John Waters kicks off Christmas season in Santa Cruz with annual tour

SANTA CRUZ — Christmas is just around the corner. You may have seen Christmas trees and inflatable snowmen going up in stores as early as September, and you might have already heard these same stores get a head start on their holiday jingle playlists. However, it’s hard to deny the excitement people have for a holiday that brings a lot of feelings of warmth, nostalgia and a touch of kitsch.

One person who always gets very excited for Christmas is John Waters, the filmmaker behind such cult classics as “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray.” He celebrates the season with his annual ever-changing Christmas tour “A John Waters Christmas,” which kicks off Dec. 1 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.

Waters began the festive tour in 1996 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, and said it all stemmed from an essay he wrote titled “Why I Love Christmas,” which was first published in the National Lampoon in 1985 and later included in his essay collection “Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters.”

Like the essay, the show is about Waters’ passion for the Yuletide holiday.

“It’s about obsession with Christmas,” he said. “It’s about everything that happens at Christmas: nudity, presents, terrorism, your parents, your education, everything that can do with Christmas and how to get through it, even if you’re not a Christian.”

The material changes every year, so even audiences who saw the show in previous years will get a completely new experience.

The show is not the only way Waters is getting into the Christmas spirit. He also has released his first Christmas song with a cover of the classic “Jingle Bells” — specifically The Singing Dogs version. Produced by engineer Carl Weismann and record producer Don Charles, this 1955 version consists entirely of dogs barking the famous tune. It became a staple of “The Dr. Demento Show” after being reissued in 1971 and continues to get frequent airplay around the holiday season to this day.

However, the song has also become a frequent annoyance among listeners around Christmastime to the point that it regularly makes lists of the worst Christmas songs of all time. A longtime lover of kitsch and novelty songs, this appealed to Waters that he decided to do his own version, after having already covered another quirky song last year: Johnny Standley’s 1952 hit “It’s in the Book.”

“This year, the most hated Christmas carol — even though it gets played constantly on every radio station — is the barking dogs’ ‘Jingle Bells,’ so I wanted to do the worst cover ever,” he said.

Whereas the original version consisted of spliced audio of actual dogs, Waters’ version will have him doing all the barking himself. It will also tape other musical styles, such as a Phil Spector-inspired “Wall of Sound” in the second verse and then pitched up to resemble The Chipmunks on the third verse. It is a version Waters intended to sound bad.

“It says right on the cover, ‘Please do not play this record,’” he said.

On the other hand, the B-side “It’s a Punk Rock Christmas” is one Waters wants people to play each Christmas.

“It’s a spoken word thing I wrote that you can play to your children on Christmas Eve sitting around the fire before you open your alarming presents,” he said.

The single was released Friday on Sub Pop Records and produced by Waters’ regular producer Ian Brennan, who produced albums for Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Forrest of the band Thelonious Monster. He also produced a variety of world music albums, including African group Tinariwen’s “Tassili,” which won a Grammy in 2012.

“He understands my humor,” said Waters. “He specializes in world music and very obscure kinds of music, so he gets it. It is a humorous thing that we’re doing a parody.”

This year’s Christmas tour will consist of 13 shows, ultimately culminating with a stop in Waters’ hometown of Baltimore. It all kicks off in Santa Cruz, a place he has visited many times before. In fact, he recalled a visit in the ’80s where he got his picture taken on the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and sent it to Andy Warhol as a postcard to let him know how much he liked the artist’s book “Popism.”

“When I went to the Warhol Museum 25 years later, I saw that in a case in the museum, that postcard I had written him,” he said.

In the show, Waters plans to get audiences into the Christmas season by talking about everything from shoplifting to terrorism to bodily fluids.

“I go low, real low,” he said. “I know people are nervous at Christmas, but airing my dirty laundry at Christmas makes me feel clean.”

“A John Waters Christmas” will take place 8-11 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Rio, 1205 Soquel Ave. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $45 for general admission, but there are also a number of limited “group therapy” VIP tickets available for $125, where attendees can receive preferred seating and attend a group therapy Q&A session to talk to Waters after the show and take selfies from a distance. For more information, go to RioTheatre.com.