It was February 2006 when the State Theatre called me about scheduling a date for that year’s Xmas Xtravaganza. I spit my coffee out all over the answering machine. They obviously had lost their minds. I was still reeling with a holiday hangover from the previous Xtravaganza – seeming like so few weeks had gone by since. After that call, I spent a few months procrastinating, avoiding Operations Manager Dave Hartkern’s emails and calls, and generally denying the inevitable need to commit to a time frame. Finally and eventually, I chose the less than perfect date of December 1. Perhaps the earliest concieveable date to perform a Christmas show (lest I be pursued by the Holiday Police).

Meanwhile, the year ‘06 turned out to be a difficult one for me.

One of the year’s sadnesses involved my childhood friend Patty Maloney, who was dealt an awful blow, as her beloved sister Karen died tragically. Some of us XX-ers were in attendance at Karen’s memorial, for which the mother/daughter team of Faith and Barbara Hahn sang. (Later, in the back room of Old Man Rafferty’s, Arthur, Scammacca Tony Shanahan, myself and others joined Patty and her brother Joe. The discussion at my table turned to the idea of a SECOND, smaller show in New York City, to which my outspoken wife threatened “Well, if you’re gonna do it there, I’m not going to appear in it!”.)

I’m always wondering why our show isn’t more famous (it’s my ambitious side), and throughout the year, Kathy Wagner kept ideas flowing to try to shut me up about that. One interesting idea we never got around to, was that of holding a press reception for the Xtravaganza. “Well”, as is often said during the planning “we’ll do that NEXT year.”

My brother in law, and Xtravaganza favorite Jigs, had brought Robin Gamble into the picture the previous year with the idea of a show Program. They’d actually been working me for years about this. I was reluctant, but eventually gave in, and they put together a terrific project. Jigs raised a lot of money from advertisers, and Marybeth Kayne designed a lovely program. It all turned out very cool.

At some point in September, I was hired to sing alongside Nancy Sebastian-Colletti on a jingle. Nancy makes me laugh, and she’s a superb vocalist. We discussed the idea of featuring the Xtravaganza ‘backround singers’ on an Andrews Sisters-style Christmas tune. We both agreed that the Andrews Sisters rocked mightily.

And so began my search for new music for the show. Reviewing my notes, I see that, starting in September, I ordered a bunch of songs via iTunes. The Andrews Sisters, The Ramones, a bunch of others, including a David Foster/Linda Thompson song called “Grown Up Christmas List”. I had this one in mind for 14 year old Sammi Penick, a local teen who performed the previous year.

She didn’t know it by title, but when I played Sammi the song she recognized it from American Idol. Although I pretty much cannot bear to watch the show without experiencing psychological and gastro-intestinal side effects, Sammi is a big fan, which softens me toward this juggernaut of American Entertainment.

On Friday September 29, I had a morning meeting with State Theatre’s Dave Hartkern, to discuss details. Afterwards, he treated me to coffee at the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. I enjoy Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I should do an advertisement. (I guess I just did.)

It was time to set ticket prices, set a date for when to go on sale and decide when showtime was. (My philosophy is to keep the ticket price reasonable, but still raise as much as possible.) Born with a poor memory for numbers, I was clueless as to what the prices were the previous year. So I called Kathy Wagner, who called Queenie, the great gal who not only runs the glenburtnik.com website, but probably knows more about my career than I do. Queenie remembered the ticket price, of course.

See how dependent I am on others?

Not to burden you with my sad existence, but as I hinted earlier, 2006 turned out probably be the most trying year of my life. A complete drag. Not being able to sleep, around midnight on October 9th, I stumbled into the all-night Kinkos nearby to make copies of the chart I’d just written for “Grown Up Christmas List”. I love this song – proof of how “unhip” I really am – and as I made those copies of the chord changes for the band, I found a little moment of happiness thinking about how we were gonna give the song a go at the show.

To match my mood, it was raining something awful a few nights later, on Wednesday October 11th, when some of us on the show’s committee got together at Old Man Rafferty’s for a meeting to discuss details. It was good to meet with Jeff Hoffberger, our show’s production manager/sound mixer/lighting director/surfer dude, as well as the unfatiguable Kathy Wagner and my longtime co-hort Tony Shanahan, for a little snack and a drink. In addition to a long litany of various things to take care of, I left with “Tony requests a backstage bar” on my “Xtravaganza To Do” list.

