Format: LP Label: Overtime Records Year: 2021 Media Condition: New Sleeve/Cover Condition: New TRACKS: A1 Get In The Mood A2 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) A3 Sleigh Ride A4 Run Rudolph Run A5 All I Want For Christmas Is You A6 Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas B1 Blue Christmas B2 What Christmas Means To Me B3 Christmastime Is Here B4 The Christmas Waltz B5 Remember (Christmas) PERSONNEL: Laura Tsaggaris Tim Lyons Justin Kruger Philip Carluzzo Patrick "Hammer" Thornton Austin Day Matt Rippetoe Joe Herrera Lex Tsaggaris Audrey Hamilton Remember the Christmas Eve blizzard of 1995, when Tom Petty, Cowboy Junkies, and Portishead’s tour buses all plowed into the same snowbank, and the artists took refuge for the night in a miraculously nearby recording studio? No? OK, so maybe that never happened, but if it had, it might have birthed a seasonal set much like “Get In The Mood”. Through varying degrees of reinterpretation, deconstruction, or plain old destruction, DC rocker-chanteuse Laura Tsaggaris bravely turns these well-worn holiday favorites back into real songs. Consider: when Mariah or Bono sings about all they want (or Baby coming home) for Christmas, one invariably thinks, “well, they are Mariah and Bono, and it’s Christmas, so OF COURSE they will have those things! I mean, duh.” It’s plenty festive, but it does tend to drain those songs of any of the actual feeling or soul that inspired them in the first place. Laura tweaks the formula — more heat, less smugness — and re-gifts the tracks for the rest of us. Elvis sold “Blue Christmas” like only Elvis could, but did anyone really believe his hangdog pout on the record jacket? If so, they should check out Laura’s gothic-lament take on the song and look again. Whether you love these holiday mainstays or not-so-much, that’s your mood to get into, and Laura’s got something for you.
