More daft punk

They tell me we're now just a few days away from some widely-celebrated winter festival. And to get us in the mood for enjoying such an occasion, the good people at Plastic Punk Records have made a punk rock advent calendar which reveals a punk version of a Christmas song each day up until the 25th of December. Woo and, indeed, hoo!

These follow the carol-singing principles of small children everywhere: the point is not to sing the songs as sweetly and tunefully as possible, but rather to bellow every last word louder than the person standing next to you! In my eyes that makes them all the more joyful and the whole thing fills me with cheer and goodwill towards my fellow man.

OI! Merry Christmas, you 'orrible little lot!

Punk rock 'O Little Town Of Bethlehem' mp3 (available for 7 days)

Punk rock 'Santa Baby' mp3 (available for 7 days)

Punk rock 'O Come All Ye Faithful' mp3 (available for 7 days)

Find the Punk rock advent calendar here (I particularly recommend the version of Silver Bells behind the 20th door)

"I come in various flavours so why am I permanently bitter?"

In 1999 I had high hopes for the future. I was partying like Prince told me to and, although I was gutted that Kenickie had split up the previous year, I was happy to see that they were being succeeded by Lancashire four-piece Angelica (incidentally, both bands formed in 1994). It didn't even cross my mind that Angelica might not become the biggest band in Britain (or that they might share a name with a rubbish Canadian metal group). It never occurred to me that Holly Ross, Brigit Colton, Claire Windsor and Rachel Parsons might not become household names.

Their pessimistically-titled mini-album of 2000, The End Of A Beautiful Career, was getting plenty of exposure in the British indie scene - they played at the NME premier awards that year - and the previous year their catchy punky single Why Did You Let My Kitten Die? was voted alternative single of the year by listeners of the Evening Session.

Angelica - Why Did You Let My Kitten Die? mp3 (available for 7 days)

In August 2000 their fourth (and final) single crashed in to the indie charts at number one. Quite right too! It's marvellous, as you can hear below.

Angelica - Take Me I'm Your Disease mp3 (available for 7 days)

In 2002 Angelica supported Babes In Toyland on tour and also released their first full length album, The Seven Year Itch, which was produced by Kat Bjelland. The following track is from that album.

Angelica - Misdemeanour mp3 (available for 7 days)

The band played their last gig in September 2003 and sometime after that Angelica seemed to just fizzle out. Holly is now one half of The Lovely Eggs, and Brigit and Rachel joined up with Steve Wade to become The Adventures Of Loki. To be blunt, I don't think much of either band, which is disappointing.

For posterity, here they are performing their debut single Teenage Girl Crush with the lyrics of Ice Ice Baby over the top in a live session for John Peel.

Angelica - Tenage Girl Crush vs Vanilla Ice mp3 (available for 7 days)

It certainly was a beautiful career.

Buy Angelica CDs here