All Day …

Since 1988, Jon Solomon -- record aficionado/My Pal God label CEO/DJ -- has turned the 24 hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day into his own ho-ho-holiday, featuring his annual selection of holiday-themed classics -- sacred, secular, and sanctimonious -- on his radio program emanating from Princeton, N.J.'s WPRB 103.3 FM. A Jewish man spinning Christmas records does not seem strange, as he'll spin Hanukkah records and wintry music with an icy chill. What is strangely magical is the considered breadth of Solomon's (often donated) selections; tunes that radiate the saccharin celebration of the holiday season as well as the anti-sentimental loneliness of the period. (Listen to the lyrics of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" and you could almost slit your wrists from their solitary despair.) "What's different for 2003 is that this year will feature a larger number of songs I've never played before than any Christmas show previous," says Solomon, "lots of strange and amazing records that somehow qualify as "holiday themed.'" Jon Solomon's 24 hours of cheer, fear and loathing have transformed the DJ into the Guy Lombardo of season's greetings and groanings, overseeing a clock-ticking marathon of the maudlin and the merry.

The Jon Solomon Christmas Eve Radio Spectacular, Wed., Dec. 24, 6 p.m.-Thu., Dec. 25, 6 p.m., WPRB 103.3 FM.

—A.D. Amorosi

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