This week’s guests are Black Market and Wise Owl (or Nate Bridges and Brandon Niznik) of the Los Angeles-based duo Black Market Dub. On their Bandcamp page, they introduce themselves with a series of questions: “What would happen if The Beach Boys had The Wailers as their backing band instead of The Wrecking Crew? What if David Bowie spent the summer of 1975 in Kingston, Jamaica with King Tubby instead of Philidelphia? Michael Jackson meets Scratch Perry?”

Many of their releases give us the answers to those question by wiping the backing tracks to some of the most famous songs from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and remaking the songs with dub-wise reggae instead. Their tracks with The Clash caught the ear of music critic Tim “Napalm” Stegall, who wrote about them on his Substack, and that’s where I found out about them.

Those tracks are fun but a little too respectful of the source material for my tastes. I prefer their true dub projects including their Christmas album, A Black Market Christmas, from 2022. It honors dub’s naturally psychedelic nature without selling out the Christmas classics.

We talk about their journey into dub, through a music teacher who introduced Brandon to the Trojan Box Set (we hear “The Death of Mr. Spock” by the Roots Radics Band) and Grand Theft Auto III, which introduced Nate and Brandon to Scientist and his 1981 classic, Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires (we hear “The Voodoo Curse).”

Nate and Brandon have also started a podcast, Playback, that features the two of them discussing albums and artists who are important to them. This summer they interviewed Scientist, and we talk about their debut episode from December 2024, which focused on Bob Dylan’s 2009 Christmas album Christmas in the Heart.

The vinyl Black Market Dub releases are available on Escape Hatch Records. Nate says there aren’t many copies of A Black Market Christmas left, so if you want one, get one.

I think of this episode of Twelve Songs as a remix, a second pass at the same material with very different results.

In 2003, The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded Go Tell it on the Mountain, an album of gospel and gospel-inflected Christmas music that Omnivore Recordings reissued in 2016. Last season, I talked to the Blind Boys’ guitarist and musical director Joey Williams about the project and how the gospel legends interacted with the musical guests brought in for the album, including Mavis Staples, Tom Waits, and Solomon Burke. He could answer some of those questions, but since some recorded their parts separately including Waits and Chrissie Hynde, there were parts of the story that he couldn’t tell.

That episode is online now, but during the year I found an interview that I had forgotten about with the album’s producer, John Chelew, when the album was released. Since he was a part of those sessions, he could tell stories about Waits, Chrissie Hynde, and George Clinton and the curveballs they threw the group.

With that in mind, I reconstructed this episode. I let the Chelew tape present a new side to the story of Go Tell it on the Mountain, and I went back to Williams to talk about a second Christmas album that the Blind Boys did, Talkin’ Christmas from 2014 in collaboration with Taj Mahal.

The audio of the Chelew recording is not up to my usual standards for the show, but when we talked I didn’t have a podcast or audio use for the interview in mind. It’s the quality I could get from a phone, and I wish I could have talked to Chelew again to get better audio but he died in 2016. I got used to it very quickly and didn’t find it off-putting, and I hope that will be your experience as well.

Donna Summer has been a fascination of mine because she was on the cutting edge of electronic dance music, but since “I Feel Love” and other forays into early electronic music were produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it isn’t clear what role she played in her sound.

Last season I talked to songwriter Bruce Sudano about that among other things. Sudano also wrote songs for Summer and became her husband and manager. This week, I’m running that conversation in its entirety, including material I didn’t use then on Sudano’s entrance into show business as a member of the one-hit wonder Alive N Kickin’, who made their mark in 1970 with “Tighter, Tighter.”

He talks about learning songwriting from Tommy James, his early days with Summer, and the story behind her 1994 Christmas album, Christmas Spirit. We talked about her career path between her heyday in the late ’70s to her faith-based Christmas album.

Season seven of 12 Songs comes to a conclusion with three very different conversations and artists. Ha-Sizzle is one of the finest examples of the New Orleans-specific brand of hip-hop known as bounce. I talked to him about his Christmas in New Orleans in front of a live audience.

The members of the British punk band Goddammit Jeremiah talk about their irreverent approach to Christmas and Christmas music and share a few of their holiday favorites that haven’t made much of an impact here in the States.

At the end of an interview with MacMcCaughan of Superchunk for another story, I got a few minutes to talk about their cover of John Cale’s “Child’s Christmas in Wales,” as well as his other attempts to make music for the season.

In that conversation, The Kinks’ “Father Christmas” was referred to for the second or third time this season, and it took a lot of discipline not to play it again.

We also hear new music from É Arenas and Saturday Looks Good to Me, the latter from the new compilation Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol. 4. I interviewed its compiler/producer Kevin McGrath in 2022.

In the episode, I mention a piece I wrote for The New Orleans Advocate. I also mention this year’s downloadable Christmas mix, which you can get by writing me at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

12 Songs will return on July 24, 2025. Mark that date on your calendar or subscribe to 12 Songs wherever you get your podcasts.

We’re officially in December, the Christmas season, and I have more interviews than I can get through in the weeks leading up to Christmas. From here on in, I’ll run excerpts from the interviews I’ve done, and I’ll run them in their entirety next season.

This episode starts with some clean-up business after last week’s conversation with Midge Ure on “Do They Know it’s Christmas.” I referenced Ed Sheeran’s complaint that he would have preferred to be left off the 40th anniversary mega-mix, and the charges against the song by Fuse ODG. In the episode, I reference Bob Geldof responding to criticisms of the song.

