BAH & THE HUMBUGS: BIGGER THAN SANTA Featuring Humbugs songs performed by the following bands: |
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POTENTIALLY ELVES Mincemeat The quirky, alt-geek-holiday-pop duo of Potentially Elves is, and always has been, just Alice Crumpkin and Piers So̊dergren. In the bad old days, they used to bring tape machines on stage with them. Now they can afford a band (sometimes). Alice and Pete met doing an off-Broadway show, the little-regarded "Self," and quickly became involved both romantically and musically. For years they toiled an unknown rockers in the quirky duo Right Mind, but didn't reach their pinnacle of success until they quit that band and formed the now revered, "Christmas band's Christmas band," Potentially Elves. Playing mostly in small clubs in downtown NYC and on college campuses in the early years, Potentially Elves became known for their unusual instrumentations and appeal to the more intellectual set. They burst onto the national scene thanks to MTV and their early video for "Yes We Will Won't Go," an odd little black and white indie-style video shot in and around deserted, retro New York attractions including Coney Island. That single gave their first, eponymous album sales in the triple digits, but more importantly, geek-alt-pop street cred. Other albums followed (Garfield, Famine, Apollo 11, Paul Bunyan, Chrome Coat, The Femur, and others), with only a few chart hits in the US ("Dog Crate of my Mind," "Thailand (not Siam)," and "King in Charge," the theme song from the TV show "Brendan Surrounded"). These days, Potentially Elves is mostly doing Christmas music, and occasionally touring. Potentially Elves met Bah and the Humbugs backstage at the Jones Beach Theater, on an All-Christmas bill where the Humbugs were the main act, and the Elves, not yet a Christmas band themselves, were filling in for the missing MC Gigawatt and Snow Whitey White, whose Astrovan had crashed into a snowbank in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey while they argued about billing. Bah, drunk, drunkenly promised Potentially Elves that they were his favorite alt-geek-pop Christmas band, and that he would get right on writing them a song, as soon as he wasn't drunk anymore. He never did. But Potentially Elves, still great fans of the Humbugs, chose to give new life to "Mincemeat" on their third album (Famine). They pledged all of the royalties for that song to feed the hungry, but the Humbugs sued for their share anyway. Potentially Elves has never spoken to the Humbugs since, however they retain a fannish devotion to their powerful influence on holiday music to this day.
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