The next morning, Nancy Sebastian-Colletti called me to discuss which song to feature her, Barbara Hahn and Dina Miller on.

Since none of these three wonderful singers were quite yet on board with receiving MP3 files via E-mail, I promptly burned them each CD copies of the Andrews Sisters/Bing Crosby versions of JINGLE BELLS, WINTER WONDERLAND and SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, along with The Crystals/Pointer Sisters version of that last title, and ran off to the Post Office to mail them each a copy via the US Mail.

I had an idea regarding something else. I remembered being at a Bar Mitzvah once where I saw a dance troop reinacting the thrilling ‘Bottle Dance’ scene from the film “Fiddler On The Roof” – dressed in Orthodox Jewish outfits. Wouldn’t that be a fun addition to the show? I looked up “The Amazing Bottle Dancers” online and invited them to come join our wacky little show. (The Bottle Dance is a traditional Jewish folk dance, usually performed at weddings and other Jewish celebrations.)

These ‘Amazing Bottle Dancers’ were used to performing to a recorded track – off the movie soundtrack actually. And although this is a complicated orchestrated piece with constant tempo changes and multi instrumentation, I felt this moment show would be more effective with us playing the music live instead of playing a CD. This, however, would entail effort and much rehearsal. I really wasn’t sure we could pull it off, but without the dancers’ knowledge, I began learning and charting out the piece for the Xtravaganza band to perform. The piece required a great clarinet soloist. Where would I find one? I began asking around…

Fri 10/13
I sat down with my 15 year old daughter Sally, and we figured out what the best key was for her voice, as she had chosen doing a Xmas re-write of The Zombies 1968 hit “Time Of The Season (she originally wanted to do the Ramones’ “Merry Christmas I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight” but changed her mind) . After we figured the key of A minor was good for her voice, I went about recording a quick home demo in that key – as I wanted to assign vocal parts to Beau & Darla, as well as map out the instrumentation.

It was time to organize our advertising logo. We chose the path of least resistance. I contacted our printer Lewis Shellar, and his wife Peggy simply pulled up our artwork from the previous year (Patti Smith’s drawing) and updated the advertisement’s graphic.

Mon 10/16
I spent part of the day rewriting lyrics to what I considered the most important “hit record” of the year, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and later that night recorded a demo of it. I gotta admit, as I had currently been going through my rough personal waters AND involved in a couple of soul-searching theraputic processes, my substitute lyrics got a little personal…

DZAT MAKE IT CHRISTMAS?
I remember when…
I remember, I remember when I was a boy
There was no celebrating, participating in the joy
But the songs became my toys
(drownin’ out the noise)

And then I saw the sights, the colored lights
made the whole winter glow
electric holly and mistletoe
then down came the pure white snow

Does that make it Christmas?
Does that make it Christmas?
Does that make it Christmas?
It does for me

And sometimes I felt left out
looking in at the fun I wasn’t allowed
til Mommy brought me downtown

Come on now who’s the guy,
whos the guy, whos the guy
with the beard in the big red suit?
Ho ho ho, bless his soul
I saw him sitting there in the chair with the long white hair everywhere we’d go

Does that make it Christmas?
Does that make it Christmas?
Does that make it Christmas?
It does for me

My television showed a world exchanging gifts
all I remember is thinking I wanna be like them.

Ever since I was little, ever since little it looked like fun
And that’s why it’s clear every year I come
try to fill the void with the noise
and the music and the singing and drums

and that makes it Christmas
That makes it Christmas
That makes it Christmas
Possibly…

I awoke the next morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and read Nancy Sebastian’s email(s) about organizing rehearsal for THE X-ETTES – the new name I’d come up with for our trio of female singers.

Wed 10/18 I met with Tony Shanahan and Dave Hartkern, to discuss advertising. This has always been an mystery to me regarding the show. Do we need better promotion? Advertising is very expensive and in the past we’ve sent thousands of dollars to newspapers and magazines for ads no one ever seems to see. Every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that doesn’t go to the charities. Is this money well spent? Is advertising effective? We actually seemed to have built a growing audience based on the show’s merits and word of mouth, with very little advertising. Still, I always wonder if we could do better…

Around this time I began seeking kids to sing in the show. I like the idea of including children, since that’s a big part of what Christmas is for.

