Committing Career-Suicide at Christmas

As an indie musician striving for critical acceptance, I have had to ask myself some tough-to-answer questions about how to best present myself. Amongst them was: 

"What kinds of musical endeavour  could I undertake that would damage my street-cred?" 

"Who really gives a f**k what you do?"

And of course, the answer to both questions was "Make a Christmas album!" 

I grew up in a golden age of Christmas music in the mid seventies when every two-bit hustler in a shiny jumpsuit was knocking out a Christmas release. It was the era of Glam. When scaffolders from the Midlands and every other working-class environ its the Great British (and Scottish, and Irish, and Welsh) nation dressed up in camp gear and boas,  put on make-up and platform shoes, and released photo-punk post rock and roll to teenagers such as I. 

Roy Wood and Wizard, Mud, Slide, Gary Glitter, and others produced 

'IT's CHRISTMASSSSS!!!!!!!!' songs and I loved them.

So, in part as a tribute to what I feel about Christmas as a time mixed emotions; nostalgia, regret, drunkeness and unacceptable behaviour, I released an ep: 

https://clark2.bandcamp.com/album/critical-mass-ep-2016 on Bandcamp, for Christmas. 

As an indie artist, I'd long wanted to write a Christmas song but it had to meet various criteria:

• not be only relevant at Christmas.
• not be a slushy mainstream song.
• not be novelty song.
• not mention Christmas.

This brief kept me intrigued enough to explore some ideas. and I became so impatient with myself for not getting down to work, I released the Critical Mass ep as a collections of demos.

https://clark2.bandcamp.com/album/critical-mass-ep-2016

I'm intending to release at Christmas album next year, and have started to discuss this with various potential collaborators. But for now, this is all I have. Hope you enjoy.

Notes  on the songs:

I really wanted a special day: Is supposed to be a duet, male and female, about two sides of a couple brought together by Christmas to show a united front to the children.

Wishlist: Is about a mother and child where the mother knows that although the child may want lots of material gifts, the real gift she will understand, when she grows up, is the gift of a mother's love.

Hard to Believe: We celebrate the brith of Christ, but actually don't care about the original intention of Christ-mass. We want out cake and to eat it, by enjoying the time, but disregarding what we are asked to believe.