was really interested in how COVID-19 would affect two acts that have made holiday season tours a meaningful part of their business. I could imagine Brickman's music translating to a live-streamed show, but TSO delivers sensory overload with four forms of fire (if I remember correctly) and a lighting rig that itself moved like a Transformer regardless of what the lights attached to it did.

I also interviewed long-time TSO musical director Al Pitrelli in 2018 during the first season of 12 Songs.