Along with Sammi, I asked Elise Bender, Kyra Fox, Sedona Micale, Kristin Walsh, Jessica Lapczynski, Grace Giglio, Molly Kucher, and sisters Amanda and Dalena Li. It has been suggested there may be too many kids doing the show, and I admit, the show has come a long way from Blue Oyster Cult and Styx, but I sure like the presence of children in a show about Christmas.

Tony’s nephew Tadhg Brady pretty much blows away any anti-children sentiments. These two began privately rehearsing a song of Tadhg’s choosing called “I Want A Hippopotimus For Christmas”. Seeing as how stellar this very young boy’s appearance was in ’05, we were happy to have his triumphant return.

I also asked Ashley Petrasek to join Sammi Penick on “My Grown Up Christmas List”.

I spent time that day and the next, creating an arrangement of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. I ended up editing together what I call a ‘Frankenstein’ version of the in Pro Tools (music software), chopping up bits and pieces of various recordings, mixing a version of the song by The Andrews Sisters with that of the Pointers Sisters along with the rendition by who I came to refer to as “The Springsteen Sisters” (Bruce Springsteen’s arrangement). After our usual entertaining/exhausting email volley, we set dates for the initial backround vocal rehearsal. The foundation of the XX Andrews Sisters moment was in place.

On Friday night, Oct 20, I brought Sally with me to a Sloan Wainwright concert. This past summer Sally had struck up a friendship with Sloan when I sent my three kids to “Summer Songs” - a Songwriting camp. I enjoyed meeting Sloan, and she put on a wonderful show. She’s a solid songwriter, a super vocalist, an entertaining person and a sweet soul. Needless to say, we asked her to climb aboard 2006’s XX roster, and she graciously took us up on it.

During the car ride, Sally and I worked on the lyrical rewriting of “Time Of The Season”, and came up with some interesting lyrics. I didn’t tell her, but I was savoring in the moment of working on a song with my youngest offspring. I remember thinking that it very well might turn out be the most enjoyable moment of this year’s gargantuan, detailed effort for me; driving on the Garden State Parkway, collaborating with my “little” girl.

I spent much of Saturday working on “The Bottle Dance” from Fiddler On The Roof. Still insure if we’d be able to pull the live orchestration off, I worked on creating a chart and Tempo Map of the song, hoping we’d be able to backup the dancers with live music instead of playing a backing track. It’s more akin to a symphonic arrangement, and about as far from R&B/Rock as can be. And I wondered who could nail the all-important clarinet part. I even went about asking a couple of Othodox Jews I know if they had a line on any Klezmer clarinetists.

Tuesday night, Oct 24. I sat down and listened to a board recording of 2004’s performance by the North Brunswick Township High School Percussion Line at the XX. I got the idea to arrange “What Child Is This?” as a way for the house band to perform together with the High School kids. I felt completely inspired and dove in working on an arrangement – staying up a little too late, high on this ambitious new idea.

As a consequence of accumulating too many speeding tickets, the State of NJ suspended my driving privileges for 3 weeks, so getting around became an issue. I asked the backing singers to come to my place to rehearse their featured tune.

ENTER JUDY PALMA
Dina brought along her friend Judy Palma to handle the keyboard duties on the detailed, multi-styled arrangement. Judy is completely happening on the keys, and turned out to be not only a talented collaborator, but also a hysterical personality to add to the show’s cast of characters.

Here’s the thing: these four girls together are an instant party. Nancy arrived at my door at 10:30am schlepping enough food to feed my entire neighborhood, Barbara brought gallons of coffee…of course the yapping began immediately (when women get together they all speak at the same time)…it was like I was suddenly on the set of “The View” or something (but these girls are much funnier). We eventually got down to the business of working on SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN. And although Nancy cracked the whip, every 10 minutes SOMEONE would break into a comedic bit that stopped everything. I laughed my ass off. Judy’s musical Ed Norton impersonation alone left me in pain I think I still feel from time to time.

But we got done what we needed to. We tweaked the final arrangement and by 2pm everyone ran off in time to get on with the rest of their day.

Oct 27 I burned saxophonist Tom Timko a CD of the BOTTLE DANCE and SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN and brought it to the Post Office. We needed horn charts for these. I was hoping Tom had some free time to whip some up.

