Each year, from 2001 until 2006, I would send out a Christmas CD to friends and family. It was kind of a musical Christmas card of sorts. I got the idea from Chip Harlan and Stephen Baniak who recorded an amazing version of Feliz Navidad sometime in the late ’90s. There is a fair amount of Chip and Stephen on these recordings, but alas, we all live in different cities now. Here are mp3 versions of tunes on latest issue of the Christmas CD:
(2006) It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
(2005) Angels We Have Heard On High #@%
(2005) Go Tell It On The Mountain #@%
(2005) We Three Kings
(2004) What Child Is This?
(2004) Noel #
(2003) Silent Night
(2003) O Come Emmanuel #@
(2003) Hark The Herald Angels Sing
(2002) O Come All Ye Faithful #
(2001) Away In A Manger #
# = w/ Stephen Baniak (bass, electric guitar, percussion, vocals)
@ = w/ Chip Harlan (mandolin, keyboard, vocals)
% = w/ Christian Patterson (electric guitar, banjo, vocals)
My version of “Silent Night” appeared for a few seconds as diagetic music in the film Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. I don’t know the exact time into the movie where it appears, but the scene involves a US soldier loading his rifle and saying “Rock and Roll” while my song is playing in the background. I never got any credit in the film, but at least IMDB gives me props. My friend Micah Garen shot a good chunk of the Iraq documentary footage in the movie, and he had brought my CD with him to Iraq since it was around Christmas time. Apparently, the troops liked it. Micah ended up getting kidnapped while in Iraq but luckily survived; he even has a book out about the ordeal.