Fux with The Tux-mas: Mayer Hawthorne & Jake-One Unwrap Tuxedo's Groove-soaked Yuletide Disco-Funk Jam, "Holiday Love" (Amazon Prime)
"Happy Holidays, everyone. All the best Christmas songs were written by Jews, and Chanukah songs suck. This is my favorite Christmas tune, sung over the Vincent Guaraldi instrumental," New-Wop crooner Andrew Mayer "Hawthorne" Cohen wrote in a particularly tongue-in-cheek gentile-slamming 2010 mini-Stones Throw press release accompanying his sparse "Christmas Time Is Here" Peanuts-assisted cover. Just a few mere years later, Hawthorne and his Disco-Funkateer partner-in-crime, Jake-One quietly unveiled their first slice of post-Tuxedo Funk EP era material; a jittery groove-soaked rendition of Paul McCartney & Wings' 1979 Synth-Rock yuletide favorite, "Wonderful Christmastime." Now, just days ahead of the soon forthcoming 2015-16 holiday season, Tuxedo have unwrapped a completely original, retro-futuristic holiday standard titled "Holiday Love." It appears exclusively within Amazon Music's recent holiday-centric compilation, Indie for The Holidays; comfortably nestled alongside the likes of Lisa Loeb, Reverend Horton Heat, Matisyahu, Robert Pollard, Sondre Lerche, YACHT, and an additional 20-band roster of Amazon Prime-approved newcomers.
Stones Throw's resident in-house director Ross Harris helmed the camera behind Mayer Hawthorne & Jake-One's silky smooth vocoder-laden treatment, which can simply be summed up by @MayerHawthorne's rather playful proclamation: "Tuxedo "Holiday Love" video is live! YouTube that and tag the third wheel in your crew (accompanied by a sax Emoji)." Tuxedo's Harris-directed seasonal "Holiday Love" treatment finds Disco-Funkateers Hawthorne and Jake-One in a number of precarious mistletoe-induced situations whilst in the company of a couple lovely ladies "underneath the tree," which are essentially thwarted by each other's pesky wingmen. Tuxedo are literally headed to the other side of the world post-New Year's Day for a brief 3-date Japanese mini-tour dubbed the Second to None Tour, wherein they'll be accompanied by a white tuxedo-outfitted 5-piece "LIVE BAND." Merry Christmas to all, Happy New Year, and "a Festivus for the rest of us!!!" I'll likely be back before the onslaught of the new year with a cumulative year-end list, in which I'll attempt to compile an assortment of 2015's best released Hip-Hop (or an all-genre list of) albums and mixtapes, if all goes well during the holidays.