I spent a couple of days working the XX band/North Brunswick Township High School Drumline arrangement of ‘What Child Is This?’, which by now included musical snippets from Rachmaninoff, Led Zeppelin and the prog-rock band Kansas (I was going for “The Kitchen Sink” effect).

On Wednesday, Nov 1, we held our second vocal rehearsal for ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. The girls once again descended upon my place, bringing coffee, food and lots of laughter. The song was really coming together vocally. There was the issue of the backing band copping the old school Big Band feel ahead of us.

On Thursday 11/2 we held our first band rehearsal. Sort of. Actually, it wasn’t much of a band, though 3 very key players; Plinky, Mark Sacco and myself. We basically spent the time going over material new to the show.

The next day I probably spent a total of 3 hours or so trying to coordinate all the various schedules to rehearse the “Andrews Sisters” tune. The reason there were only 3 of us the previous night was that we were the only 3 not busy then, when I had rehearsal time booked. Everyone involved in the show was stupid crazy busy…and trying to coordinate a simple SINGLE TWO HOUR SESSION which included the 3 girl singers, the pianist, upright bassist and drummer (not to even consider a guitarist or horn player) took hours of emails, note taking and emails…And by the end of the day, to have everyone who was to play together on this one song – ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’ - assembled just once before performing together on stage, seemed near impossible. I gave up and got back to my life, which actually was in a terribly stressful place for personal reasons…And besides, I had an early morning international flight to catch the next day, so I needed to pack.

God, I hate packing.

A day or two later guitarist Jimmy Leahey, pianist Mike Stein, Plink and myself got together at Plinky’s studio to run some of the material, including the “What Child Is This” arrangement, to which Jimmy had arranged a cool guitar harmony for the solo section. We had a lot of fun and I was reminded how lucky I am to have so many talented people so eager pitch in on my crazy ideas.

On Thu 11/16 the Slaves Of New Brunswick assembled to rehearse our number. The Slaves, a congregation of friends who spent years doing steady Wednesday nights at a now non-existent New Brunswick watering hole named The Melody Bar, haven’t really officially appeared at the Xmas Xtravaganza – at least not for over a decade. This reunion was overdue. So we dusted off original Slaves drummer Arthur Scammacca, embraced everyone’s beloved sister Patty Maloney, and cranked up the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping”.

The next day, as it turned out, I learned that all my previous efforts in trying to get the “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” rehearsal together were in vain. Barbara Hahn stepped up to the plate and offered to take a crack at organizing it. I let her run with it, thinking she might just have the skills necessary.

Sunday the 19th, on the morning after a gig, I awoke in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and drove to singer Nancy Sebastian’s place to go over new vocal parts with her before making it home to collapse in heap.

Monday morning, the 20th, I woke up early, drove an hour from home to a small, classic rock radio station in North Jersey, WDHA, for an 8am interview. I try to not complain – at least on the air – about doing live early-morning broadcasts, but I can tell you, as a guy who has stayed up all night traveling so as to appear on the Today Show, someone who has been on the Howard Stern show around sunrise, and a person who has promoted too many records on too many morning radio shows, it is all but impossible to look, think, sound or SING your best first thing in the morning. And although such a.m. performances are pretty much universally despised by artists and musicians, most take those opportunities when they arise. This time, thinking November 29th was way too early to sing a Christmas song, I sang my Patty Smyth/Don Henley ‘hit’ song while talking up the Xtravaganza. It was good to appear on Jim Monaghan’s show – a radio jock who I’ve known for 20 years.

Later that day, I drove an hour from my home in the opposite direction to appear on two other radio stations, “The HAWK” and “The POINT”. It’s an honor to be asked to appear on the air and promote my show, but at the end of the day, I can’t help but wonder who is listening, and if anyone has ever bought a ticket to the show based on hearing me talk about it on the air. I get cranky about the amount of effort I put into such time and travel, especially when it might be taking away from the important preparatory work that needs to be done regarding the actual event itself.

It was also around this time that my son Beau called to inform me he was going to have to be at a road gig on the night of The XX. This made me sad, but life goes on and I was pleased he was doing well. There’s always next year…

Ian Holubiak is a boy from my town, who has grown up alongside my teenaged daughter Sally. He’s been turning out to be a solid musician, and I saw I needed an extra guitar, so I asked him along for the second year.

