Fuck you, 2007. Fuck me, 2008. Boom boom boom boom boom. Hugenormous superheavy fun time. Cool shit from the Lab. This is it.

DOWNLOAD: DJ Melee, "The Specialists Mix" (mp3)
[DJ Melee at MySpace]

DOWNLOAD: Michael Savant, "Special Delivery Mix" (mp3)
[Michael Savant at MySpace]

Reeeeee-wind: this is where we scour our back catalogue and rate our favorite-of-favorites from the tracks we debuted this year. We've mixed in mp3-of-the-weeks with a bunch of the live sessions we recorded, and thrown a few videos into the mix . . . including at least a few that we forgot to mention. (Also check out the best of thephoenix.

Yes, boys and girls, it’s time once again for Santastic!, the third-annual installment of holiday mix-and-mash-ups performed and compiled by the redoubtable djBC. (Fresh from snagging the BMA for “Outstanding DJ.”)

As always, this year’s edition is a corker. For kids who’ve been waiting for the red-suited man all December, Divide and Kreate’s “Velvet Santa” sets up a rendezvous between a pre-creepy Michael Jackson and a very naughty Lou Reed on some dingy New York City street

DOWNLOAD: Ron Gill, "All Is Fair In Love/Seems So Long" [mp3]

Jazz singer Ron Gill brought uncommon interpretive insight to an under-recognized genius on The Songs of Billy Strayhorn a few seasons back. Now he's turned his attention to a less obviously jazzy songwriter, Stevie Wonder. Gill's "Wonders of Wonder" program at the Regattabar in October 2006 knocked out his old friend Jon Marable, who offered to write new arrangements.

Mission of Burma will play Great Scott on January 20, in what will be the band's most intimate hometown performance since their first-ever reunion gig (which was itself a secret warmup gig for their official reunion shows a few nights later) at the now-defunct 608 in Somerville, six years ago to the month.

We gather the gig is a benefit in some fashion for Myanmar (the country formerly known as Burma), and we'll add details when our Googling produces something reliable.

As you may have heard, Christopher Guest received an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee last Friday. The musical event that followed the ceremony was, like everything we've been to at Berklee, professional and entertaining, with Guest performing songs from This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting for Guffman alongside Berklee faculty and students.

Collipark's little-noticed and quickly-abandoned attempt to start a reindeer dance craze

+ 999,999 snowflakes: Ying Yang czar Mr. ColliPark releases a Christmas EP that tempts us to make comparisons to Phil Spector's "A Christmas Gift for You"

+ 87 snowflakes: Somehow pimping the minor-key melody of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" into club fire

Eli Reed: Soul Brother Number One

DOWNLOAD: Eli "Paperboy" Reed, "The Satisfier" [mp3]

Even after tough woodshedding at Delta Blues Ground Zero -- Clarksdale, Mississippi, playing juke joints and the like -- and then further work in Chicago, running a weekly radio show and playing in a Southside holiness church, Eli "Paperboy" Reed suffered his detractors (including some at this very newspaper).

DOWNLOAD: Gorilla Zoe feat. Neighborhood Superstars, "It's Christmas" [mp3]

+ 5 snowflakes: durrty-south interpretation of "Jingle Bells" brings new meaning to "dashing through the snow"

+ 8 snowflakes: flipping "12 Days of Christmas" as dope-boy corner pitch

+ 1,000,000 snoflakes: "When I hit the strip club I can make it reindeer."

________

total = 1,000,013 snowflakes.

DOWNLOAD: Eric Striffler and Kevin Spellman, "Crank Dat Santa Claus" [mp3]

+ 4 snowflakes: "watch him crank that Missus Claus"

+ 23 snowflakes: "Santa Claus up in this ho, watch me lean and watch me rock/Superman that ho, then I'll put some goodies in your sock!"

DOWNLOAD: Mobius Band, Friends Like These [mp3]

Lots of wistful indie bands underwent hipster-mandated retraining in the early naughts and emerged, after a quick stop in laptop voc tech, as certified dealers of . . . wistful, indie-ish compu-pop. Boston (and now Brooklyn’s) Mobius Band were among the least likely applicants for the job, and yet we can’t think of anyone, save perhaps the Postal Service, who do it better.