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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

JOHN WAISTE

Santa Hat

Read the Lyrics | Listen to the Song

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John Waiste can sing, by his own reckoning, "pretty good" but you'd never know it to look at him — or, for that matter, to hear him sing. But we'll take his word for it. He also says he plays "a mean piano" — one back home, it seems, that resents his touring schedule and intentionally goes out of tune to punish him. He even claims that once the front of his house was completely inaccessible because the piano had moved itself up against the front door. "Now that," remarks Waiste, "is a mean piano."

Waiste has had a unique relationship with the Humbugs over the years, having included in his concerts such Bah favorites as "Christmas Without You," "All it Means" and "Christmas Tree from Hell," all sung in his signature gravelly, booze-soaked vocal style.

The band invited Waiste to sit in on a few sessions and he wound up singing, uncredited, the lead vocal on "Christmas Bar," a standout from their 2004 album Fahrenheit 12/25. To make amends he was offered a song tailored to his odd vocal stylings, "Mistletoe is Poison." However, after Noella McCoy's version stamped it as a "whiny girl song" in his words, Waiste dropped it from his set list.

In one last attempt to appease the crotchety singer, lead Humbug songwriters Nordquist and Lehmkuhl quickly slapped together the song "Santa Hat." Waiste immersed himself in the song, and his technique is so perfect that his cover winds up being virtually indistinguishable from the original — though now, for a change, John Waiste is finally getting credit where credit is due.