We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Just Because It Was Christmas

by Rough Shop

supported by
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Digipak design.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Just Because It Was Christmas via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9.99 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 4 Rough Shop releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lit Up Like a Christmas Tree, Sault Ste. Marie (Extended Single), Beneath the South Side Bridge, and Just Because It Was Christmas. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $22.09 USD or more (35% OFF)

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

about

Just Because It Was Christmas
(Perdition Records)
By Christian Schaeffer / Riverfront Times

Amid the jingling bells and blinding lights, it's easy to forget that Christmas is a holiday of contrasts: darkness into light, cold into warmth, solitude into togetherness. This strand of earthly fatalism runs through the best carols: From "Silent Night" to "White Christmas," it's what makes the Christmas songbook some of the most resonant, emotionally loaded music around. Local trio Rough Shop understands the myriad joys and occasional heartaches that come around this time of year, and Just Because It Was Christmas outlines the season's promise and possibility with expertly played folk rock.

Springing from the band's annual Christmas concerts), the album contains a few dusty cover songs and no well-known classics, but it's the original material that shines brightest. Andy Ploof's title track, propelled by a Byrds-y twelve-string guitar and buoyed by spot-on harmony vocals, is a wonder: The song is hopeful, nostalgic and cheery, but with a real-world wisdom that keeps it from being cloying. Later in the disc, his spare "Lullaby Child" is such a tearjerker that, if there's any justice, Emmylou Harris will record it for her next holiday album. The whole disc is worth picking up, but these two songs are stellar.

Like all good Christmas parties, this disc is made merrier by the hosts' hospitality at letting their guests take the mic. Toby Weiss contributes "Little Wrapped Gift," her jangly rewrite of the Nightcrawlers' "Little Black Egg," and Kate Eddens sings about a cross-dressing, spliff-smoking, Schnapps-shooting Santa in the jazzy "Big Man Under the Tree." The Love Experts' Steve Carosello fits perfectly on this disc, and he takes guitarist John Wendland's "This Silent Night" out into the bitter cold. Even bleaker is bassist Anne Tkach's haunting reading of Low's "One Special Gift," which has the nihilism of a junkie's last prayer. Though the forecast occasionally looks bleak, Just Because is ultimately a celebration of the season's mysteries, both big and small.

credits

released November 15, 2009

Produced by Rough Shop and Jack Petracek.
Tracked at Sawhorse Recording Studio (St. Louis)

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Rough Shop St Louis, Missouri

Rough Shop is a band from St. Louis, featuring songwriters John Wendland and Andy Ploof, formerly of One Fell Swoop, along with the voice and bass of Anne Tkach, a veteran of Hazeldine, Nadine and Magic City. Together they perform as an acoustic trio and as an electric outfit featuring Spencer Marquart on drums. Released in 2012, "Beneath the South Side Bridge is the band's fourth album. ... more

contact / help

Contact Rough Shop

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Rough Shop, you may also like: