What do avant garde filmmaker John Waters and hip-hop pioneer Joseph Simmons of Run DMC fame have in common? A love of alternative Christmas songs, according to Mitchell Kezin’s music documentary
Jingle Bell Rocks! Kezin interviews Waters and Simmons, along with New York City hip-hop archivist and music writer Bill Adler, Chicago rock promoter Andy Cirzan and Los Angeles Water Works employee Tim Sewell, each with an amazing collection of obscure Christmas music. Latino Elvis impersonator El Vez, known for his Merry Mex-mass holiday show; Atlantic Records soul singer Clarence Carter; and Phil Kline, the composer of “Unsilent Night,” a composition played over boomboxes in annual parades around the world, also contribute their take on Christmas tunes.
The sound track to the film includes Carter’s performance of “Back Door Santa,” Nat King Cole’s rendition of “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot,” Heather Noel’s “Santa Came on a Nuclear Missile” and Brenda Lee’s classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
7 p.m. 14 Pews, 800 Aurora. For information, call 281‑888‑9677 or visit 14pews.org. $10.
Thu., Dec. 25, 7 p.m., 2014
