Last Christmas season, Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland released The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Kicking off the album promotional cycle was the music video for “Winter Wonderland.” It’s hard to really describe it, so here are some pictures.

Anyways, so Scott released the video and people all over the internet shit on it.  In interviews promoting the album Weiland stated that he was doing the album due to his love of old Christmas songs sung by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Nat King Cole.  I bought the album the day it came out (hey, I did the same thing for Chris Cornell’s Scream).  The best track by far was “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” which Scott had released two years prior digitally.  His vocals on that were great.  The rest were an odd mix off Scott adding a bossa nova vibe to Christmas songs and on a few he sounded like he may have sipped a bit too much eggnog in the recording booth.

Scott also did a limited tour for the album.  I had the pleasure of attending Scott’s show in Santa Ana, California.  Scott showed up nearly 2 hours late, during this time I texted my father to discuss Weiland’s wherabouts.  My father explained, “What is time anyway?  Time is but material for a song.  Meaningless fodder for those who fly high above us ticket buyers.  You are trapped in a Weiland world.”  Weiland showed up and crooned his way through the Christmas classics.  He told the crowd he attended Huntington High School which was nearby, though he actually attended Edison High, in Huntington Beach.  He also asked the crowd if they were there for medicine.  He claimed his kids like celebrating Hanukkah with his managers because the food is better. There were these two drunk chicks that kept screaming to Scott all night long, he mostly ignored them. He did have some crowd interaction though. He talked a little bit about his admiration of Bob Marley and John Lennon. A few times he talked about the holidays, how all of our roads are tough, that kind of stuff. Somebody was yelling out fuck (you’re fucking hot or something) and Scott responded with something along the lines of, “Hey, it’s the holidays.” I think Scott mentioned that he thought Rod Stewart was there, most likely a joke.

The show was the most bizarre concert I’d ever attended.  Only a year prior I had seen him rocking the stage, right on time, at the top of his game with Stone Temple Pilots at the Nokia Theater on their self-titled album tour.  Now I was watching him pay tribute to Bing Crosby.  The show was definitely worth it though, I’ll never forget it.  I still wonder if the whole thing was tongue in cheek on Scott’s part.

A year later, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year remains one of the most fascinating things in recent alternative rock history.  It ranks right up there with Chris Cornell’s Scream, Perry Farrell’s I Like Em Big music video, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Widow Wake My Mind, and Jerry Cantrell opening for Nickelback.