I also mentioned one of my favorite new releases of the season, Dadi Freyr’s How Dadi Stole Christmas.

This episode, I talk to Joey Williams, musical director for The Blind Boys of Alabama. In the episode, I mention that they surprised me with a new release, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” with Jay Buchanan. We talk about their album, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and when we revisit this conversation next season, we’ll also talk about their collaboration with Taj Mahal, Talkin’ Christmas.

Another new track comes from Nick Bhalla, who recorded the album Saint Nick with his jazz piano trio. As this version of “Christmas Time is Here” shows, it borders on lo-fi in its emphasis on mood and melody. Hopefully I’ll be able to get him for the show next season.

I also interview Bruce Sudano, who has a new album, Talkin’ Ugly Truth, Tellin’ Pretty Lies. When I revisit this interview in its entirety next season, we’ll get into that and his start with Alive and Kicking, the band that recorded the one-hit wonder “Tighter, Tighter” in 1970.

We talk about his relationship with Donna Summer, who he wrote songs for, married, and managed. We start talking about Bad Girls, the first album he worked on, then move to Summer’s 1994 Christmas album, The Christmas Spirit, which was reissued on vinyl this holiday season.

After that, I talk to singer, songwriter, and friend of 12 Songs Alexandra Scott about Sia’s Everyday is Christmas. It’s a loose conversation as we work through some thoughts about a Christmas album we both really like, but with a few reservations.

Finally, on Black Friday I appeared on WBUR’s “Here and Now” to talk about songs you might want to add to your holiday playlists. The segment is online now, and even if you’ve already heard it, you might want to visit the page since it has a playlist with some additional songs that I would have featured if we had another hour.

Finally, DJ David Kunian invited me to join him on his radio show to spin and talk about Christmas music on WWOZ in New Orleans on Tuesday night. The show is online for the next two weeks if you’d like to check it out.

Husband and wife duo Dean & Britta have a sound that suits contemporary Christmas music beautifully. They’ve done a few movie soundtracks including 13 Most Beautiful, an album of songs commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum to perform songs beneath Warhol’s silent films shot between 1964 – 1966.

Their sound is evocative but spare, with deeply reverbed guitars and melodic touches that bring ’60s scenes to mind without being stuck there. On A Peace of Us, they and frequent collaborator Sonic Boom from Spaceman 3 work a similar magic. It’s easy to envision it as part of the soundtrack to an evening during the Christmas season, entertaining enough to get your attention and hold it, but it doesn’t demand your time and focus.

As Britta Phillips and Sonic Boom – Pete Kember – explain, that’s in part because the album is an expression of their relationship, and something they have been working on in bits and pieces since 2007 when Dean & Britta recorded a 45 with “Old Toy Trains” and “He’s Coming Home.” Kember talks about how he suggests covers, and how that too is part of their relationship.

In the episode, I reference my 12 Songs conversation with the Drive-By Truckers’ Jay Gonzalez.

The episode also premieres a new Christmas song by the folk-rock band Dawes. I’m very entertained by the seasonal story-song “Christmas Tree in the Window,” and you can stream it or download it at Dawes’ Bandcamp page.

I’m also happy to feature a new song by Gina Birch, who you know from the British post-punk band The Raincoats or from her art career, if you know her at all. (I recognize those are very specific bona fides, but they’re meaningful to me) This holiday season, Birch covered Yoko Ono’s Christmas song, “Listen, the Snow is Falling,” which appeared as the b-side of “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” You can download it at her Bandcamp page.

Finally, at the end of the episode I talk about the version of “Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown” by Jackie DeShannon. It’s available in the main digital marketplaces, so you can check it out first and see if it’s for you.

Earlier this season, I interviewed The Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood about his ambivalent relationship with Christmas music. This week I talk to the Truckers’ long-time guitarist Jay Gonzalez, who takes a different path to a similar place. We talk about his relationship to the band as a full-time member since 2008 who isn’t Hood, Mike Cooley, or long-time drummer Brad Morgan, and his love of Christmas songs that might or might not be Christmas songs.

Along the way, I play music from his Roll Up a Song by Gonzalez Smith and Jay Gonzalez Inflatable Orchestra Vol. 1.

This week I’m talking with blues artist Jontavious Willis, who recently released his album West Georgia Blues.

I wanted to talk to Jontavious not because of his Christmas music–he doesn’t have any yet–but because he’s doing something that I’ve been trying to pay attention to as people make contemporary music in traditional forms. We go a little longer with Jontavious talking about the blues in general to help get at that thought a bit.

But we also got to a number of his favorite blues Christmas songs, and I like that he’s not doctrinaire in his choices, folding in Rev. J.M. Gates, The Emotions and James Brown among others. Early on he mentions Minnie Ripperton, and it takes a bit before I get to her, but I played “Christmas Love” by the Rotary Connection, which featured Minnie Ripperton on lead vocals.

In the episode, I also mentioned that I did a guest spot recently on the Totally Rad Christmas podcast, which focuses on Christmas in the ’80s. We talked about “Do They Know it’s Christmas” by Band Aid and Band Aid II from 1989 with a version of the song produced by the British pop hit making team of Stock Aiken Waterman. It’s a fun conversation and worth the time.

Finally, Jontavious mentioned Lowell Folsom’s “Lonesome Christmas,” then rolled on to other songs so I never got to include a song by him. If you haven’t heard it, here it is.