Silent League, Holy Night

Christmas is fast approaching. Maintain your sanity. Here's some Christmas-related links to entertain you along the way:

Largehearted Boy points to an mp3 download of The Silent League covering the Peanuts Gang Christmas classic "Christmas Time Is Here". Wow that's lovely. A quick web search and I've found out that The Silent League is an orchestral-pop project led by Mercury Rev keyboardist Justin Russo. I'm liking what I've heard so far even if Pitchfork didn't like their record. Apparently the band performed a live session for XFM today but no links to it so far; in the meantime check out this older session they did for XFM. [photo from http://../]

Brian Setzer performed a live session of Christmas tunes for NPR: World Cafe. Listen here. I know the swing/rockabilly music might not be cool with you indie-rock kids but I still dig it every now and then.

Just Keep Bloggin' points to Feist's cover of 'Lo How A Rose E'er Bloomin' which is included as part of the 'Wreck The Hallz' Christmas compliation, which you can download here.

chartattack reviews Stars' December 17th evening show at Lee's Palace. [via Blacking Out The Friction] For an all-inclusive look at Stars' six-show Lee's Palace stint, The Toronto Star reviews ALL SIX SHOWS.(Thanks to Katie in the comments of my previous post for pointing that out.)

More best-of-2005 albums lists, this time from Zoilus(a mixed bag that includes some obvious but mostly not-so-obvious picks) and Aversion(which is usually punk-centric, but has a surprisingly indie-centric Best of 2005 list.)

You Ain't No Picasso has some rare-ish Destroyer mp3's for download. (And now I'm gonna dig up that Vancouver Nights CD which I've neglected for so long.)

Finally, The Barmitzvah Brothers have a show at Rivoli in Toronto on January 20th. Oh and a one miss Neko Case has a show there on January 4th...that last tidbit via Chromewaves.