N&G Secret Santa - 2020

[DevonJD]

To my Santee, all your records have arrived at this point. I followed your advice to ignore your want list and just go with what I thought your (huge) collection was missing. All the records I picked out are from some of my favorite artists, so I hope you get at least some enjoyment out of them.

 

[wokeupnew]

We got movement!!!!!!! It’s on its way Santee!

 

[rightasra1n]

Hey Santee,

Me again. Your second package was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. It hasn't. There's still a chance it arrives today, I guess, but. I'm not holding my breath. Damn.

 

[ranbalam]

Huge thanks to my Santa, @Memo !!

I truly appreciate that you curated two records for me, I am always up for new-to-me music and artists. I don't know much about Gregory Alan Isakov, and this Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes record is completely new to me. I'm really excited to listen to both, you hit on two genres I love. Thank you so much for the thoughtful gifts.

And lookie, I got an NG sticker too!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours!

 

[Memo]

Huge thanks to my Santa, @Memo !!

I truly appreciate that you curated two records for me, I am always up for new-to-me music and artists. I don't know much about Gregory Alan Isakov, and this Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes record is completely new to me. I'm really excited to listen to both, you hit on two genres I love. Thank you so much for the thoughtful gifts.

And lookie, I got an NG sticker too!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours!


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Yay! And on Christmas Eve too, lol!
Hope you enjoy both! Merry Christmas!

 

[Piratenovelist]

Hey Santa (Hey Santa) .... couldn’t resist.

Looks like the Elves worked some magic. The package looks to be in the next city over so that means it’ll be here Saturday!

 

[trickyseven]

Soo I never got around to posting the gift I received about 2 or 3 weeks ago, which turned out to be a good thing. Because today another mystery package arrived. So now I can post both my gifts together Very happy with these two! Especially Blues Jam at Chess sounds incredible I think the first gift actually included a note from Santa, but I seemed to have misplaced it so not sure who to thank Thank you Secret Santa, wherever you may be

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So glad these arrived safely! I had a lot of fun going through your collection and wants list to see what you were in to. Turns out we have quite similar tastes! When I saw your wants list I immediately knew which two I was going for. Ethiopian Knights is a fantastic record in my opinion. It's so funky! I'm still somewhat new to jazz, but this is one I enjoy and hope you do too. I've got a few Donald Byrd records and I love the range he has (I feel similarly about Herbie Hancock). This one has inspired me to continue learning more about Byrd, his discography, and more generally jazz-funk/jazz-fusion.

Blue Jam at Chess was the one I was quite excited for you to get. Being from Chicago and a big fan of the blues, this one ticked all the boxes. Willie Dixon, he's the man. Otis Spann is probably my favorite piano blues player, I really want to find some of his records. He's played with so many greats too. I'm quite jealous of this actually, I might have to track down a copy myself one day!

Fun story: my family is Dutch by heritage and my grandmother in particular was very into genealogy. She did a bunch of work tracing our family back to Holland going back several generations. I have all her work on that, but much of it is in Dutch! So for the past few years, I've been trying to learn using Duolingo just so I can know what I'm looking at when reviewing some of the work she did (my plan is to digitize what I can). Fast forward to this, I've had a fun time testing my Dutch while shopping and tracking the packages (that's a story of it's own).

I hope you have a very happy holiday and a wonderful new year @Speedracer

 

[Nee Lewman]

After some quick forum research I am guessing @Lee Newman was my Santa? What a gift. Both LPs are new to me but your notes have me excited to check them out. Nice assortment of stickers and download codes. But the icing on the cake is the handmade gnome. Love it. It’s like the cousin to one I already have living on my record cabinet!

thank you a thousand times. It is a Merry Christmas Eve morning!

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So happy they got there!!!

