Merry Christmas, friends. We here at Citizen Dick really and truly appreciate your continued support and loyal readership, and after all, what’s more supportive and loyal than tuning in on Christmas day to see what the final track for our 12 Days of Holiday Dick series is going to be.
Well, this one is a treat. [...]

Those of you who already have problems with the alleged “child-like” nature of Daniel Smith’s voice are really gonna hate this one. Not only does Smith sing, there are actual children on this track. If that sounds like some creepy record hipster parents would buy their toddlers for Christmas, don’t worry, it isn’t that. Rather, [...]

Although this series has been a lot of fun to write as it is, my sincere hope for it is that, after a dozen days of downloads and gimmickly visuals, you’ll have found a handful of tracks (or at least one, damn it) by artists you’d not previously gotten a chance to wade into. I [...]

It is snowing outside as I write this. Snowing. Can you believe it? Well, I guess you can believe it. After all, it is December, and I do live in the rust belt. So, yeah, snowing makes sense. It does not, however, make me happy.
Very little about winter makes me happy, to be honest, so [...]

I have these wonderful memories of visiting my great-grandmother Opal with my mom around the holidays. They would sit at the old wooden table, the one I have vague recollections of my great-grandfather always sitting at and playing solitaire, and talk. Well, my mom would talk; Grandma would cuss. And smoke. (She was a wonderful [...]

For some reason, the name of this band always makes me think of South Africa. Is that weird? Strange or not, the Danish rockers in Slaraffenland play this version of the century-old Christmas classic carol (itself a version of an old Czech folk tune) pretty straight, except for the barely discernible laser-like effects and the [...]

There might not be a band that received as much love from Citizen Dick in 2009 as Megafaun. I think every single one of us writers was gape-jawed dumbstruck by how awesome their Gather, Form and Fly record was. We all have different ways of tossing superlatives, but I think I like Brian’s best of [...]

We don’t get very punk on this site very often, but sometimes the occasion calls for it, and what’s more punk than Christmas?
OK – maybe that isn’t the best way to start this post.
How about this?
You know what I think “Oh Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” needs? Some speed and some raw fucking rock, that’s what. [...]

Today’s holiday cheer comes to you all the way from Scandinavia, a drippy and dribbly retro rocker from Norwegian rockers I Was A King. Before reaching you, the track took detour through New Jersey, appearing on the 2008 Christmas sampler from Daniel Smith’s Jersey-based Sounds Familyre label. The track could have just as easily come [...]

After a couple days in a row of melancholy Holiday Dick offerings, we need to get upbeat in a hurry. And what makes for a more upbeat wintry day than one that has just been called off by a school superintendent for excessive snowfall? (This, of course, does not take into consideration the POV of [...]

Merry Christmas, David Eugene Edwards-style.
For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Woven Hand or, prior to that, 16 Horsepower, that means decking the halls with old-world darkness and suffering, with a little hellfire and brimstone added in for good measure. Edwards has always produced art that was, to varying degrees, tinged with his [...]

My Citizen Dick brethren are all working like dogs to bring you guys our end-of-year retrospective coverage. I have a few other irons in the fire right now, so I’m not really joining them on the project, and I’m starting to feel a little guilty. So, to assuage my guilt more than anything else, I [...]