Rockin' in a Winter Wonderland

Ah, tradition: scrounging for presents at the Gap, snagging a make-out session under the mistletoe with someone who's hopefully not a cousin, checking to make sure Grandpa’s “just sleeping.” Rock bands do those holiday things, too, but not when touring schedules get in the way. The A.V. Club rounds up three local artists to find out how they celebrate the holidays while on the road.

Band: JT & The Clouds
Tradition: Brief exposure
The angels definitely weren’t heralding when some heavenly music woke vocalist Jeremy Lindsay in a Texas motel early one December morning. “[It was] the high, lonesome, drunken sound of our lead guitarist, Dan Abu-Absi, singing ‘Oh Holy Night,' ” Lindsay says. “The little fella was sitting in the hallway in his underwear with his mandolin and a bottle of whiskey, givin’ it everything he had.” The band joined the impromptu caroling, and soon doors were opening all the way down the hall. Some guests were pissed, but most wanted a swig of whiskey and a chance to sing along. Every year since, the group dons its finest Underoos and hits the night, pitch pipes in tow. Next show in town: TBA.

Band: Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
Tradition: Retooling smut for tots
A tune about smack-addicted sluts does not a kids’ Christmas classic make. Leave it to Scotland Yard Gospel Choir frontman Elia Einhorn to turn The Pogues’ holiday slumfest, “Fairytale of New York” into the gentler but still hipster-friendly “Toy Stores of New York.” For several years, the band partnered with the Abbey Pub for Frosty Rocks, a holiday show benefiting the Rogers Park Montessori School. “Some of them are just funny little kids,” he says. “They get up, they dance. Sometimes they come up on stage.” Next show in town: Dec. 19 at the Double Door.

Band: The Waco Brothers
Tradition: Gender-bending
Each Christmas, Jon Langford gets himself a new dress to prep for the Annual Hideout Holiday Panto, created and directed by his Mekons bandmate Sally Timms. Adapted from a type of British holiday theater, the show is a chaotic, bawdy play that Langford says has “lots of pirates and lots of bad jokes”—and the guarantee that he will play a woman. “It’s great to make something really little and pointless,” he says. The first year things went a little too far when panto-player Janet Bean decided her character should sip a blue cocktail. With no ocean-hued liquors in sight, she fake-drank a glass filled with Windex, which worked great until another actress took a real swig. Bean shrieked, “It’s poison!” saving the scene and the actress. As for what that Windex swiller was thinking, Langford admits, “She was a little inebriated." Booze and tradition is always a winning holiday combination. Next shows in town: Dec. 26-27 at Schubas.