Alright, so here's the place where I'm going to talk about music that I think is absolutely 100%, black-card-era worth your time, and for my first post I thought I'd talk about two undisputed champions who have some connection to Christmas (for me anyway). Also, I don't have a server per se, so the track links go to a corresponding SendSpace page where you can download them. Major apologies for not letting you sample these jams, but like I said these are 100% guaranteed. Throw your card down, WALK THE FUCK OUT! And begin!

"Yes....yes...."
So yeah, Chavez. I took a chance on these guys back in the fall of 2005, after falling in love with Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" Billy's collaborative effort, Superwolf, and doing a little bit of accidental research on Sweeney. I got a copy of Gone Glimmering, listened to it a little bit, thought it was pretty good, and mentally lumped it in with the other slightly-before-my-time alt-rock that didn't feel super cringe-y (a group that includes Dinosaur Jr and Jawbox's Novelty and...that's probably it). But it wasn't until I was working on Christmas Day (a feat I'll be performing again this year), driving down totally empty streets, delivering ExpressMail® packages to bewildered families ("You guys work on Christmas?" "Yeah. Well, I mean...I do.") in the middle of fucking nowhere (much love to Stanley, Middlesex and the 3 or 4 other open fields I visited), and blaring Glimmering on repeat that it hit me hard right in the face how much Chavez completely destroys. And thanks to Better Days Will Haunt You--a two-cd, one-dvd complete re-mastered discography released a couple months ago on Matador--you can have their awesomeness and hilariousness (they made the two best videos and the one best promotional film ever made) smash you in the face, too, and you won't have to work on Christmas to do it...or have it done to you, I guess. To get you going on what I hope is a disturbing obsession with these guys, I've got one track from Glimmering ("Laugh Track" aka my song of the day for Christmas '05), and the one previously unreleased track from Better Days ("White Jeans"), as a favor to any other Chavez completists who, like me, went scouring at some expense for every random track they could find in '06 until they already had everything on the discography before it came out. So that's really a favor for...me...that needs to go back in time, but anyway:

Chavez - "Laugh Track" (from Gone Glimmering)
Chavez - "White Jeans" (from Better Days Will Haunt You, Disc 2)




Wait. Santa. Do Not Enter.
Servotron is, simply put, the greatest pro-robot, anti-human surf punk band of all time, HANDS DOWN. They are also responsible for the name of this particular blog, and are the fantastic machine-sympathizers with synthesizers behind the truly inspired There is No Santa Claus 7". I spent way too much time trying to explain why I like Chavez and now I'm tired, so for some starter info on Servotron, go here. And when you read about them dressing as robots, it'll be important to envision this and this. It'll also be important to rock the crap out of these tunes:

Servotron - "Christmas Day of the Robot" (from There is No Santa Claus)
Servotron - "Servotron Sonic Evaluation of the Christmas Season" (from There is No Santa Claus)
Servotron - "People Mover (Maximum Velocity Wedway Mix)" (from Spare Parts)

That's it for now, but look out for daily posts on my favorite songs from my favorite records of the year (though not necessarily from records that came out this year). Exciting shit!!

Matt