I am at the one and only Christmas party I am attending this year, and being too broke to go back to Boston for Christmas I have to admit that I was sort-of, kind- of excited for it. I pictured a warm room, with all my co-workers (oh yeah, it’s a work party….) laughing and drinking, and then after the alcohol takes a hold of everyone, dancing and ultimately some debauchery with a hint of Christmas cheers, might happen. Instead a laptop is hooked up to speakers and an aol radio station is playing some Boyz II Men Christmas song….this pretty much sums up the extent of the partying that is not going to happen tonight.
We nix the Christmas station, but the “let loose” party I was hoping for still never happens. I take shots with high hopes of setting what I consider to be a good example of how one should begin to party. The only other person getting silly is the friend I brought. I take a shot of 151 with tobasco and my friend says to me “you’re the most punk rock girl I’ve ever met.” He reminds me that I have an album to review, MxPx’s ‘Punk Rawk Christmas.’ I haven’t listened to it yet, but I suddenly have a longing to. This party, if it needs one thing, needs some punk rock. I tell my friend that the shot isn’t punk rock, it’s resign, and we leave.
I wake up at 7:43 the next morning and immediately listen to the first song on MxPx’s Christmas Album. To be honest, I’m not in the habit of listening to punk rock before a cup of coffee, but I do this morning. I am instantly taken aback that the first song isn’t some anti-establishment, raucous version of ‘Silent Night.’ Instead it’s an original entitled ‘Punk Rawk Christmas.’ It starts “You’re on a budget no dinero in the bank, you’re on a budget no gas in the tank…,”I can relate. I listen on and get a kick out of the chorus “Punk Rawk Christmas, tell me where have you been, like a junkie in the alley, like a bad girlfriend, I haven’t seen you around it’s been almost a year Punk Rawk Christmas come spread your cheer.” But the more I listen the more I realize I like it. The songs are simple and to the point lyrically, as in the second track ‘Christmas Day,’ the chorus repeats “A little goes a long way,” and in the third track, ‘Christmas Comes Once A year’ the age old adage of it’s better to give than to receive is exercised.
‘Punk Rawk Christmas’ is in intriguing, although yes it is punk rock with short, fast beats, it is one of the few Christmas albums that sends the true message of Christmas. This is to feel blessed with your friends and family, not just on Christmas, but everyday. There is no fluff of baby Jesus and dancing snowmen. The album is also humorous. For instance the song ‘It’s Christmas and I’m Sick,’ doesn’t sound like a Christmas song at all, but it probably wouldn’t feel like Christmas if you were sick with the flu. There is the song ‘Gimme Christmas’ with a wish list containing presents such as a mansion in the sky, or having the Seahawks win a Super Bowl. It’s nice to have an original Christmas album and not some sappy Miley Cyrus Holiday Bonanza with covers that have been done one thousand times over.
Each track is original. The album is composed of Christmas songs written by the band over the last ten years, giving each song its own profile and differentiating it from the last. It doesn’t feel like the band was on a mission to bang out Christmas songs in a few sessions. The only cover on the album is the last track ‘Auld Lang Syne’. It’s blatant and appropriate, as the close of ‘A Punk Rawk Christmas,’ and the beginning of a new year. In a January 2007 article “Fight Club” in Uncut magazine, Tommy Ramone said in regards to punk rock, “By 1973, I knew what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bull shit rock ‘n’ roll.” This is exactly what MxPx gives us, stripped down instruments and a no bullshit Christmas album.
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