{"id":674,"date":"2011-12-16T04:49:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T09:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=674"},"modified":"2023-11-15T10:45:42","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T15:45:42","slug":"album-review-the-grip-weeds-under-the-influence-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/16\/album-review-the-grip-weeds-under-the-influence-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Grip Weeds – Under the Influence of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I suspect I’m not alone in my thinking that holiday-themed albums are often greeted with some trepidation. Oftentimes saccharine sentimentality trumps all, and the results are mawkish, half-baked or otherwise ill-advised. For every \u201cHappy Xmas (War is Over)\u201d there are three like \u201cWonderful Christmastime.\u201d The occasional inspired concept album comes along: witness The Husky Team<\/strong>‘s Christmas in Memphis<\/em><\/a>. And there have been some interesting failures in the genre \u2013 Paul Revere & the Raiders<\/strong><\/a>‘ A Christmas Present…and Past<\/em> is pretty strange, and ultimately worthwhile \u2013 but generally, not-so-good is just plain not-so-good.<\/p>\n

Happily, the approach that The Grip Weeds<\/strong><\/a> have taken on Under the Influence of Christmas<\/em>, their 2011 entry into this subgenre, sidesteps the musical clich\u00e9s. Instead the New Jersey quartet \u2013 with some able assistance; more on which forthwith \u2013 has crafted a rock album that just happens to contain songs with a loose Christmas theme.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A in the \u201cloose\u201d category is a cover of The Pretenders<\/strong>‘ \u201c2000 Miles.\u201d Other than a lyrical mention of Christmas time, the song isn’t any sort of holiday number. But The Grip Weeds infuse it with their brand of jangle and solid bottom end, and the guitar-playing half of the Smithereens<\/strong> <\/a>\u2013 Pat DiNizio<\/strong> and Jim Babjak<\/strong> \u2013 offer (respectively) vocal and axe-wielding support.<\/p>\n

Speaking, as I was, of Paul Revere and the Raiders: legendary ponytailed singer Mark Lindsay<\/strong> makes a welcome vocal appearance out front on a Grip Weeds original called \u201cSanta Make Me Good.\u201d Though live-performancewise, Lindsay mostly treads the oldies circuit these days, his turn here shows he’s lost little (if any) of the vocal fire he brought to \u201cJust Like Me\u201d some 45 years ago (\u201cYAY-ughh!!\u201d indeed).<\/p>\n

A straight-ahead rocking version (with flute, natch) of Jethro Tull<\/strong><\/a>‘s \u201cA Christmas Song\u201d features The Grip Weeds’ Kristin Pinell<\/strong> on lead vocal. The group does eventually do one of those classical-hymn-in-rock-style bits in \u201cGod Rest Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,\u201d but their arrangement sounds more like something off Nuggets II: British Empire and Beyond<\/em>. Specifically, it recalls a cross between Fire<\/strong>‘s \u201cMy Friend Jack\u201d and The Yardbirds<\/strong>‘ \u201cStill I’m Sad,\u201d with drummer Kurt Reil<\/strong> channeling his inner Keith Moon<\/strong>. Neat-o.<\/p>\n

That Emerson, Lake & Palmer<\/strong>‘s \u201cI Believe in Father Christmas\u201d has become a holiday classic is one of life’s little ironies. The Grip Weeds play this one pretty straight, hewing closely to the original arrangement, though they amp up the electric guitar a bit. A couple of originals numbers \u2013 \u201cFor the Holidays\u201d and \u201cChristmas Bring Us\u201d \u2013 manage to be holiday-themed yet still of a piece with the general Grip Weeds musical approach; on one level ,the lyrical subject matter allows the group to branch out on instrumentation, though they’ve never needed an excuse on that score. \u201cChristmas, Bring Us\u201d rocks as hard (and soars as high) as any of the Grip Weeds’ best work.<\/p>\n

\u201cHark The Herald Angels Sing\u201d starts off a capella, and then dives into a mid-tempo Rickenbacker jangle redolent of The Byrds<\/strong>. The lyrics don’t exactly rock, but it’s the closest the album comes to the religious end of the December holidays. The disc closes with an inspired cover from Dr. Seuss<\/strong>: \u201cWelcome Christmas.\u201d Though, you might not recognize the How the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/em> number in its stomping rock guise here.<\/p>\n

Under the Influence of Christmas<\/em> is that rare holiday album that probably sounds as good in the summer as it does in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suspect I’m not alone in my thinking that holiday-themed albums are often greeted with some trepidation. Oftentimes saccharine sentimentality trumps all, and the results are mawkish, half-baked or otherwise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday","category-review","cat-37-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26499,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/26499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}