Christmas

Christmas were a band who released three albums of quirky pop rock in the '80s and early '90s. Based in Boston, MA, the trio of Liz Cox (drums and vocals), Michael Cudahy (guitar and vocals), and Dan Salzmann (bass) released their debut album, In Excelsior Dayglo in 1986. The track "Big Plans" became a modest college radio and MTV hit, but the album, owing to Big Time Records' perennial financial woes, could not sustain the band's momentum. The band relocated to Las Vegas, signed to I.R.S., and released Ultraprophets of Thee Psykick Revolution in 1989. Arguably their finest work, it featured another small-time hit in "Stupid Kids", and the caustic, satirical "Richard Nixon" earned critical attention as well. But the strange, though appealing, record seemed a bit out of step with the top college radio bands that year, and it sunk with little notice. Christmas recorded Vortex in 1991 but could not immediately find a label for it. In the interim, Cox and Cudahy swapped tongue-in-cheek-psychedelia for tongue-in-cheek lounge music and formed the still quirky, but far more accessible and successful Combustible Edison together with Peter Dixon. Vortex was finally released in 1993, and soon after the group disbanded.