The Good:

• All four of my past volumes of “festive.mood.inducing.music” are back and ready for your downloading or streaming consumption now!
• I put together a special Christmas album called “the best-ish of… festive.mood.inducing.music.” This features my favorite 12 songs from all of my Christmas EP’s. The album is a great place to start if you’re new to my Christmas tunes and not sure which EP to get first. You can download it on my site, or at Noisetrade.com
• I got married back on October 15th to the most beautiful and literally most wonderful person I know on earth, Mary. YEAH!

The Bad:

• It’s been a crazy busy year for me personally, so honestly there hasn’t been much time for music. Especially no time to  record 5 new Christmas songs… so I have to break the news that there will not be a new Christmas EP this year.
• I know the lack of a new EP after 5 years of putting one out every year is a bummer, but I am really enjoying being a newlywed and there just aren’t the hours to be stuck in my studio all winter. I wish I could be a good new husband and spend hundreds of hours in the studio at the same time, but I’m pretty sure that is impossible.

The Promising:

• DON’T WORRY, I will be back in years to come… this is just a bit of a “Christmas music sabatical” for me. So enjoy the old tunes and share them with your friends who haven’t heard them before. And stay tuned for new non-Christmas music from me in 2012 too!
• Now don’t quote me on this… but there may be a Christmas single and/or Christmas remix in the works so check back later on in December.

The Part Where I Bribe You With A Wedding Photo In Hopes Of Making Up For Not Releasing A New Christmas EP This Year:

• Ta-da.

Thanks for understanding, I hope you still enjoy the Christmas music and keep hanging around. Peace

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking for me to unveil a new song, especially one like this where I’m still fine-tuning it. However, this show had a great and welcoming crowd so I’m glad they got to hear it first!

Here’s a video clip with a little bit about the story behind the song, and me performing it. Let me know what you think!

This album was made back in 2008 in Nashville with up & coming producer, Mike Odmark. It was a really fun record to make, and I still play a few of these songs live.

Anyway, grab it below while you still can!

For those who were following along with my Christmas tunes this year, you probably remember the last song I released, “Nobody Wants to Be Born on Christmas Day” was an original song about my future nephew.

My nephew was due on December 23rd, which was alarmingly close to Christmas day. So I wrote this song from his perspective and how “he hoped” he was born any day other than Christmas! (more details about the song here.)

Well good news…

My little nephew, Jackson, was born on Christmas EVE at 10:20pm. Talk about cutting it close! He is the most perfect baby I have ever seen. Don’t even try to disagree with me… I’m go all crazy-uncle on you!

I’m especially pleased with Jackson because he showed up on Christmas Eve, so the song I wrote for him is 100% true. He totally validated the tune… nobody REALLY does want to be born on Christmas day.

To all of the new folks who stumbled on to my music thanks to the glorious Internet, stick around and check back so often, believe it or not – I create original music too (not just Christmas tunes!)

I received so much nice feedback and comments this year, I really appreciated your nice words. And I’m especially grateful to those who helped donate some funds to help offset the hosting costs.

Typically, I “hide” the Christmas tunes during the whole year until next Christmas. But this year I am planning on keeping the songs up all year for stream only… so if you get that hankering for some Christmas tunes in July, head over to Christmas.JoelRakes.com. January 9th will be the last day you can download the song mp3’s until next Christmas season, it will only be stream after that point.

Thanks again for hanging out with me this Christmas season, I hope you had a great holiday season with your family! Hopefully I’ll be back during Christmas 2011 with Volume 6!

Behind-The-Songs Blog Posts

01. Deck the Halls
02. Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
03. O Holy Night
04. Wonderful Christmastime
05. Nobody Wants to Be Born on Christmas Day

Comment back with your own “top-whatever” lists if you’re up for it.

