Like the Monkees never said but certainly could have, there’s no need to settle for just having a band, when you can have a band with its own TV show.
On Wednesday, Dec. 13 at Little Theatre 1, the members of Watkins and the Rapiers will channel our inner Monkee by including as part of our concert a series of videos previewing some of the top shows on our imagined streaming service, Watkins TV. We’ll be joined by friends and Santa Claus to star in a series of trailers for a detective show, a situation comedy and several reality shows, which will be interspersed with our music throughout the evening. As always, each musical number will be supported by festive still and moving images on the theatre’s movie screen.
We’ll also perform without graphics support in the Little Theatre Café on Mondays during December, drawing from our repertoire of 100+ original Christmas songs, including five that are new for this season. And we may be popping up at a few other hot spots before the season’s over.
As they say in TV Land, stay tuned!
Photo at the top of the post: The Antlers Studio is the November home of Watkins and the Rapiers, as we prepare for our annual December Christmas shows.
That’s the name of our 100th original Christmas song, which we introduced at our sold out annual Christmas show Dec. 20 in Little Theatre 1, Rochester. N.Y. Once again we bucked expectations because “Just Another Christmas Song” is a sincere, heartfelt ballad—much like most of the Christmas songs that get released every year.
Yes, we can do that, too.
We built the night around our celebration of that 100th song. Major Malik Evens sent us a nice congratulatory letter, which we blew up, mounted and displayed in the lobby to greet everyone who entered.
Congratulatory letter from Rochester Mayor Malik Evans
And we produced two videos, which we played that night, one before each set. You can view them below. Thanks to everyone who attended and / or contributed their time, thoughts and skills into making this a memorable night.
We opened the show with a man and woman on the street interview asking what our 100th song should be about and what we might do that would be special to introduce it.
Before we played the 100th song to open our second set, we showed a video in which we coerced a bunch of friends, strangers and community icons to offer their congratulations on our milestone.
Here are all of our Christmas song titles and the years they were introduced, giving you some sense of how we managed to accumulate 100 original Christmas songs.
1997
In our second year playing as a band, we added a Christmas song to our December repertoire. It was:
Santa’s Got a Gun
1998
We had our first Christmas Show on Dec. 17, at the Rose & Crown on Monroe Avenue, Rochester (now the Rosen Crown), filling an entire set with Christmas songs, many freshly written. Founding member Rob Goodwin introduced “Warden Please” to us onstage that night, and we played it live without having heard it before. Original songs introduced:
All I Want for Christmas
Big Guitar
Fruitcake
More Like Christmas
The Night Hank Williams Passed Away
Proud Mary
Santa’s Little Secret
Warden, Please
When Jesus Christ Met Santa Claus
With the Family There
Xmas in Texas
2002
The band performed irregularly for several years after founding member Rob Goodwin moved to Montana, but by 2002 we were back on track and reinvigorated our Christmas show. Songs introduced:
Christmas for the Red, White and Blue
Christmas on the Border
Feed a Bum
Pink Slips
Unhappy Holiday Inn
Where Angels Fall From the Sky
2003
He Wore Black
The Miracle of Man
Wildfire
2005
Christmas, Christmas Baby
Rockabilly Christmas
Why Won’t Christmas
2006
A Date with Santa Claus
2007
Steve Piper and Rick McRae joined the band in 2006, and Steve made his first Christmas song contributions in 2007, co-writing two of the new tunes that year (asterisked below).
All the Stars at Christmas*
Are You Man Enough (to Say, ‘Merry Christmas’)
Drunk at Christmas*
2008
Rick McRae contributed his first Christmas song (asterisked below).
Christmas in July (Kerry)
The Henrietta Carol*
It’s Christmas Time
Santa Needs a Bailout
Secret Santa
We’re Running Late for Christmas
2009
We achieved a major milestone on Dec. 18 at the Flipside Bar and Grill, when for the first time we played three full sets entirely of Christmas songs, nearly all of them originals.
Don’t You Hear What I Hear?
Everybody’s Got a Christmas Song But Me
Happy Crimble
The Santa Claus Parade
The Two Days of Christmas
2010
Black Friday
Christmas Lights
Elvish Man
I Can Wait
2011
Christmas Cookie
Christmas on Wall Street
Christmas Time Around the World
Don’t Expect a Christmas Card From Me
Little Trauma Boy
2012
Four Days ‘til Christmas
Happy Crimble (2)
The Little Things of Christmas
2013
Arise Ye North Pole Workers
Cool as an Icicle
Santa Land
Today, Tomorrow and When
2014
Pete Hasler supplemented our lineup for our Christmas shows for the first time in 2013 and came out in 2014 with his first contribution to our original Christmas repertoire, “Christmas Lights Untango.”
Bills, Bills, Bills
Christmas Lights Untango*
Christmas Time is Bringing Me Home
Open Enrollment Period Waltz
Season of Joy
War on Christmas
2015
The Great Christmas Eve
Have a Heeby, Jeeby Christmas
I Died
Johnny Wants a Doll for Christmas
The Night of the Meek
2016
We staged our first multi-media Christmas show in the Little Theatre, a vintage movie house in Rochester.
The War on Christmas is Over
Do Something Kinda Vaguely Good for Christmas
I Drive Your Sleigh
The Little Christmas Lights
2017
Gabriel Says
A Real Santa Claus
Secret Santa (Pete)
Why Do Scientists Hate Santa?
My Roof Caved In
2018
Bob Dylan’s Christmas Lights
Christmas in the Orphanage
Christmas Songs No More
The Gift of the Magi Holiday Fair
I Remember Christmas
Last Christmas
Tinsel the Christmas Tapeworm
2019
The Christmas Ice Cream Man
The Christmas Tracker
Lump of Coal
Santa Baby on the Radio
They Booed Santa Claus
The Watkins Christmas Show
2020
We didn’t play any Christmas shows this year due to the pandemic, but several band members wrote and recorded Christmas songs, and posted them on our YouTube channel. Listen to the 2020 playlist here.
The Wonderful Smells of Christmas
No You Got It All Wrong
Please Don’t Take Away My Christmas
Saying Merry Christmas Again
Zoom for the Holidays
2021
Black Friday, White Christmas
Cash for Christmas
Christmas Pirates
2022
We played our first Christmas in July show on July 7 at Marge’s Lakeside Inn, leading us to create two new “Summer Christmas” songs. By December, the band had written its 100th original Christmas song, which was played for the first time at our Dec. 20 multi-media show.
The world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas was initiated in 1953 with a single scrap, growing gradually over the years thanks to the persistence of its originator, Frank Stoeber.
The same deliberate path has led Watkins and Rapiers to achieve the world record for original Christmas songs performed by a musical act with a total that this year will reach 100. The band’s century song will be unveiled Dec. 20 at the Watkins and the Rapiers annual Big Little Christmas Show in Rochester, N.Y.’s Little Theatre One. It comes 26 years after we performed our first original Christmas song.
The world’s largest ball of twine, according to some sources, in Cawker City, Kansas.
Watkins and the Rapiers 