Shake N’ Vibrate Decks The Halls

This is the third installment on Shake N’ Vibrate, a monthly vinyl series at Cafe Nine led by musician, DJ, and filmmaker Brendan Toller. To get the full taste of Shake N’ Vibrate, New Haveners still have to go to the events themselves. But here, readers can get a glimpse—or a listen—into some of what they’re in for. The next Shake N' Vibrate is scheduled for Sunday Dec. 23 at 8 p.m. For more information on the event, click here.

Well, this ends the triad of holiday posts so we can start anew in 2019, but what better way to ring in the new year and mid-holiday season than to gab about my favorite Christmas track — "Back Door Santa" by Alabama's own Clarence Carter. Carter is already in the pantheon of Shake 'N' Vibrate all stars for his 1969 Atlantic smash "Snatching It Back," and his novelty hit "Strokin." The artist also co-wrote Etta James dance-floor burner "Tell Mama" and penned a response record called—yes—"Tell Daddy." 

"Back Door Santa" miraculously reached number four on the US pop charts in 1968. The fabulous then-independent label, Atlantic Records, had the guts to put the song out on their Soul Christmas compilation, which featured holiday tracks by Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, and William Bell. 

The song is famously sampled by Run DMC's "Christmas In The Hollis," because clearly, there ain't nothing stopping a Muscle Shoals groove. Yes, I'm talking about those young country boys - the Swampers - (Barry Beckett, Spooner Oldham, David Hood, Rogers Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson) who laid down the funky foundation for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Candi Staton (to whom Carter was married too) et al. 

Holiday convention and sap is unavoidable. We are bombarded by Christmas music in stores, restaurants, commercials. Even slight background music can impress rigidity, hegemony, and ignorant perspective -- fascism with a smile. Jesus sure ain't my thing, but the warmth, glow of the lights, and camaraderie amidst the cold, cold dark certainly is. "Back Door Santa" has always offered a subversive track that both celebrates and eschews Christmas tradition. I simply cannot turn Scrooge when I hear this song.

There is always another realm, reality, universe. Rock 'n' roll is a free and freeing space. It's an art form that immediately knocked down convention, oppression, vernacular, style and so much more. In the wake of an inept minority imposing harmful authoritarian, uneducated, downright racist, sexist policy, I'm forever grateful to Cafe 9 and the Shakers and Vibrators of all stripes that celebrate the unsung, the undiscovered, the weird, the sublime. Let's toast our collective differences making a difference; making a world for all. 

MERRY MERRY TO ALL BACK DOOR SANTAS & SEE YOU ON THE DANCE FLOOR.