Anyone who casually glances at my site – or my social feeds – around the holidays knows that Krampus kinda became my thing years ago. (Probably because I’m just a big geeky kid who never outgrew monsters.) It all started at a holiday show when I was performing “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch,” and my pal Rick said, “That’s nothing. You should meet Krampus!”

I said, “What the hell’s a Krampus?” This was a few years before sort of went mainstream here in the U.S. with a movie and his own merchandise. I dug around, learned a bit, and realized that this guy needed his own song. I’ve been playing it live around the holidays for a long time, but a few years back, I spent an evening in the studio with Keith Greeninger (producing), accompanied by Jeff Baker and Steve Uccello. We came up with this pretty stark, spooky version that’s dropped onto my “Lump of Coal” EP.

I always play the song live several times every around the holidays, but this studio version is also special, since Steve Uccello came up an inprovised, creepy, bowed bass intro for the tune.

This week, I was chatting Ralph Anybody at KPIG about it. He said, “I thought we had that in the library.” So I resent it. NOW we have it in the KPIG library. Listen for it, or (hint) request it.

Other Krampus Musings:

• Krampus Goes to the Movies
• The Krampus Comes Out Tonight (live version with Steve Kritzer)

Merry Krampus, ya’ll!