Sure The Ventures are a bit like the Christmas toy that doesn’t live up to the commercials. With this Lp’s awesome cover and great theme, the music is fine but it didn’t meet expectations.
The first track Sleigh Ride is pretty great and everything you expect a surf/christmas track to be. After that everything is a mash up of popular tunes and Christmas songs. I don’t mind mash ups and I do feel the Ventures were a bit ahead of their time but it does get annoying. You spend all your time trying to figure out which songs they’re blending. If it was 1965 it might be easier but today your reaching pretty deep it the past to make the connections
Snow Flakes is this odd mash up of Spooky and What Child is This. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is mashed up with Wooly Booly. Frosty the Snowman/Tequila and so on. There are some Rolling Stones, Beatles and I want to say Muddy Waters but I’m not sure.
The best tune on the album is Blue Christmas. I’m sure it’s a mash up of some sort but it has a good crunchy sound and is actually a bit different. Oh and a small thumbs up should be given to Silver Bells for it's Framptonesque guitar vocalizations.
The oddest is Scrooge – a Halloween song in the guise of a Christmas song....mashed up with Apache (?) . owch.
On a sad note - I seem to have lost my copy of The Ventures - Underground Fire. I’m sure it wound up in a piece somewhere but I miss it.
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