SS-20 - (No) War Toys On Christmas

SS-20 - "(No) War Toys On Christmas" from the 1987 EP Daddy's Drunk On Christmas on No Pretense Records.

This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broadcast from noon to 6pm on Saturday, December 25th and then will be back on air later that night for Punk Rock Xmess 2021 at 9pm. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent.

His first selection of the week is a song that I literally cannot find anywhere on the internet, SS-20’s “(No) War Toys On Christmas,” from a 1987 EP of original and (I assume) highly satirical Christmas songs called Daddy’s Drunk On Christmas. This wasn’t the Cincinnati-based hardcore punk band’s first foray into the world holiday music, though. The preceding year SS-20 unveiled a DIY release of fairly straight forward Christmas songs sung with a "couldn't care less," according to Discogs, attitude titled Merry Christmas 1986: Is Santa Listening.

Formed by Robert Sturdevant in 1982 and still, at least up until a few years ago, playing shows in Cincinnati about once a month, SS-20 has released more than a dozen full-length albums and shorter EPs and 7-inch singles. They’ve also opened for “every punk and hardcore band that’s every played at the Jockey club,” Sturdevant told a publication in 2013, citing Nirvana, the Ramones, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, among others.

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