On the evening before Thanksgiving, my daughter Darla came home from Manhattan, where she’s attending college. Sally, Darla and I stayed up late working on an idea Darla came up with for the Burtnix tune – her rearrangement of WE THREE KINGS, which she played on her autoharp. From there, Sally and I pitched in, the three of us eventually collaborating on a country/folk medley of SILENT NIGHT, I SAW THREE SHIPS, O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL and ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH. THIS, I remember thinking, may be the finest moment of this year’s large-scale, wide-range undertaking for me. We tried it out the following night, at the family Thanksgiving get together.

Sun 11/26th We finally got to rehearse our Andrews Sisters Meets The Pointers Sisters experiment, with Dina, Nancy and Barb – alias the X-ETTES - backed by Bob Hart, Pat Petrillo, Jimmy Leahey and Judy Palma. Barbara Hahn’s organizational skills surpassed mine. I figured I’d be wise to try to trick her into handling more of this organizational responsibility the next year…

ENTER VINNIE MARTELL
At some point, around this time I rewrote the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (made popular by Jimi Hendrix). The reason for this goes back to October, when I opened for the original Vanilla Fudge (this was a big deal for me, having bought their debut album in a number of formats throughout the years). As I left the stage, the Fudge’s great guitarist Vinny Martell complimented me on my performance. Little did he know that his greeting would lead to my asking him to appear at the XX a few months later. Once asked, he quickly agreed – Vinny and his wife do a lot of charity work – and said he’d do Hendrix’s WATCHOWER. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time for Vinny to memorize my replacement lyrics, but friends, I impart this historic ‘lost rewrite’ to you now as an “Extra” for only the most attentive, detail oriented fans of the XX who could actually stay interested long enough to have read this far…Feel free to break out your acoutic guitar and try singing these along while playing Dminor – C – B flat…

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER
There must be some kind of happening here
Said the Camel to the Sheep
Magical illusions
There’s a sense of peace
Water changes into wine
wise men follow stars
Heavenly bodies all align
Orion, venus and Mars

All along the watchtower
Angels kept the view
While families fled Jerusalem
Pregnant women too
Outside in a cold manger
A little peace on earth
Three wise men were approaching
a virgin giving birth!

(I wonder if Dylan will sue me for even THINKING those up?)

ENTER CHARLIE MILLS
I called my good friend Charlie, to invite him to play drums with Vinny Martell and myself for “All Along The Watchtower”, and a power trio was born – together for the first time.

The nearer to the show it gets, the more intense the workload. Travel and hotel accomodations have to be arranged, the idea of an after show party popped up, there was the content of the program to organize, seeking the right guitar effect to create the intro to SPIRIT IN THE SKY, renting set pieces for the stage, video content to organize and edit,
organizing a set sequence (which takes in whose dependable to arrive on time and who are prone show up late), choosing how many amplifiers to have onstage, dealing with special requests, assigning songs and parts for the players, arranging music and contacting horn players…my brain starts to first swell, and eventually turn numb.

Mon 11/27 I visited North Brunswick Twp High School to work a little with the drumline, which director Paul Bongiovi had been polishing up with rehearsals. Working with young people is fun. The faces of this group are so fresh, their attitudes so enthusiastic.

At 8:30pm on Tue 11/28. Don Dazzo joined us at Brunswick Rehearsal Studio to run through his Whirling Dervishes version of The Grinch.

By this point I still wasn’t sure what we were gonna do about the pyrotechnical clarinet solo required for the Bottle Dance number. I knew our great Jimmy Leahey had a guitar synthesizer, and I asked him if he thought he could approximate the part. Jimmy said he’d go home and work on it.

ENTER ANTHONY KRIZAN
Wed 11/29 Brunswick Rehearsal Studio 7-Midnight - Anthony Krizan joined us to work out the flashy rapid fire guitar harmony solo Jimmy Leahey wrote for my “What Child Is This” medley.

Jimmy also brought along the chart he’d written for the Bottle Dance clarinet part. I can’t say enough about how professional, capable and talented this friend is. It’s as if there’s nothing he can’t do. I had found my ‘clarinetist’ for this ambitious undertaking: a guy with a guitar!

