“Christmas Sled” by the Mountain Says No

It’s a Christmas miracle! 

The Mountain Says No, the new band from Farm’s Ben Maddox and Jedd Kettler — and featuring Andrew Frappier and Justus Gaston — have just released a terrific new holiday single, “Christmas Sled.” The indie-rockin’ jingle is now part of the quietly growing canon of original local holiday music — which includes the trio of cult classics by the Physics Club, Rue Mevlana’s EP Dancing to Keep Warm, the single “Harvest” by Myra Flynn and Gregory Douglass, and of course, the Handel’s “Messiah” of local Christmas songs: “Christmas Every Day” by Victor Rudolph Gittens. 

The low-key, mostly acoustic cut calls to mind John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” But in place of that song’s sleigh-bell-ringin’ climax, it features a cheeky nod to the Lemonheads’ song “Rudderless” — “A sled without a rudder’s like a sled without a rudder …” We approve, heartily.

   

Dan Bolles is a culture coeditor at Seven Days. He joined the paper in 2007 as its music editor, covering Vermont's robust music, comedy and nightlife scenes for a decade before deciding he was too old to be going to the Monkey House on weeknights to see rock shows for a living. He became assistant arts editor in 2017 and culture coeditor in 2021. Bolles has received numerous local and national awards for his writing on Vermont arts, sports and the occasional celebrity canine murder mystery. He loves...