Christmas music is, well, can be pretty garbage sometimes. There's only so many renditions of the same old 'classics' that you can listen to before you want to smash your head through the wall. But when you can find good (original) christmas music, well, it's delightful. Everyone knows the greatest christmas song ever written, Fairytale of New York. I'm however not going to write about that Pogues classic. I'm going to let you know about an album I got a few years ago made by Connor Ratliff (comedian and entertainer extraordinaire) and Mikey Erg (musician who doesn't sleep); The Spirit of Ratliff A Holiday Soundtrack ep (the A side has Xmas Next year tacked onto the end and the b-side of the LP is Summer is Not XMAS ep). I first found out about Connor Ratliff through The Chris Gethard Show when he was running for president because he was 35 and eligible to do so. TCGS introduced me to Connor's sort of offbeat sense of humor (and I believe was his introduction to his musical collaborator Mikey Erg). In 2015 Connor and Mikey teamed up to write the soundtrack to Connor's secular Holiday special The Spirit of Ratliff (which I've actually never watched [as soon as this blog post is done I'm going to fix that]). So the soundtrack is Mikey on acoustic guitar and Connor singing almost stream of consciousness lyrics (the lyrics aren't disconnected, but they're so simply brilliant). I don't think I'm too far off in saying that the music is all over the folk spectrum dipping into punk, rock and antifolk(?) branches (or maybe that's just the bare bones acoustic base that leads me to think that). These are secular christmas songs written celebrating all that is secular christmas, snow, presents, treats...and lamenting the lack of pizza on xmas. The bside, Summer is Not XMAS, is an anti-summer ep that is summarized perfectly on the Bandcamp description, "7 songs about how Summer Is The Worst". It has the same Ratliff whit accompanied by Erg's naked acoustic guitar.
Growing up for some reason I always associated Bugles with xmas. Maybe it was because they were often present in nuts and bolts, maybe they just were more visible in stores around xmas...maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe Nacho Cheese Bugles have a soft and/or passive crunch that all Bugles have (they're a formed snack, buy formed out of a corn base, not potato so they avoid the trapping of the garbage that is tube chips). When consuming you're met with that familiar buttery cornmeal taste and a hint of nacho cheese seasoning. Not an extreme departure from original Bugles, but there is a little tang, to faux cheesy tang, to keep you on your toes. There's quite a range in seasoning level throughout the bag. A very processed snack, as is the Bugles way. If you're a fan of Bugles, you'll probably dig their Nacho Cheese variation. Dig in, and..
Stay hydrated,
marc
ps. Since I'm talking about formed salty snacks in the main body I'll throw you a little bonus here. Crispers intense baked snacks..All Dressed. Smelled like bbq. Good crunch, mid weight when compared to a standard chip (I consider them crackers). They're wheaty with just a hint of potato butteryness. The seasoning is relatively light (it's been a minute since I've had Crispers, I remembered them being more heavily seasoned. The flavour is there but it's mid range at best) and there is a brief faint bite at the end. When I concentrated I could make out the vinegar in the seasoning. The deeper I got into the bag, the more I was able to recognize the seasoning, a mix of BBQ and S&V I guess.
Flash forward 1 week. I just finished crushing the bottom of a salt & vinegar bag of Crispers when I moved in to kill the bottom of the All Dressed bag. Moving from S&V to AD I now noticed a lot of onion and bbq sauce seasoning, it was weird. Eating in that order S&V then AD made the All Dressed very taste very meh to bleh. It was quite odd..I'm going to see if that happens if I transition between chips.
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