And we were joined by a special new guest…

ENTER JERRY GASKILL
I have admired the band Kings X for years, and my friend Bob Burger pointed out that the drummer of that cool Texas trio lives on the Jersey shore. I called Jerry Gaskill and said something like “Hi, you probably don’t know me, but my name is Glen and I’ve been doing this holiday charity gig every year for 16 years and I’d love to have you play on my friend Everett Bradley’s song “Then” oh and by the way you gotta do it for free.” Basically, Jerry’s response was “okay”. He’s a great drummer and a great guy and he jumped in and added to the night.

Thu 11/30 – Twas the Night before the Xmas show…and there I was at Brunswick Rehearsal Studio with Tony Shanahan, Mark Sacco, Plink Giglio, Mike Stein, Tom Brislin and Dusty Micale by my side as we rehearsed with Sammi Penick and Ashley Petrasek, Carlton Brown, and Antonique Smith on each of their numbers.

After our final rehearsal, Jeff Hoffberger and I carried on our annual tradition of having a drink and a chat the night before ‘the storm’. This time we were joined by Tony Shanahan and Mark Sacco.

And then the day of the show came. After dropping off some equipment at the State Theatre, I went to Milazzo & Mattey Hair Design where Evan Barker, our music copyist, delivered this year’s horn charts to me just as my talented hairdresser/generous sis-in-law Elena finished dying my head bright blue. After a few more chores, and stopping at the music store for last minute details (drum heads, extra cables), I entered the State Theatre. It was around 1pm and I wouldn’t leave the premises for almost 12 hours.

Sound check for an event like this is hard to describe. Perhaps you could call it gentle mayhem, with an underlying layer of excitement. What a glorious parade of creative, enthusiastic artists and facilitators slowly begin to fill my peripheral vision, while I’m answering questions and dishing out requests as rapidly as my thoughts can handle. Old friends and new friends alike, I so appreciate the company of these talented, generous people.

Bob Johnson and Rand Bradbury returned as stage techs. They were solid, professional and pragmatic, solving every problem thrown at them during the course of this hectic show. Jeff Hoffberger had to keep dealing with all the changes thrown at him by myself, Shanahan, and the physical limits of the stage and equipment, and although he was taxed, he joyfully and pragmatically ran the show as if it were an easy thing.

The evening’s performance began with the viewing an edit from the film ‘A CHRISTMAS STORY’, where Flick’s tongue gets frozen-stuck to the flagpole due to a “triple dog dare”.

And then we began playing the Show’s opening medley I had arranged: Chuck Berry’s ‘Run Rudolph Run’, Norman Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit In The Sky’, my Gnarls Barkley ‘Dzat Make It Xmas?’ rewrite and a hip-hop arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies” (from the “Nutcracker Suite”)

Bernie Brausewetter played his version of “Boogie Woogie Santa” along with the horn section (consisting of Jamie Egan on trumpet, Tom Timko, Joey Stann & Craig Hoek on saxophones)

Don Dazzo performed his ‘Grinch’ followed by Mary Lee Kortes singing ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’.

Next up were the XX-ETTES, who brought the house down with the ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’ arrangement. The experiment worked!

Annual favorite CHRISTINE OHLMAN performed Rock And Roll Santa, CARLTON BROWN sang Merry Christmas Baby.

Next, JOY ASKEW sang River, as she does every year, but this time it was sans piano - just her beautiful voice and an echo device in a thrillingly new take on this Joni Mitchell classic.

ANTHONY KRIZAN’s BAND was up next with a smoking version of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Great players, great singing, kick ass arrangement.
We all took the stage next for what Jamie Egan refers to as BACH ROCK, the rocked up seventies version of ‘Joy’ featuring the NBTHS strings.

ANTONIQUE SMITH slayed the room with O Holy Night, as usual, featuring a pedal steel guitar solo by Ernie Trionfro.

SPIRALING wowed everyone once again with their wonderful Do You Hear What I Hear/Nutrocker set.

To accompany the BOTTLE DANCERS, Jeff Hoffberger had the image of a menorah projected on the back screen behind us (the technical term for the etched stencil used to project such images is “gobo”). While this kitschy/energetic performance took place, our XX Band nailed the piece, very much like the recorded version, with piano, organ, horn section, backing singers, percussion, etc.

Next up was the NBTHS Winter Percussion Ensemble who, in addition to their own spectacular performance, accompanied us on my arrangement of ‘What Child Is This?’.

