Happy Happy Happy Happy

The best results come within an atmosphere of play. And when your business is entertainment and celebration, play is a requisite of success.

In NoEvil Productions’ sound department an element of play takes on a level of total creative freedom. The only rule is that there are no rules.

We had been playing with making music from sound samples and Chris Leap, the head of our sound design dept, suggested that we record the syllables for HAP PEA Birth Day. I brought the whole voiceover team into the studio and we all recorded these sounds.

Chris went into his studio and began crafting music using the syllables as notes, as instruments, creating the vocal. In this song, Chris was inspired by French Disco and it always makes me want to dance.

HAPPY
 
music by Chris Leap, NoEvil Productions

Ain’t No Music Wry Enough

Meet Diana Rooster

character design by Cindy McCluskey
©NoEvil Productions

I’ve been working on an idea for a series, Desperate Songbirds, about a community of theatrical birds who live and work in the midst of Manhattan. Each bird is based on a human song bird and the rooster fancies himself as one of the Supremes!

Diana lives in a chicken coop on a roof in Hell’s Kitchen, and he dreams of singing on Broadway. As I was casting the voices for the characters, Tom Reeve started singing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” with a voice based on Ed Koch. This makes me laugh every time I hear it:

Diana Rooster sings “Ain’t No Mountain” with her backup Chickettes
 

Chris Leap, our composer and sound designer captures my vision of Diana starting to sing in his chicken coop, accompanied by the chicks, bursting out the door and on to the roof in full voiced splendor. This is the sound of happiness.

© Kat Caverly, No Evil Productions

Rugelach O Rugelach

I’m a big fan of Cabot clothe bound cheddar cheese and on the second day of Hanukkah they posted a link to this recipe for Cheddar and Fig Rugelach. I decided that I would try this out as a Christmas cookie and ended up making it on Christmas Eve.

As you can see it is easy to make and much to my happy surprise the dough also made great bacon and cheddar rolls!

On the First Days of Christmas, with My True Love

This was chronically a difficult time of the year for Tom. It took 26 Christmas celebrations to come up with this new tradition—our holiday family portrait. After the success for the first year I realized that doing things is an important part of every celebration. Traditions and history are another magical ingredient.

Tom has always hated pictures of himself, the polar opposite of myself. The camera loves me and I equally love being on both sides of the camera. I started doing portraits again in the summer of 2008. I soon rediscovered that element of play inherent in good portrait sessions. And Tom is an actor!

To help Tom start to love pictures of himself I asked him “what historical character could you see yourself portraying?”. He immediately said “Archimedes”. We shot Archimedes in January 2009 and Tom learned that getting photographed was fun.

Christmas Greetings 2010

Christmas Greetings 2009

For the first year of this new tradition Tom wrote the script for our new characters Sweetdream and Nightmare. I am the voice of Sweetdream. So ebullient that I actually float. Nightmare is voiced by Tom. And he is always looking at the possibility of total failure. But he does love “Yummy treats”.

Tom has captured my Christmas Spirit in this script, as well as parody of his own “darker tendencies”. Maybe it works because there’s a little bit of both
of these in all of us.

A Merry Greetums Christmas 2008

Songs of the Angels
12 Inspiring Christmas Carols

photo © Kat Caverly, from Christmas Ornament Collection 2010

I grew up in not only a Catholic family, but a very strict religious Catholic tradition. Before I entered school (Catholic of course) I thought that the altar boys were angels, since back then mass was still said in Latin. It was magical.

But never as magical as Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. These songs bring back into my heart childhood memories of perfect Christmas joy.

1. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Enya)

2. Adeste Fideles (The Three Tenors)

3. Hark the Herald Angels Sing (St.Paul’s Cathedral – London)

4. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Annie Lenox)

5. O little town of Bethlehem (Elvis Presley)

6. Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Andrea Bocelli)

7. Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah (Johann Strauss Orchestra and the Harlem Gospel Choir)

8. Oh Come All Ye Faithful (Celtic Woman)

19. O Holy Night (Celine Dion)

10. O Tannenbaum (Vienna Boys Choir)

11. Little Drummer Boy (Orla Fallon and Chloe Agnew)

12. Ding Dong Merrily on High (Celtic Woman)

Be the Tree

photo by Thomas Hudson Reeve © Kat Caverly Enterprises

It was early one Christmas morning, and a merry band of performers was getting ready to meet at the AIDS ward of St. Clares Hospital’s in New York. I had found out that these patients couldn’t get out of bed. We were bringing the holiday celebration to them. I was going to be the Christmas tree.

My costumer designer, Michael American, made this amazing O Tannen-gown, complete with lights. All I had to do was sashay into the room and plug myself in. We had a guitar player who was also a stand-up comic, and five Broadway singer/actors. Our most popular song quickly became “Feliz Navidad” and my favorite moment was when I saw a women, too sick to walk, dancing in her hospital bed.

