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BAH & THE HUMBUGS: BIGGER THAN SANTA
A 25th Anniversary Humbug Tribute

Featuring Humbugs songs performed by the following bands:

ADVENTAGIOUS | AREA 25 | DEZEMBERFEST | DJ crispmix | Elf Control | Five Gold Tans | Flaming Snowballs | kris Gringo | Icicle Light Orchestra | Iron Reindeer | Noella McCoy | Myrrhna | The New Christmas Traditionalists | ONE NIGHT HOLY | Original North Pole Cast of "Legal!" | Felicity Pepperpot | Potentially Elves | Psychonauts | St. Saint | The Swamp Coolers | Tree-X | Twas | The Twinklers | john waiste | X25

FIVE GOLD TANS

North Pole Dreamin'

Read the Lyrics | Listen to the Song

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True to the popular ethos, all the members of Five Gold Tans lived fast, died young and left beautiful, if bloated, corpses.

Longtime friends Chuck, Chip, Chet, Chaz and Chimichanga brought their twin loves of surfing and sports-car-driving into the songs they began writing and performing around Malibu in the early eighties. At first, cars in the Tans' songs were in their regular place — on land, that is — with near-hits such as "Drivin' on the Beach," "Sandy, Sandy Doughnuts," "Low-Tide Low-Rider" and "Gearshift in the Moonlight."

But their breakthrough was unquestionably "Surfin' Ferrari," an album anchored by a long, symphonic-sounding tale of a ghost car ­ sleek, exotic and difficult to repair ­ that surfed its way down the Southern California coastline in search of its long-ago-perished driver.

The Tans' biggest hit, the song spawned the briefly-lived fad (enjoyed, also, by the briefly-lived) of attempting to use heavily revved-up sports cars as surfboards. While aficionados claimed the adrenaline rush of those first few seemingly-workable seconds made it all worthwhile, they all died very shortly after claiming this. Those in convertibles fared worst.

Somewhat daunted by the deaths of so many fans, the boys backed off the surfing cars angle in their promotions but were rumored to still be adherents of the sport.

Unfortunately, just a week after recording their cover of the Humbugs' "North Pole Dreamin'," poor Chuck, Chip, Chet, Chaz and Chimichanga perished in a freak accident while all five were surfing in a water-skiing-style pyramid formation from the back of a turbo-charged Karman Ghia. Their undoing? The sporty Volkswagen's floor rusted out mid-wave, letting water gush through, sending the poor fellows scattering through the air, through the water, and through the beach.

They may not have known much about automotive or surfboard safety, but Five Gold Tans knew how to deliver a classic tune, and their appearance on this album helps to cement their unique legacy.