Dale Crover of Melvins, Lou Barlow of Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr., Rob Crow of Pinback and Anal Trump, No Joy, Why? and others will perform in Joyful Noise Recordings’ Holiday Special live stream concert on December 11. It will be broadcast on Joyful Noise’ website starting at 8 p.m. EST. 

The special will be streamed live for the first time in Joyful Noise holiday history, with no fee for admission. Keeping Joyful Noise holiday tradition, each song performed during the show will be released on snowflake-shaped lathe-cut vinyl afterwards. Purchase info will be made available on their website soon.

Crover recently announced he’d be releasing a new solo album called Rat-A-Tat-Tat! in January 2021 and just shared a new single called “Shark Like Overbite” from it, the second single after “I Can’t Help You There.” Also in 2021, Melvins will be releasing a new album with their 1983 lineup called Working With God. The lineup, which includes Crover, Buzz Osbourne and Mike Dillard, also released an EP in October called Mullet.

Indie rock band Sebadoh last released music in 2019, full-length record Act Surprised. J. Masis of Barlow’s other main band Dinosaur Jr. appeared on a cover of The Replacements’ “Favorite Thing” in September.

Crow put out a covers album in June, Everybody’s Got Damage: Acoustic Covers in Quarantine. In September, mxdwn premiered Draag’s cover of Pinback’s track, “Loro.”

Shoegaze outfit No Joy released their first new album in five years in August, Motherhood, showing off a noisier side to their style. One of the singles, “Dream Rats,” notably unites No Joy’s Jasamine White-Gluz with her sister, Arch Enemy vocalist Alissa White-Gluz.

Also performing will be Thor Harris, the percussionist for Shearwater who joined Swans for their comeback trilogy and is currently a member of Xiu Xiu and new band Kidbug. Harris released a series of albums this year as Thor & Friends, including 3 + 4. He also released two solo albums, Doom Dub and The Bit.

Another noteworthy band playing the Holiday Special is California experimental rock band Deerhoof. They put out two new albums this year, Teenage Future Cave Artists and a covers album, Love-Lore.

Photo credit: Stephen Hoffmeister