Top 20 Albums

20. Judd & Maggie – Choose
19. Trent Dabbs – Your Side Now
18. Andrew Peterson – Counting Stars
17. Dave Barnes – What We Want, What We Get
16. Jenny & Tyler – Faint Not
15. The Daylights – Self Titled
14. St. Lola In the Fields – High Atop The Houses and the Towns
13. The National – High Violet
12. Andrew Belle – The Ladder
11. Justin Townes Earle – Harlem RIver Blues
10. Aaron Roche – Plainspeak
09. Sandra McCracken – In Feast or Fallow
08. Vampire Weekend – Contra
07. The Weepies – Be My Thrill
06. Jonsi – Go
05. The Black Keys – Brothers
04. David Bazan – Live At Electrical Audio
03. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
02. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz
01. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

Top 5 EP’s

05. Trent Dabbs – Transition
04. Sarah Siskind – All Come Together Now
03. Joy Williams – We Mapped the World
02. The Choir At Your Door – Work Tapes
01. Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People

Top 20 Songs

20. John Mark McMillian – “Skeleton Bones”
19. Joy Williams – “We Mapped the World”
18. Sarah Siskind – “Stocking Free”
17. Matt Wertz – “Voices”
16. Andrew Ripp – “Savior”
15. St. Lola In The Fields – “He’s In Love”
14. The Weepies – “Please Speak Well Of Me”
13. Justin Townes Earle – “Harlem River Blues”
12. Haley Shaw – “Red Wine”
11. Jenny & Tyler – “Song For You”
10. The National – “Afraid of Everyone”
09. Aaron Roche – “An Instrument Of Little Resonance”
08. Andrew Peterson – “Planting Trees”
07. Sandra McCracken – “Can’t Help Myself”
06. Arcade Fire – “We Used to Wait”
05. The Black Keys – “Everlasting Light”
04. Mumford & Sons – “Awake My Soul”
03. The Choir At Your Door – “Sundown Riverside”
02. Sufjan Stevens – “All Delighted People”
01. Andy Gullahorn – “I Will Find A Way”

Top Album I Thought Was Great But I Can’t Let Dilute My Top 20 List

1. Taylor Swift – Speak Now

Song #5 = “Nobody Wants to Be Born on Christmas Day”

Phew… the last song! I didn’t know if I was going to make it with this one. Typically, when I’m recording these Christmas songs I give myself at least a two or three week headstart before I have to release the song. That way I have enough time to record all of the parts and mix the song adequetely. Well, with this last song, I started recording on Monday of this week, and finished all of the recording and mixing late Thursday night. Just a bit stressful.

I try to always make the fifth and final song of the Christmas EP’s be an original song I wrote. I pulled off the original song for this year just in time; I literally wrote it two weekends ago in just under 45 minutes! I was thinking about my life and how different this year is compared to last year. One of the most exciting things happening this year is that my sister Rebekah and her husband Ryan are going to have a little baby boy any day now! (Maybe even today…) So that makes me an uncle which I’m pretty excited about.

The baby (…I wish I could tell you his name, but his parents refuse to release the name until birth), is due on December 23rd which is alarmingly close to Christmas day. I always feel bad for kids who are born on Christmas, it seems like they just get permanently shafted. They can’t ever have a big birthday bash on the actual day, and relatives are always “doubling up” with gifts.

So I thought it would be funny to write a song from my baby nephew’s perspective (in the womb) about how he really doesn’t want to be born on Christmas day. In fact, the 24th or 26th would work… just not Christmas day. We will see if my song comes true or not… I’m ready to meet the little guy any day of the week though!

Musically, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to take this song, but it ended up being a bit of a “rocker” which I was surprised by. My buddy Ben laid down some bass and djembe, and from there I built the song around the nylon-string rhythm guitar part.

I experimented a bit with some weird keyboard sounds and I used those heavily on the choruses. I ended up adding the electric guitar parts in at the last-minute. I was feeling like the arrangement was a bit sparse before, so I’m glad I added the extra guitar parts in; they helped a good bit. Also, if you grew up on DC Talk… I’m sure you caught my little “sample” in there, ha.

This was a fun song to make, I just wish I’d had a little more time than four days to really flesh it out – but it’s a fun and silly song, so this will do. I know it’s a bit sentimental and super-specific to my family, but I hope you enjoy it too.

