CBC’s 12 Days of Christmas

CBC Christmas

. : : Various 2013-2014 : : .

I seem to have a lot of Christmas-themed or otherwise related recordings, which surprises me, because I can be somewhat of a holiday scrooge.

Frivolous spending, unabashed commercialism, repetitive Christmas music that starts earlier each year, social obligations... the list of my pet peeves about the holiday is about as long as my arm.

And yet, here I am with a digital hoard of Christmas music recordings. Go figure.

This one, hopefully the last for the year, is a compilation of songs the CBC recorded in 2013 and 2014, featuring established and little-known Canadian musicians performing their favourite Christmas songs for two "12 Days of Christmas" radio specials.

(Or, you know, songs that weren't picked by other artists before them)

For a limited time, some of these songs were available for download on CBC.ca -- I believe as MP3s -- but contained just the music itself. This recording, a presumably higher-quality FLAC, includes the band's talking about their selections and DJ chatter giving the occasional context, and can thus be considered "more complete" if "less official."

I combined the original tracks from both airings (removing duplicates and redundant dj chatter) for this compilation, featuring bands familiar to regular visitors to this blog, including Blue Rodeo, Royal Wood, Bahamas, Moist, Barenaked Ladies, and Chris Hadfield.

Royal Wood @ CBC Studio 211

[caption id="attachment_1376" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Royal Wood Royal Wood @ Studio 211[/caption]

. : : March 2014 : : .

Royal Wood was one of my early Canadian Music Week discoveries. His powerful piano pop performances of songs Do You Recall and On Top of Your Love immediately made me a fan, and I ended up seeing him live 4-times in about 14-months spanning 2010-2011.

Alas! Other musical acts became a distraction, and he had slipped off my radar a bit when his follow up album, We Were Born To Glory, came out.

I did capture a couple of performances Royal did for CBC's First Play Live program that aired shortly after the album's release, but the station's running interview tracks over top the first verses of the songs annoyed me to no end, and I didn't give them the attention they deserve.

NXNE @ Lee’s Palace

. : : June 17th, 2010 : : . Some people say it’s good luck to be pooped on by a bird. Kind of a ridiculous statement, isn’t it? And easily said…