Prior to and contemporaneous with, Grunge, Seattle was a center for great melodic pop from such luminaries as the Posies, the Young Fresh Fellows, (whose leader Scott McCaughey went on to play in REM for years) Sister Psychic, Flake, Stumpy Joe, Model Rockets, Presidents of the United States of America and numerous others. Out of this community and tradition Rich Horton (now a celebrated regular contributor to East Portland Blog) and Optional Art Records put together a rich power pop Christmas album whose underground reputation continues to grow even as the years stretch away from its 1996 release date. At long last, this melodic gem can be heard on the internet at
http://www.reverbnation.com/coolyule.
Please check it out, enjoy this ongoing Christmas miracle, and pass the link along to all your friends and family.
COOL YULE – Various Artists
(Optional Art Records, 1996)
Executive Producer, Rich Horton
Among the dozens of Christmas-themed albums with the title of COOL YULE, the Mistletunes website calls this one “an underground classic.”
And unlike other albums of the same name, this one features all-original material written and performed by some of the spiffiest artists from the pop music underground.
As the original Optional Art description of the album put it:
“A compendium of cool Christmas songs from the Power Folk and Indie Pop Underground, COOL YULE is a grunge-free celebration of our fave holiday, replete with hints of 1960’s harmonies, catchy guitar riffs, and fab singalong melodies. There’s some opening of presents (and Presence) here, as well as some lighting of candles. Thematically, you can think of this as ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ meets ‘A Charlie Brown/Peanuts Christmas.'”