We visited every room and got more rambunctious with each performance. We must have sang that song 50 times. I know I couldn’t get it out of my head for the rest of the day.

I learned a great Christmas lesson that day. I learned the true importance of celebration regardless of the circumstances. Everyone we met brightened up around the merriment. Yet we worry that such silliness isn’t appropriate in such grave conditions Maybe it is the best thing. Sure it might not save lives, but it certainly makes life worth living.

Personally I don’t take the chance of the celebration coming to me anymore. I learned that lesson young and I am not willing to not celebrate.

After all, I am the tree !

Our First Little Angel

photo © Kat Caverly 2010

The year was 1983. It was our first Christmas together. Tommy and I had started dating in 1981 but we got serious in the Spring of 1983. The sidewalk pines lined Ninth Avenue tempting me every time I walked by. Hell’s Kitchen was a den of iniquity back in 1983. I thought it ironic that the store at the end of our block flashed a neon “DRUGS” above the street dealers on the corner. Still it was a perfect Christmas.

We bought our first tree. I stocked up on a collection of cheap ornaments from that drugstore, including this little Angel. Every year since I let it be widely known that my favorite thing at Christmas was the ornaments. Tommy has given me at least one every year. 2010 is our 28th Christmas together!

One year, when I was still packing up the ornaments at the end of each season and only bringing them out for Christmas, he suggested that we throw out some of the old stuff. True some of the cheap red and white string wrapped balls had started to unravel. Also true that I now had a collection of hundreds of fine blown glass and crafty delights. But when Tommy unwrapped our little Angel and announced she should be tossed too, I reminded him that she was most important. She had blessed our very first Christmas together and would always hold a special place in my heart. He won’t make that mistake again!

photos © Kat Caverly, all rights reserved

Top 25 Holiday Songs for 2010

I have been collecting Christmas music since 1987. At first it was cassette tapes. Then I started collected CDs. It wasn’t until iTunes made the scene that my collection really started to take off. Currently I have just over 200 songs and this year I was able to find some amazing Hanukkah songs too.

For the past five years I have made it an important part of my holiday celebrations to listen to each and every song in my collection at least once. This year I decided to select my Top 25 Holiday songs to share with you. This was no easy task since I love all of the songs in my collection. As went through all of the songs it came down to what I could listen to again and again. Here are the winners this year, in no special order:

1. Christmas in the City (Mary J. Blige)

2. Back Door Santa (BB King)

3. Honky Tonk Christmas (A Window Shoppers Christmas)
 

4. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Jethro Tull)

5. Fat Daddy (Paul Johnson)

6. White Christmas (Drifters)

7. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (Duke Ellington)

8. Zydeco favorite: St. Nicholas (Sheryl Cormier)

Putumayo Presents “Christmas Around the World”

9. Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah (Erran Baron Cohen)

10. O Holy Night (Eric Carman – South Park)

11. Zat You, Santa Claus (Louis Armstrong)

12. Santa Baby (Eartha Kitt)

13. Dreidel (Erran Baron Cohen)

14. Silent Night (Mahalia Jackson)

15. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Bruce Springsteen)

16. Bounce of the Sugar Plum Fairies (Don Byron)

17. The Carol Of The Bells (George Winston)

18. Happy Christmas—War is Over (John Lennon)

19. Joy to the World (Aretha Franklin)

20. Make the Rafters Ring (A Window Shoppers Christmas)

21. Twinkle Twinkle Little Me (The Supremes)

22. Flash Your Dread (Barrington Levy)

23. Blue Christmas (Elvis)

24. Winter Wonderland (Louis Armstrong)

25. Jingle Bells (Count Basie)

Now Serving:
A Cup of Twisted
Christmas Cheer

Once you collect all of the traditional carols and the songs we sang as children, it is pure holiday joy finding and creating Twisted Christmas music. Some of these songs are quite bawdy, some even use some strong language in their higher pursuit of Christmas comedy.

But all of these songs share one common thing—they are fun and funny, and totally twisted. Enjoy!

Our Own Quacki Singing Blue Christmas © NoEvil Productions
 

White Trash Christmas (Bob Rivers)

Señor Gusano Sings a Cantina Christmas © NoEvil Productions
 

Twisted Sister – “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”

Kat Caverly’s Jingle Giggles for NoEvil Productions
 

Merry F&*#ing Christmas (South Park) NSFW

I am Santa Claus (Bob Rivers)

F&*k You if You Don’t Like Christmas (CrudBump) NSFW

Little Drummer Boy ( Jimi Hendrix)

Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto (Snoop Doggy Dogg) Uncensored

Back Door Santa (BB King)

The House on Christmas Street

Another Richard Holdman Christmas Light Spectacular

It all started small in 2005 and by 2007 Richard Holdman was using over 45,000 lights and taking 8 hours to program 60 seconds of music to choreograph his spectacular Christmas lights display.

How this all got started.