Christmas

There are six artists with this name:

1. A psychedelic/progsessive rock band from Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
2. A psychedelic pop band from Boston, MA
3. A U.K. Folk band
4. A sludge/drone band from Malvern, West Midlands, UK
5. An Indie band from Medicine Hat, Alberta.
6. A rock and roll band from Olympia, WA


1) Christmas was formed in 1969 in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, out of the ashes of the cult underground psychedelic band Reign Ghost. In July 1970, Christmas released an independent self-titled debut that brought some media attention to the band and a contract with the Daffodil Records label. In December 1970, less than six months after the release of the debut, Christmas released their debut Daffodil Records album entitled Heritage. Christmas was comprised of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Bob Bryden, bass Tyler Raizenne, drummer Rich Richter, and Robert Bulger on guitars, all of whom were still in their teens. The album gathered good reviews and was well received by critics but it was not commercially viable because the long songs and hard rock sound. It became an instant favorite in the underground music scene just about everywhere but in Canada. Despite the international response to the album, Heritage proved to be the last release by the band under the name Christmas due to management problems and difficulty with the direction of the next album. Consequently, Christmas broke up in late 1971 only to resurface the following year, lineup intact, under the name the Spirit of Christmas. In the late '80s and '90s, the original Heritage album became a highly sought after collector's item, especially in the U.S.A. and Europe because of the band's unorthodox style and progressive influences.



2) Christmas were a band who recorded three albums of quirky neo-psychedelic pop in the late 1980s. Based in Boston, MA, the trio of Liz Cox (aka Miss Lily Banquette, vocals and bongos), Michael Cudahy (aka The Millionaire, guitar and vocals), and bassist Dan Salzmann released their debut album, In Excelsior Dayglo in 1986. The track "Big Plans" became a modest college radio and MTV hit, but the album, owing to Big Time Records' perennial financial woes, could not sustain the band's momentum.

The band relocated to Las Vegas, signed to I.R.S., and released Ultraprophets of Thee Psykick Revolution in 1989. Arguably their finest work, it featured another small-time hit in "Stupid Kids", and the caustic, satirical "Richard Nixon" earned critical attention as well. But the strange, though appealing, record seemed a bit out of step with the top college radio bands that year, and it sunk with little notice.

Christmas recorded Vortex in 1991 but could not immediately find a label for it. In the interim, Cox and Cudahy swapped tongue-in-cheek-psychedelia for tongue-in-cheek lounge music and formed the still quirky, but far more accessible and successful Combustible Edison together with Peter Dixon. When finally released in 1993, the bored-sounding Vortex made barely a ripple.


3) Christmas was a short-lived UK based band called Christmas led by PJ Harvey's collaborators, Rob Ellis and Tim Farthing. They released a self-titled EP in 2001 on Morpheus Records. Their music placed the emphasis on atmosphere and pure evocation: mournful gothic narratives skated through mordent folky, psych landscapes.


4) Christmas are a four-piece from Malvern, West Midlands, UK. They play a gritty and minimal, yet melodic sludge/doom metal made of long drawn-out pieces, multiple movements and moods.


5) Christmas is an indie band from Medicine Hat, Alberta.


6) Christmas is a punk rock band from Olympia, WA. They released their first 7" on Endless Latino in September 2009. The members are Jake Jones, Emily Beanblossom, Patrick Michael Scott-Walsh, Dave Halegua. http://www.myspace.com/christmassed

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