in the magic of Christmas
Christmas album makes good on a promise
What would Christmas be without Christmas music? One Rockland musi- cian honours the memory of his mother with an album of original, made-in-Rock- land Yuletide tunes. North Easton has many fond memories of family gatherings at his mother’s house, which always included listening to and maybe singing along with familiar popular songs like “White Christmas” and the tra- ditional carols. As a musician, though, what irked him was the lack of many actual new Christmas songs, something he sometimes talked about with his mum. “I made a promise to her,” he said, “that I was going to write one Christmas song every year until I had enough for an album.” He made that promise 14 Christmases ago. His mother has since passed away, but North made good on his promise with My Favourite Chrismas, the second album featuring him and his band of musicians, My Favourite Tragedy, from the Prescott-Russell/Orléans area. The album includes eight songs out of the dozen that he wrote over the years. All original songs too. That was part of North’s promise to his mother.
“Completely original. No “Silent Nights” or anything. Eight original (Christmas) songs. Nobody does that anymore.” The album has been available for almost a year now. The band recorded the lp November
subtle references to some of the more famil- iar traditionals. He noted that Karim Ayari, the video producer and main cinematog- rapher, gets the lion’s share of credit for helping pull the video together within a very short timeframe.
role in the video, as the site for the main band performance footage, and also a classroom scene starring local kids. La salle de spectacles Optimiste Performance Hall is another familiar location site with the audience attending the annual “Evening of Sharing” variety show becoming a willing and enthusiastic chorus for the videocamera towards the end of the evening’s show. “That was really fun,” North said, smiling. “It’s all fantastic. It’s the album vision that I had.” Copies of the album will be available at the Rockland Museum. Music fans can also download it through their iTunes connection at https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/my- favourite-christmas/id944098538. Video fans can check out the foot- age at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vildt5svWVA&list=UUKk_ BWZyZVR0-tdDT5GsSrw, or go to www. myfavouritetragedy.com and look for the link there. Maybe make some of these songs a part of your Christmas traditions. —Gregg Chamberlain
2013 in an effort to have it ready for their fans and the general listening audience in time for Christmas that same year. They also put together a video, “Christmas Lights”, taken from the album and posted it to YouTube. “It’s about a father and his son string- ing Christmas lights,” North explained.
“And the cool thing about this video is that we used Rockland people in it,” North said. Some local faces featured in the first video from the album. Building on that suc- cess, band members put the word out when planning began for the next video that they would welcome vol- unteers with a yen to
My Favourite Tragedy, with lead singer/ composer North Easton, dedicates a Christmas- themed album to the memory of a mother’s love.
Now this year they’re adding a second YouTube video, “Singalong to Christmas Songs”, highlighting yet another song from the album. “It’s an homage to Christmas songs,” North said, adding that while the album features all original songs, this particular one includes
become video stars, or at least prominent extras, in the second project. They also rushed around over a period of several days looking for and making use of various shoot- ing locations around Rockland and the near- by area for the video.
The Rockland Museum plays a prominent
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