SPOTT FARM'S CHRISTMAS RECORD (review)

cktimes.ca Archives for Classic Vinyl 
With John Gardiner
I'm dreaming of a Spott Farm Christmas
Tuesday, December 24, 2002


I remain a huge fan of Christmas music and our house is filled with it from early December on. Somehow, it's a very important part of the whole Christmas experience for me. But it's gotta be traditional. In fact, nothing moves me more than standing in a church and hearing an entire congregation sing Away In a Manger  or especially Silent Night.
My very favourite Christmas recording, though, is by a band that only a few of you will have heard of. Spott Farm were a bunch of local guys from up Hanover way. They were our hippie-commune band back in the old days very spiritual bunch and that carried into their music.
Anyway, they did a Christmas record one year. It featured Little Drummer Boy on one side and a medley of Christmas music on the other it was just a 45 rpm  remember? I still have mine, scratched in a merciless way, and I try to give it a listen each Christmas Eve just before bed. And it reminds me of the old days when we were young and fresh and innocent and filled with hope. Those were the days, my friends.....those were the days.


John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

Melancholy Man and Minister's Son
Reality Check
Grim Faerie Tale
Once Upon a Visit
Toward the End, Oyster Boy
And It Was Christmas
From Genesis to Revelations (Chapter 1) - the novel. the rest of the novel follows month by month

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.