'A time of peace and prosperity.' Charlie Steady on the joy of a great Christmas tune
Plus, Black Sabbath's 1976 Selland Arena concert gets rediscovered and what do you know about Redbone?
I was at a holiday party this week, chat, chat, chatting away while holding a plate of food among all the twinkling lights. In the background somewhere a Youtube playlist hit all the holiday favorites.
Cue the Phil Spector sleigh bells.
And just like that, Christmas time is here again.
Normally, this is where I’d put together a locals-only playlist for you. You can hear that on tonight’s Homegrown Show on New Rock 104.1.
Instead, I emailed Seth Craig.
“Holiday music really provides a lot of joy for me,” says Craig, aka Charlie Steady, whose Instagram feed has been filled up with Christmas cover tunes over the past few days. He also released a cover of “Run Rudolph Run” (streaming now).
Your Christmas covers are awesome. How/when did you start doing them?
“I started covering Christmas songs on my socials during the end of 2020. The covers started out as short form content snippets I did to bring a bit of joy to friends/family who felt isolated during the holidays because of the pandemic.
What makes a great Christmas cover? What’s your process?
“Even though Christmas songs have a novelty to them, many songs have an emotional core which provides workability when covering them.
A great Christmas cover pays tribute to the spirit or the core emotional message of the song while providing instrumentation or production that is unique to the artist.
Many of my Christmas covers on social media are stripped down versions with piano or acoustic guitar. But, with my cover of ‘Run Rudolph Run,’ I tried a different approach. The song was originally recorded in 1951 (Editor’s note: 1958, unless there’s an earlier version I am missing) so I wanted to honor that rockabilly style by using vintage production methods but with a contemporary rock energy.”
Are you more of a traditionalist (hymns and the like) or are you good with contemporary Christmas tunes?
“I honestly enjoy both, but certainly lean more on the contemporary-esque Christmas tunes. I love the Christmas album Ray Charles released in the 1980’s. Kacy Musgraves also released a great Christmas album a few years ago that was awesome. But at the same time, I do enjoy old renditions of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Joy to the World.’ ”
Tell me about ‘A Very Steady Christmas?’
“That is the first (and hopefully not the last) original holiday song of mine. It was written during the winter of 2020. The pandemic certainly influenced the lyrics, but the song is about finding hope even when life can feel pretty bleak. The holidays do have this social pressure for everything to go perfect, but the imperfections and the messes that happen are special in their own way. The song is meant to remind the listener of that fact of life.”
You’re putting together a quick (5 song) Holiday playlist. Which songs/versions of songs make the cut (include your own if you want)?
“That’s a tough question, but I would say ‘It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,’ the Michael Buble version, ‘White Christmas,’ by Bing Crosby, ‘Mele Kalikimaka,’ also Bing Crosby ‘Wonderful Christmas Time.’ And for the heck of it my song ‘A Very Steady Christmas’ to round out the playlist.”
What’s your take on Whammegedon? How early is too early to start rolling out the holiday tunes?
Whammegedon is a hilarious way to have a bit of fun with a song that, while great, does get over played a bit. However, I do love hearing different versions of ‘Last Christmas.’
Too early for rolling out the Christmas songs right after Halloween. You have to wait till Thanksgiving at the earliest. That’s always been a hard rule for myself.
What is it about holiday music that carries such an appeal (either for you personally, or if you’d like to answer for the world, that’s cool, too)?
“I’ll take a shot at answering for the world, which also connects to my own experience! Holiday music speaks to the idealistic nature we hold in the culture. Most holiday songs are upbeat, positive, and pictures the season as a time of peace and prosperity. While it may not be like that in reality, that message is uplifting and projects a world we all want.
For myself, it is hard to not feel more hopeful after listening to Christmas music.”
Charlie Steady’s last album “Magpie” was released in March of 2023. Craig has been working on a follow up, which should be out early next year.
Rediscovered video of Black Sabbath’s “Technical Ecstasy” tour, Nov. 9, 1976, Selland Arena, Fresno
For those who weren’t there, or who were there but have forgotten, the Selland Arena was an amazing rock venue through the late ’80s, at least. Insert meme: “I may old but at least I got to see all the good bands.”
We got a reminder of that this week via some rare video footage of Black Sabbath playing the arena on its “Technical Ecstasy” tour in 1976.
First spotted over at Loudersound.com, the video is purported to the band’s Nov. 9 tour stop, which featured Boston and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
It runs just over 30 minutes and features the first six of 14 songs in the set that night (Symptom of the Universe, Snowblind, All Moving Parts (Stand Still), War Pigs, Gypsy and Children Of The Grave). There seems to be at least two source videos, given the change in quality around the 18:30 mark.
The video appears to have been taken from Reelin’ In The Years, which has a massive archive of this kind of footage. It does not appear to be anything they company has released officially.
So, chances are the video will get taken down soon. Until then, though, it’s a good snippet of Sabbath’s prowess at the time. Pay particular attention to Geezer Butler’s bass …
Redbone, or “The band who did something real”
All thanks to The Fresnan for turning me on to this video from Patrick Hicks over at the podcast/newsletter Patrick Hicks Music Stories.
In it, Hicks tells the story of Redbone, a band that, aside from leaning hard into its Native American (and Mexican and Creole) ancestry, happens to have its origins in Fresno. The band was inducted into the Valley Music Hall of Fame in 2023.
Fresno gets some mention early in the video, but the bulk of the story focuses in on the transition of the Vasquez Brothers (Lolly and Patrick) into the Vegas Brothers and then eventually into the band that became Redbone.
For hardcore Fresnophile music nerds, there probably isn’t much that’s new here, though I was unaware that Redbone was essentially a second act for the brothers and that they had already seen fair deal of success by the mid to late ’60s. Their surf-band side project was also news to me.
That’s it for this week. Remember you can now hear me on the Homegrown Show Sundays at 8 p.m. on New Rock 104.1 FM. It’s an hour’s worth of Christmas Music tonight!! Follow my other writing at The Fresno Bee. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com