“Nobody Wants to be Born on Christmas Day”
12.10.10 – 9:16 pm

i’m a simple boy
i live a simple life
i hang out here kicking around
mostly thinking about the future

i think my mom is cool
but my dad might be a tool
either way, i can’t wait to meet them
on the other side…

i might not  know very much yet
but i have gathered this much…

nobody wants to be…
born on christmas day
the 24th or the 26th…
will do just fine thank you very much
just so long as i’m not…
born on christmas day

don’t get me wrong
i know that, “jesus is just alright with me”
but he can keep 12/25 to himself
i’ll take my own day please

i see the writing on the wall
it goes something like “here’s your birthday AND you christmas gift”
and don’t forget that santa would always
hijack my birthday parties

pre chorus
chorus

the 23rd might be my due date
but for once, i’d like to be fashionably early
mom and dad are worried about the tax break
guess i better get outta here soon…

nobody wants to be…
nobody wants to be…

chorus

This week, song #4 = “Wonderful Christmastime”

Some people really love to hate on the song “Wonderful Christmastime.” If we’re being honest here… it IS a bit annoying and repetitive. And Paul McCartney can really do no wrong as far as I’m concerned, but this song is surely near the bottom of his quality scale. However, who cares… it’s FUN! Am I right or am I right?

I knew when I decided to tackle this song I had my work cut out for me. I also had been looking for an excuse to be really obnoxious and Auto-Tune (a.k.a “T-Pain” it) my vocals big time. I don’t know why, I just thought it’d be a funny thing to do – particularly since most of my Christmas song arrangements so far this year have been a bit on the “mopey” side. So sorry in advance to those who are anti-crazy-Auto-Tuning. I’m right there with you in general… except right now when I decided to be a hypocrite.

I explored a few different directions with the song. At first, I had settled on more of a strummed guitar part with a southern-ish train beat drum part. But it didn’t feel quite right, and I use that beat too often as it is. Then I decided to take it a little more R&B and was looking through my drum loops and I found this beat, which felt perfect! From there, I changed the guitar part to be more picked/slapped and funky. I played it on my nylon classical string guitar to give it a different flavor too.

I filled in all of the other parts with the awesome electronic instruments from my software, Logic Pro 9. Literally the only real instrument on the whole track is that classical guitar. Everything else (the beat, shaker, synth bass, harp, pizzicato strings, glockenspiel) was a virtual instrument.

Finally, as you can probably gather – I had A LOT of fun with the vocals and background vocal parts. I think by the end of it, I’d added at least 7 or 8 different vocal parts.

This was a really fun song to make for sure. I’m not sure this is the song I’d want representing my whole Christmas project though – it’s a bit silly and out there compared to most of my songs. Hopefully you enjoy it though, and I don’t alienate any fans with this trip down to super-pop-land…

See below for video footage of me playing the Christmas Carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

Make sure to check out my studio recording of this song too.



(Video footage filmed by Ryan Mitchell)

This week, song #3 = “O Holy Night”

“O Holy Night” is one of my all time favorite Christmas songs. I’ve tried to tackle it for the last three years on my Christmas EP’s but I’ve never ended up with an arrangement I was satisfied with. So I’ve always kept it on the back burner, and knew one year or another I’d be ready to try it out for real.

Pardon the extreme nerdery that is about to take place, but I have really fond memories of this song from my high school choir at Dover High School. Our choir program was very good, and our teacher/director (Mr. Dean) was a genius. Probably my favorite teacher from high school. At every holiday concert we always sang “O Holy Night” and two seniors were chosen to sing the solos (1st and 3rd verses). I made it to the semi-finals for the solo my senior year, but didn’t get chosen (…I’m over it, really.. I swear…) But singing it every year in the choir… it was really powerful.

Okay, now that my little walk down memory lane is over… I knew from the get-go I wanted to really scale down the presentation of this song. I came up with this little guitar riff (the “o holy night” melody I sing near the end is based off it) that I was obsessed with. It was a bit of a struggle to find the right key for my voice, I actually ended up capo-ing my guitar 9 (whoa) and playing it in C. I’m a fan of how the chord voicings sound that high.

This electric guitar track was my 2nd overall take (I’m hardly ever that efficient) and I tracked it without a click which was very freeing. I used my roommate Kyle’s beautiful Gretsch semi-hollowbody electric guitar directly in to my recording interface. I used Logic Pro 9’s Guitar Amp Designer for the amp sound and was really pleased with the tone I ended up with.

Finally, I’m always looking for an excuse to get my friend Hitoshi to play Cello and this song felt SO right for that. He came over and knocked out that Cello part in less than 30 minutes, he is soooo good!

I hope you enjoy this version and it doesn’t put you to sleep or anything. It has a bit of a lullaby effect I think.

On a side note, I know in my blog post on last week’s song, I mentioned that “next week’s song being weird, get ready.” Well, I lied… it is NEXT week’s song where things will get weird. Hang in there.