 

[THEEDADROCK.BLOG]

Okay, Santee. Looks like you likely didn't get part three of your gift in time, which is a bummer because it's specifically a Christmas record. Tracking shows it successfully arrived and passed customs in your homeland on 12/21 but hasn't updated since then. Maybe you got it, but it looks like it'll be a post-holiday arrival. Sorry about that

 

[MadLucas]

Santa arrived today a full week ahead of schedule!View attachment 80678

Thank you so much! This is a amazing! I've been eyeing Kokoroko for a while now and I've never even heard of Black Flower before now! So I'm excited to give that one a spin this afternoon. Decided against looking them up so I can go in blind! And so if you wanna go ahead a lemme know who you are...

Yes!!!!! It’s a Festivus miracle
I figured from your collection and wantlist these would be right up your alley

Black flower was a gift from my Santa last year and have been amazed with ever since. They could be my favorite group of this kind of jazz.
You will be receiving something else of your wantlist but it’s arriving late...I’ll get it out to you when it arrives.

until then...enjoy the few tunes and let me know what you think of black flower
Happy Holidays

I attest to Black Flower. When I was researching for @Crabbers last year, I made it a point to buy for myself what I bought him.
It got a lot of love in this house too, and I am humbled that the love for this record has been passed on.

 

[MadLucas]

This thread has been one of the few bright points for me in recent weeks.

You have no idea how much joy I get from seeing people being nice to people Happy happy to all of you!

 

[sahomerrocks]

I’m more fidgety waiting for my Santee to post everything than I was to get my own gift!!

OK now I'm on vacation til January 4!

I'm lucky enough to have my Santa be our very own @Jake! Jingle.

First off, impeccably packed and wrapped. Including the traditional haikus.

Record #1: Hop Along - Get Disowned

Adding an album to my collection for a band I already love. This is the album that introduced me to this band, but for some reason I didn't own it. Funny enough, Frances actually lives in my neighborhood and I've chickened out multiple times saying hi to her at shows and out on the street.

Record #2: The World Is A Beautiful Place, And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Whenever, If Ever

Fourth wave emo revival is something that I love but somehow don't have too much vinyl for, so your instincts were absolutely correct. I found this band through Harmlessness, but explored this one as well and loved it too. Almost bought both of them during quarantine so I'm obviously happy to own this.

Edit: Everyone could use more 9 member emo bands in their life

Record #3: Further Seems Forever - Hide Nothing

This is a band I loved in high school who had a different singer for every album, most famously having the guy from Dashboard Confessional as their first. This album has the singer from Sense Field. My Discogs wantlist is a collection of albums I'm resigned to not owning for a while, but somehow @Jake pulled this one out. Legitimately teared up when I saw this.

Thanks so much, @Jake!. This is great. A wonderful amount of care and thought went into this package.

 

[Jake!]

OK now I'm on vacation til January 4!

I'm lucky enough to have my Santa be our very own @Jake! Jingle.

First off, impeccably packed and wrapped. Including the traditional haikus.

Record #1: Hop Along - Get Disowned

Adding an album to my collection for a band I already love. This is the album that introduced me to this band, but for some reason I didn't own it. Funny enough, Frances actually lives in my neighborhood and I've chickened out multiple times saying hi to her at shows and out on the street.

Record #2: The World Is A Beautiful Place, And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Whenever, If Ever

Fourth wave emo revival is something that I love but somehow don't have too much vinyl for, so your instincts were absolutely correct. I found this band through Harmlessness, but explored this one as well and loved it too. Almost bought both of them during quarantine so I'm obviously happy to own this.

Record #3: Further Seems Forever - Hide Nothing

This is a band I loved in high school who had a different singer for every album, most famously having the guy from Dashboard Confessional as their first. This album has the singer from Sense Field. My Discogs wantlist is a collection of albums I'm resigned to not owning for a while, but somehow @Jake pulled this one out. Legitimately teared up when I saw this.

Thanks so much, @Jake!. This is great. A wonderful amount of care and thought went into this package.

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YAY!! Enjoy! I've been checking the forum like a madman the past week or so waiting to see your thoughts, so this was a wonderful thing to see on Christmas Eve!

Also, uh, please say hi to Frances and tell her I love her

 

[sahomerrocks]

YAY!! Enjoy! I've been checking the forum like a madman the past week or so waiting to see your thoughts, so this was a wonderful thing to see on Christmas Eve!