Next came an INTERMISSION, during which our trusty crew of Bob Johnson and Rand Bradbury, along with the State Theater’s house crew, made a set change to what came to be referred to as ‘Glen’s living room’.

We opened part two of the show with our group of kids singing The Chipmunk Song, followed by TYDHE BRADY’s triumphant return singing I Want A Hippopotimus For Christmas.

Then ELISE BENDER sang ‘Where Are You Christmas?’’ followed by Sammi and Ashley singing ‘Grown Up Christmas List’ followed by my daughters and I (appearing as THE BURTNIX) doing our Xmas Medley.

ENTER TOM HAGGERTY
A video clip from SOUTH PARK was shown on the screen above. Tom, who has an excellent video buisiness, generously set up the screen and projection equipment for the show.

The THREE WISE MASTROS (James and daughters) were up next. They performed ‘Drive My Sled’ – a lyrical rewrite of the Beatles Drive My Car.

My daughter Sally sang her lyrical rewrite of ‘Time Of The Season’ (with Darla and I backing her up) before
FAITH HAHN ripped up the house again with her ‘Ave Maria’…followed by EVERETT BRADLEY’s performance of ‘Then’ (off his CD ‘Toy’), and LENNY KAYE sang his annual ‘Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’

ENTER THE ANDERSON COUNCIL
A New Brunswick band, The Anderson Council performed The Kinks’ Father Christmas.

VINNY MARTELL took the stage to perform ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and SLOAN WAINWRIGHT sang 2000 Miles. JOE HURLEY sang his Amsterdam Mistress, and CHUCK BUCK performed his annual version of Santa – this year he appeared in the persona of Mrs. Claus herself. He cracks me up…

THE SLAVES OF NEW BRUNSWICK performed ‘Christmas Wrapping’ next followed by TONY SHANAHAN singing ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ (Slade) and then BERNIE “BB” BRAUSEWETTER took the stage one last time for Back Door Santa. Little could anyone have guessed the historic significance of this particular performance…

JOE & CHRISTINE did their spectacular ‘Fairy Tale of NYC’ (featuring the NBTHS strings) and JIGS, Grace and Molly performed ‘The 12 Days Of Christmas’ as we all sang along.

ENTER THE CREDITS
Mark Sacco had put together a wonderful video which we projected at the show’s end – a film style “rolling credits” featuring each artist – many by their baby photos, which ran above us as we sang Happy Xmas (War Is Over). After which, everyone went home to bed.

Now, Jamie Egan had a lot on his mind this night. He was chaperoning all the NBTHS kids who’d played in the show, conducting the strings onstage, and playing trumpet in the horn section! Wearing so many hats must’ve been taxing. At the end of the evening he thought he had lost his car keys, and began that frantic, desperate search some of us know all too well. After seemingly exhausting all possibilities, he decided to go out onto the New Brunswick street, where the car was parked. Not only were the keys still in the unlocked car for close to six hours, but the engine was still running.

But the final award for feats of unsurpassed ridiculousness goes to yours truly, as a few days after the show I unintentionally found myself doing something I hadn’t planned at the NJ Motor Vehicle Agency. The way the big man upstairs set it up, I stood before the flashing light of the camera that snapped the photo that would smile back at airport security employees and Highway Patrolmen for the following 5 years: a smiling, unshaven Glen Burtnik with head of Smurf blue hair.

…But that STILL aint all.

ENTER THE MERCURY LOUNGE
A special show we named the “Downtown Xmas Xtravaganza” was added a few weeks later, on December 16th at NYC niteclub, the Mercury Lounge. The four-hour event included a few friends from the previous show and a number of new faces, including Louie Appel, Erik Della Penna, Jennifer Glass, Dawn Landis, Megan Reilly, Richard Lloyd (of historic punk band Television) and a cast member of the HBO’s SOPRANOS series, Michael Imperioli. Also performing were alumni Willie Nile, Erin OHara and Patti Smith along with myself, Tony Shanahan, Joy Askew, Everett Bradley, Carlton Brown, The Burtnix, Faith Hahn, Joe Hurley, Jigs, Lenny Kaye, Mary Lee Kortes, Mark Sacco, Antonique Smith, Mike Stein and James Mastro, who lent a helpful organizing hand.

And Bernie Brausewetter, who we would never have the pleasure to play with again.

The End