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Aimee Mann’s 3rd Annual Christmas Variety Show
Former ’Til Tuesday singer has your Christmas plans all wrapped up
Aimee Mann
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Instead of explaining to Aunt Flo, yet again, what exactly it is you do for money in that crazy city you call home, why not handpick your holiday companions? Since releasing her Christmas album One More Drifter in the Snow in 2006, Aimee Mann has toured on just such a premise. An LA musician well connected in the entertainment industry, Mann rounded up the people from her neighborhood—kind-of-known comedians, performers and musicians—to spend the holidays with her on stage.
Angular, serious, and yet ethereal, Mann seems the least likely to put on a successful Christmas variety show. Her melodic songs are populated with disappointed characters worthy of Bruce Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman” and “Glory Days.” Her cover of Three Dog Night’s “One” on the Magnolia soundtrack was the musical embodiment of loneliness. Mann is usually associated with “heartache” and “desperation” more than “reindeer” and “tinsel.”
But Mann’s sense of humor and warmth get a chance to shine in her holiday show, and she is as gracious a hostess as she is a performer. The event is a music and comedy act designed to support fans through these precarious months of nostalgia, cranberry sauce and turmoil. Previous performers at the New York shows include co-host Paul F. Tompkins, musician Ben Lee, comedians Morgan Murphy and Fred Armisen, and singer-songwriter and actress Nellie McKay.
If you haven’t joined the fun in previous years, catch the show this December 18 at the Nokia Theatre. But be warned: These gigs sell out. In the meantime, the short film The Aimee Mann Christmas Trilogy is a series of comedy sketches in which Mann asks big-time celebs to join her Christmas show, with embarrassingly funny results. View it on Youtube.