Also, uh, please say hi to Frances and tell her I love her

The last venue I saw her at has since closed . She came to support her friends in Hurry.

It was batting cages during the day and there was a show dog!

Save Our Stages!!!!

 

[Jake!]

The last venue I saw her at has since closed . She came to support her friends in Hurry.

It was batting cages during the day and there was a show dog!

Save Our Stages!!!!

I've never heard of Hurry, but her affiliation alone is enough for me to look them up!

SAVE OUR STAGES x2!!

 

[Piratenovelist]

Checking this for one last boost of Christmas cheer before the big day. I am excited for my Santee’s reaction! Merry Christmas to everyone!!

 

[duke86fan]

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE HAPPENED

my santees gifts got all the way to their state today, they are literally at the finish line, i dunno if the state will ship on christmas day, but if not expect to have the records as an AMAZING boxing day product

 

[AndySlash]

i saved my secret santa packages for today. behold!:



sego - sego sucks



eisley - room noises



the faint - capsule: 1999-2016

Spoiler

these are all bands completely new to me, though an ex-girlfriend back in the day was into the faint, so i probably heard some of their stuff back then. i gave them all a spin today, but none got fully attentive listens as i was getting things together for christmas, so i look forward to giving them the listens they deserve.

sego sounded like a blend of pixies, lcd soundsystem, the strokes, and a couple others i thought about when listening but am forgetting now. they seemed to not take themselves seriously, either, but i suppose that can be gleaned from the album title alone.

eisley appears to be a family affair, and there’s a couple name producers in the credits, so they must’ve turned some heads. this was some breezy indie pop with some pleasant female vocals and harmonies, and i can be a sucker for those.

of the three bands in this secret sants stash i’m thinking the faint had the most success, but even with an ex being into them i did not recognize any of their songs here, so there’s that. the dance rock on here got my head bobbing while wrapping gifts.

i should mention all the records were colored, and the sego record even has a cool lenticular cover, so these albums stand out even without considering the music on them.

much thanks to @DevonJD, whom i believe to be my santa based on the amazon gift note in one of the boxes and an earlier post in here. i appreciate you sharing some of your favorite records with me!

 

[virtualcratedigger]

I've never heard of Hurry, but her affiliation alone is enough for me to look them up!

SAVE OUR STAGES x2!!

Hurry have some good songs.

 

[Speedracer]

So glad these arrived safely! I had a lot of fun going through your collection and wants list to see what you were in to. Turns out we have quite similar tastes! When I saw your wants list I immediately knew which two I was going for. Ethiopian Knights is a fantastic record in my opinion. It's so funky! I'm still somewhat new to jazz, but this is one I enjoy and hope you do too. I've got a few Donald Byrd records and I love the range he has (I feel similarly about Herbie Hancock). This one has inspired me to continue learning more about Byrd, his discography, and more generally jazz-funk/jazz-fusion.

Blue Jam at Chess was the one I was quite excited for you to get. Being from Chicago and a big fan of the blues, this one ticked all the boxes. Willie Dixon, he's the man. Otis Spann is probably my favorite piano blues player, I really want to find some of his records. He's played with so many greats too. I'm quite jealous of this actually, I might have to track down a copy myself one day!

Fun story: my family is Dutch by heritage and my grandmother in particular was very into genealogy. She did a bunch of work tracing our family back to Holland going back several generations. I have all her work on that, but much of it is in Dutch! So for the past few years, I've been trying to learn using Duolingo just so I can know what I'm looking at when reviewing some of the work she did (my plan is to digitize what I can). Fast forward to this, I've had a fun time testing my Dutch while shopping and tracking the packages (that's a story of it's own).

I hope you have a very happy holiday and a wonderful new year @Speedracer

Haha that's quitte the coincidence, that you have Dutch heritage and was chosen to be my Secret Santa. As I said in previous post, you did an amazing job! If you get the chance, definitely track down a copy of Blue Jam at Chess (I did the same with the record I got my Santee ). Such a special record. It's really cool to just hear them talking in the studio in between tracks.

Hope you have a happy holiday and new year as well!