Ironically festive holiday tune
Band’s tune ironically festive
Don’t let holly-jolly holiday music fool you. For some, Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year.
Local ska band Something to Do taps into the yuletide misery with its ironically festive original Christmas song “Happy Holidays.”
“It’s about not having a job during the holidays, which kind of happened to me ... and then you’re not able to buy stuff and you feel this capitalist pressure,” said frontman Nate Tredinnick of the 2-year-old track. “I think depressing Christmas songs are kind of cool and there aren’t a lot of them, at least not popular ones.”
The band recently performed the song for a special holiday edition of the Journal Sentinel’s Sound Check series and discussed its offbeat holiday traditions and memories.
Who’s who: Chris Holoyda (guitar); Alex Kayser (guitar); Brad Klotz (drums); Marc Kuntz (trombone); Chris Smith (trumpet); Tredinnick (singer and bassist).
Favorite Christmas albums or songs: Tredinnick: Everyone loves Phil Spector’s Christmas album with that amazing wall of sound. I really like Sharon Jones’ (“It’s a Holiday Soul Party”). The originals are particularly awesome.
Klotz: I’m a fan of Duke Ellington’s “Nutcracker Suite.” That’s a classic. Christmas doesn’t seem complete without hearing it.
Holoyda: I like “The Man in the Santa Suit.” It’s about a guy trying to make a buck as Santa, and he’s in really bad shape and kids are throwing up on him. It’s a B-side to Fountains of Wayne’s “I Want an Alien for Christmas.”
Favorite Christmas movies: Tredinnick: I like the old classic “Die Hard” and that Christmas theme of one man beating up a bunch of terrorists.
Holoyda: I always eventually watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” I don’t know if I even love it anymore. I got tired and fought back and forced “Silence of the Lambs” on my family last year.
Favorite Christmas food or drinks: Kuntz: My mom’s homemade fudge. It sticks to your ribs.
Tredinnick: I invented a drink called the Bad Santa — that’s essentially a Blind Russian, but instead of vodka I use 100-proof peppermint schnapps, two ounces of Kahlua and three or four ounces of Baileys. Shake that in a shaker over ice and pour. It’s good as a drink, it’s great as a shot.
Holoyda: We drink Baileys and eggnog or Kahlua and eggnog and call it the Nog Snog at our place, which I invented, although I don’t know if you can say mixing two things is inventing. I discovered and branded it.
Favorite Christmas traditions: Kayser: My family is so big we have to have Christmas in a church gymnasium. We play basketball and then we eat Christmas dinner. It’s weird.
Tredinnick: My friend Adam Zar makes a 160-minute Christmas mix every year with unique Christmas songs. His first year was 2001 and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. He makes 100 to 200 copies and hands them out to all his friends at shows. It’s an epic undertaking that he starts work on in March. And every year since 2004, I play sax in a bad swing Christmas band. Our singer gets increasingly drunk and belligerent as the night goes on. We’re called Waylan St. Palin and the Magic Elves. It’s pretty macho.
Favorite Christmas gifts: Smith: In college, I stopped playing trumpet for like a year and my mom got me one and I started playing again. These guys regret it every day.
Kayser: My brother gave me a portrait of my dog dressed up as an Elizabethan queen. He just thought it was funny. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know I needed it until I had it, honestly.
Next gig: 9 p.m. Dec. 9, Riverwest Public House Cooperative, 815 E. Locust St. $5.