An Instrumental Christmas | 12 Days of #108Mas

For those of you who know me, you’ll know I am biased when it comes to instrumental music. I was in an instrumental band: Barren Plains and I love bands like Pelican and Russian Circles. And when it comes to Christmas music I have a similar bias. So I wanted to share some of my favorites with you:

Merry Axemas – A Guitar Christmas 1 & 2

In the late ’90s these two albums were released and you’re damn right I had these on heavy CD rotation around the holidays. As you can tell from the image above, they got some of the heaviest hitters on guitar at the time. Leading off with Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, these albums are non-stop Christmas riff tracks. On volume two, they even give Stu Hamm his own track so he can drop some tasty bass licks on you. Unfortunately, a bunch of these are missing from Spotify, but they can be tracked down pretty easily. Here’s a playlist with a bunch of it:

Joel Paterson – Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar

Despite him being a Chicagoan, I was unfamiliar with Joel’s game. I went to see JD McPherson at Thalia Hall doing a Christmas show for his album Socks (not instrumental) and Joel Paterson opened. He was excellent. As you can probably guess from the cover, this sounds straight out of the ’50s. It bounces from genre to genre, but the era-specific sound holds it all together. A great Christmas album:

Los Straitjackets – Complete Christmas Songbook

Los Straitjackets are another band I’ve been lucky enough to see live. And while it was not them doing Christmas tracks, I can assure you that their Christmas music does not disappoint. I chose this 2018 release because it contains all their Christmas songs. Feliz Navidad is my favorite, but there is a ton here with 27 tracks. If you like surf music and luchador masks, this is the album for you:

These are some of my favorites, but let me know some of yours. I am always looking for more. And I know I didn’t include the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or any of their off-shoots, but while I don’t have anything bad to say about them, they don’t hit like the bands above.

-Chorizy-E