Little Steven Goes to the Source for a Rockin' Christmas A Go-Go
Posted Dec 18th 2008 8:01AM
by Nick Zaino

Holidash

If you want a great rock and roll Christmas album, you've got to go back to the source. That's what Little Steven has been doing for seven years on his Underground Garage radio show, presenting the entire timeline of rock and roll history, from its blues and country roots right up to brand new bands. And that's what you get from Little Steven's Underground Garage presents Christmas A Go-Go.

The Underground Garage does three Christmas shows a year, including a "Christmas in July" show, and Little Steven (a.k.a Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and the Sopranos) drew from that cache for the twenty tracks on the album.

"We filled three shows with songs and we could probably fill five," he says. "It's amazing. And you know it's a variety of things. Obviously some contemporary garage rock, but then there's some classics and some funny stuff and some R&B. We mix it up a little bit."

Narrowing the song list down to twenty was tough, says Van Zandt. The Fab Four, a band of Beatles impersonators, have a whole album's worth of Christmas songs, but only their "Norwegian Wood" inspired take on "Silent Night" made the cut. Van Zandt also mentions a Swedish band called The Maggots who do a song called "Get Off My Roof" (to the tune of the Rolling Stones' "Get Off of My Cloud"). "The only thing that saved me was I knew we'd be doing a 'Volume Two,'" he says. "So I didn't feel so bad about the ones I left off."

Classic rock stalwarts like Keith Richards and the Kinks share space with the Ramones, 50s comedian Soupy Sales, and some of Van Zandt's current favorites like Chesterfield Kings, the Electric Prunes, and the Len Price 3. Aside from the Kinks' "Father Christmas," which gets good rotation on classic rock stations, most of these songs will be new to listeners who haven't been tuned in to the Underground Garage.

"We threw a lot of things on this record that are just impossible to find, you really can't get anywhere else," says Van Zandt. "Keith Richards - first time on CD. Bob Seger, like his third or fourth single ever from, I forget now, '67, '68? You can't find it. Darlene Love's 'All Alone on Christmas' with most of the E-Street Band was a movie thing, it's hard to find. Roy Wood, he's a big hit in England, but people don't really have it over here."

The newer bands on the line-up have definite roots in 50s and 60s garage rock. If someone were to sneak the Chevelles, the Len Price 3, or the Chesterfield Kings into a set with the Animals and Question Mark and the Mysterians' "96 Tears," you'd be hard-pressed to tell when they were recorded, something that thrills Van Zandt. "I love it when somebody comes up to me sometimes, they say, 'Was that record new or old?'" he says. "I love hearing that. That's exactly the point. Good is good."

Van Zandt also had a part in producing some of these songs over the years. He has worked with the Chesterfield Kings (he calls them "the leaders of the entire contemporary garage rock scene") and produced Tina Sugandh's "White Christmas" for the Christmas with the Kranks soundtrack. He's especially proud to have written "All Alone On Christmas," which appeared on the Home Alone 2 soundtrack, for Darlene Love.

"I consider her the best female singer ever," he says. "I really do. I think she's absolutely the best, and certainly the best that is still working. All due respect to Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, Darlene Love is the best, I think.

A lot of the songs on A Go-Go are classics in their own right. Van Zandt says it's tough to write a good Christmas song, but even tougher for it to catch on. "Because Christmas, it's a challenge, man," he says. "When you're writing those things, you're competing with 'Jingle Bells,' you know what I mean?"