Dyer, Tom
Xmas-30 Years In The Making
Tom Dyer's seventh record since 2009 is an eclectic dose of rocking Christmas fun. Xmas-30 Years In The Making features the popular No Lou This Xmas inspired by the late, great Lou Reed. Written and released one week before Christmas 2013, it was the final brick that Dyer needed for this album, recorded sporadically since 1983. Tom Dyer is a Seattle guy with an inconsistent musical predilection, the King of Stylistic Variation, which is in full force here. We've got a choral number, the Lou Reed tribute, a guitar instrumental, a torch song, a little swing sextet, folky-protest, ska, a sea chanty, some bad country, many guitar solos, plus a nice selection of minor Pacific NW music deities, with Gary Minkler from Red Dress, the Green Pajamas Jeff Kelly and many more. Despite seeming like an unholy mess on paper, it hangs together into a pleasing, (mostly) non-secular holiday adventure.