The Countdown To Christmas starts here....

Everybody loves a dodgy Christmas single, don't they? Eddie Argos from the marvellous Art Brut certainly does. Last year, he and his band teamed up with Black Box Recorder to form The Black Arts They released 'Christmas Number One' which, of course, failed to get anwhere near number one in last year's Christmas chart. Also failing in his attempt to reach number one last Christmas was renowned miserablist and former Arab Strab member Malcolm Middleton, whose brilliantly unfestive We're All Going To Die barely charted at all (despite it being ace).

This year, Eddie Argos has teamed up with Mikey Georgeson (David Devant) to form a glam rock band called Glam Chops. They've recorded a couple of Christmas songs, 'Countdown To Christmas' and 'Baby Jesus Was The First Glam Rocker'. Neither of them are that good, but they're available to download for free, and they might just put you in the Christmas mood.

Art Brut, incidentally, are working on their third album, the follow up to last year's very enjoyable 'It's A Bit Complicated', which is being produced by none other than Frank Black. Amongst the 20 songs being worked on are 'Alcoholics Unanimous', 'Summer Job', 'Art Brut Versus Satan', 'Rebellious' 'Henchman', and 'Moved To LA'. Should be good.