November. You know what that means? Yep, Wednesday morning I heard one of the SiriusXM DJs talking about the Christmas music channel being up and running. A quick run through the stations and, sure enough, the Holly station was blasting holiday tunes. Apparently the other Christmas music station won’t fire up until December 5, which is almost as weird as starting on November 2. It was even weirder to be hearing songs about crisp, cold days when it was 75 and I was wearing shorts. This must be what the holiday season feels like in San Diego.

Anyway, I went ahead and plugged the station into my favorites, but down at the end that I don’t get to very often. I’ll bump it up in three weeks when it is acceptable and appropriate to listen.

Ahhhh, but there is a huge gift from the music gods in today’s playlist. Perhaps Christmas has come early…

“Committed To The Cause” – The Radio Dept. Doing what they do best, totally danceable, highly political music.
“Coming of Age” – Julia Jacklin. Jackson’s debut is a wonderful collection of songs that bely her age. They sound like they came from someone much older. I love this little rave-up about becoming an adult.
“Summer Breeze” – Las Kellies. It’s still felt like summer most of this week. No complaints.
“Near To The Wild Heart Of Life” – Japandroids. HOLY SHIT!!! NEW JAPANDROIDS MUSIC!!!! It’s been three years since they ended their tour for the epic Celebration Rock, one of the finest albums of the decade. They don’t do social media, didn’t release any updates on their status. They just disappeared. But they started playing shows about a month ago. This is their new single. And a new album is set to drop in late January. The world rejoices.

“Dance The Night Away” – Van Halen. I caught part of Argo the other day. Great movie, great soundtrack. The five or so minutes I watched featured one of the trips to Hollywood, and this was the background music. Perfectly picked. If I had a time machine, going to a late 70s VH show would be high on the list of things I’d have to hit.