Skip to main content

Merry Christmas with the Mom and Dads

I only bought this because of the cover. Thinking this would be so horrid I'd have to replace my needle and bleach my ears after playing this I eagerly paid my dollar, and gave it a good cleaning. The first thing to note is that despite a cover Yosh and Stan Schmenge would drool over, this was played straight, and reminds me of my treasured Jim Gregrash records (if you know, you know). I can imagine The Mom and Dads killing it at a barn dance. Make no mistake, this was dance music, just not the dance music of my generation.

This is fun, old timey Christmas music, and frankly considering three of the members were born before 1920, and the youngest born in the early 1930s - they were older than most artists who were starting their careers. They'd only released their debut in 1970 a couple of years earlier. Late bloomers I suppose.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I started looking up the band, but I wasn't expecting to see a bunch of gold and platinum CRIA certifications. Also, they were signed to MCA when the Christmas album came out. If there was a joke, then they were in on it.

They were by all accounts a relatively big deal here in Canada, and also Australia by the look of things. Sure, it isn't a style of music I listen to a lot, but heck if Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians were able to sell  between 100 and 300 million records (according to Wikipedia, and that's a heck of a rounding error. I'm guessing they didn't keep track of what they sold) it shouldn't be a surprise that a good old fashioned party band managed to rack up some decent hardware. Take that you long haired hippies.

As a kid I remember staying up with my parents to ring in the New Year with Mister Lombardo, and even at the time I thought it was really old fashioned and kind of cheesy. It may have been cheese, but somewhere in the recesses of my musical development a small corner was reserved for music like this. Playing Merry Christmas with the Mom and Dads pushes the right nostalgia buttons and makes me want to curl up in a chair and drink hot chocolate.

The album itself is parsed into two sections, the lead up to Christmas, and the slide into New Years. Both sides contain the classics you'd want to hear done polka style. They're a lot of fun. I just wish they'd have had some production value. I guess MCA distributed, but didn't advance for recording? Who knows. It must be how polka albums are recorded. Live from the floor, one mic in the centre of the room and hit record. Okay, maybe two microphones - the cover says it's in stereo.

Oddly enough it's part of the appeal. 

Sadly they've all passed on now, but they've left behind a reminder to a different time and place, and if you just listen and let yourself enjoy the ride, you'll find yourself tapping your foot and smiling.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure.  I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTOs Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) who knows maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust - it seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight ahead pop, or rock. It was leaning to the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough the vocals reminded me of Mi...

Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again.  I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t...

Saturday Night Fever - The Original Movie Soundtrack

It was going to happen sooner or later. Nostalgia is a cruel Mistress...she can dull the sharpest edges and over time can even soften the hardest of opinions. I found this in the dollar bin, and frankly at a dollar I was worried about what this would cost me. Not only from a monetary perspective, but my time, and more important my credibility. Fourteen year old me was screaming "Don't you dare. DON'T DO IT! Put it down. Walk away!" Then there was grey bearded me holding it and looking at it, thinking, "How bad could it be? I actually kind of like "Staying Alive" and me buying this record won't bring disco back, and no one will have to know I bought this." I pulled the album out of the bin, and carefully took out the records. They'd seen better days, and there were a couple of decent scratches that would no doubt make their presence known later. The jacket was in decent condition, and both of the albums had the original sleeves. I dusted the...