Umphrey’s McGee Shares New Holiday Single ‘L.A. Santa’

On Saturday night Umphrey’s McGee guitarists Jake Cinninger and Brendan Bayliss held their 14th annual Holiday Show at Park West in Chicago. The benefit concert featured the duo’s debut performance of a parody holiday song “L.A. Santa” that the full band also recorded and shared today as a new single.

Featuring Cinninger’s reworked lyrics such as “Well I was talking to an elf about an hour ago” and “See the snowman rising,” UM’s single parodies The Doors’ classic hit “L.A. Woman.” Here’s more from Jake on how it came together:

The prep time between Holidaze was tight this year so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until the night before. I opened iTunes and started scrolling for something very familiar while asking myself if it would translate to a Christmas atmosphere. I tried to use the same signature linguistics as Morrison, stressing his consonants and vowels but substituting holiday phrases. To be honest, once I got started it essentially wrote itself.

Following the Christmas show, the next day Bayliss on bass, Cinninger on guitar and their UM band mates Joel Cummins on piano and Andy Farag on drums, along with Mike Racky on pedal steel, laid down the recording that makes up the new single. “L.A. Santa” is currently available for download via UMLive and to stream on the nugs.net app.