There’s apparently some big announcement tomorrow about the future of the Palace performing arts space across from the Shubert theater on College Street. One of the people who’ll be there is Elissa O. Getto, who’s the president of some new non-profit organization called New Haven Center For Performing Arts, so that’s a big hint. Getto was on the administrative team that pulled the Stamford Center for the Arts out of bankruptcy. Also set to appear at Wednesday’s announcement: the leaders of two of the city’s biggest and most reliable bookers/promoters of rock shows, Premier Concerts and Manic Productions. Mayor Harp and city Ec. Dev. guru Matt Nemerson will also be there, plus (this is significant), Kip Bergstrom, who’s the big arts-funding poombah for the whole state.

It’s not all that long ago that the Palace closed its doors. It’s had a shorter nap than the Shubert did in the ‘70s. But it petered out slowly, so some may think it’s been closed since the ‘90s when actually it lasted into the ‘00s. It was kept going by gospel musicals, hip-hop shows and jam bands for its last few years. The place had been a popular downtown movie house, The Roger Sherman, since the 1920s, and became the Palace in 1984. The late ‘80s is when I started seeing shows there, and I saw some doozies.

Lou Reed. The Set the Twilight Reeling tour, 1996. I still have the T-shirt.
The Polish political cabaret troupe Piwnica pod Baraniami (Cellar Under the Rams). This was around ’86, ’87. Have that T-shirt too.
Tori Amos (at least twice, I think)
‘70s Soul Jam, with The Chi-Lites, Delfonics, Stylistics, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes and more. Major Harris turned up in three of the acts. This very long show was turned into a PBS special hosted by Jimmie J.J. Walker, and released as a multi-volume VHS tape set.
Joan Armatrading. A down-on-his-luck Graham Nash was the opening act.
Brian May, July 1993. The New Haven Coliseum was still open then, and May was probably wondering why he wasn’t playing over there.
Bjork, with Tricky.
Fawn Hall (of one of the Bill Clinton sex scandals) in a non-Equity national tour of O, Calcutta!
Meat Loaf introducing a community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show.
Cake and Crash Test Dummies. Why not?
The soul/gospel musical A Good Man is Hard to Find.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at one of the early Arts & Ideas festivals.

I saw many other shows at the Palace, but that’ll give you an idea of the range that can occur when you have a theater of that size in the center of New Haven. Even if they scale it down to a Toad’s Place-sized club, as was rumored years ago, that would still be a big deal.

, : “I don’t want to meet your momma. I just want to make you comma.” (Outkast, “Hey Ya.”)

? : Question Mark & the Mysterians (“96 Tears”)

! : “Overused like an exclamation point” (Latryx, “Exclamation Point”)

; : “A comma and a fucking dot; semicolon” (The Lonely Island, “Semicolon”)

‘ : “Apostrophe,” Frank Zappa.

“ : “Like the sailor said, quote, ‘Ain’t that a hole in the boat?’” (Dean Martin, “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?”)

: : Javier Colon.

Billy Bragg, “January Song”: “Turn around and taste tomorrow, this is where the end begins.”
The Decemberists, “January Hymn”
Gilbert O’Sullivan, “January Girl”
Goo Goo Dolls, “January Friend”
Pilot, “January.” (Yep, the “wo-ho-ho it’s magic” band.)
Elton John, “January”
Tori Amos, “Black Dove (January)”
Barbara Dickson, “January February.” Scottish Streisandian pop singer.
Jill Sobule, “Manhattan in January” (a protest song about global warming)
The Twilight Sad, “Last January.”

There’s also this poem, “One Third of the Calendar,” by Ogden Nash:

In January everything freezes.
We have two children. Both are she’ses.
This is our January rule:
One girl in bed, and one in school.

In February the blizzard whirls.
We own a pair of little girls.
Blessings upon of each the head—
The one in school and the one in bed.

March is the month of cringe and bluster.
Each of our children has a sister.
They cling together like Hansel and Gretel,
With their noses glued to the benzoin kettle.

April is made of impetuous waters
And doctors looking down throats of daughters.
If we had a son too, and a thoroughbred,
We’d have a horse,
And a boy,
And two girls
In bed.

• “New,” Paul McCartney. From the album New.

• “What’s the New Mary Jane,” psychedelic trifle left off the White Album and beloved of bootleggers until the Anthology 3 set made it legit.

• “Good News,” Ringo Starr (from Vertical Man, 1998)

• “New York City,” John Lennon & Yoko Ono (from Some Time in New York City, 1972)

• “New Blue Moon, from George Harrison’s Traveling Wilburys (Vol. 3, 1990)

“New Way to Say I Love You,” Billy Preston (Let It Be’s fifth Beatle) & Syreeta.

“Something New,” the third British and fifth American Beatles album.

plus “Ding Dong, Ding Dong,” George Harrison. An actual New Year’s Eve song that never caught on:

Ring out the old

Ring in the new

Ring out the old
Ring in the new

Ring out the false
Ring in the true
Ring out the old
Ring in the new

Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong

Yesterday today was tomorrow
And tomorrow, today will be yesterday
So ring out the old
Ring in the new
Ring out the old
Ring in the new
Ring out the false
Ring in the true
Ring out the old
Ring in the new

Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding dong

Boxing Day isn’t about boxing. It’s about putting things in boxes—post-Christmas gifts for the household staff.

1. Tim Vine, “Box Song.” “I used to have a box and I didn’t know what to do.”

2. The Lonely Island with Justin Timberlake, “Dick in a Box.” Won the Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

3. Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark, “Pandora’s Box.” About Louise Brooks, who played Lulu the silent film classic Pandora’s Box in 1929 and later wrote the extraordinary memoir Lulu in Hollywood. “And all the stars you kissed/Could never ease the pain/And if the face has changed/The grace remains and you’re still the same.”

4. Pete Seeger, “Little Boxes.” Suburban sprawl anthem penned by Seeger’s pal Malvina Reynolds. A ‘60s protest song now recognized as the theme from Weeds.

5. The Archies, “You Know I Love You.” It was a cardboard record which you snipped off the back of a cereal box. A “full fidelity” EP, actually, with this song, “Archie’s Party,” “Nursery Rhymes” and the #1 hit “Jingle Jangle.”

6. Peter Frampton, “Show Me the Way.” Popularized the talk box.

7. The Who, “Squeeze Box.”

8. The Monkees, “P.O. Box 9847.”

9. Genesis, “The Musical Box.” From Nursery Cryme.

10. Muhammad Ali, “Black Superman.” OK, one boxing-as-sport song. This here’s the story of Cassius Clay.

1. ’Twas the Night Before Christmas
2. “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. “My one wish on Christmas Eve is plain as it could be!”
3. “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo,” Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The prog-rock spectacle is playing Hartford next week.
4. “Christmas Eve,” Celine Dion. “Snow falling gently on the ground/’Tis is the night before.” (Yeah, “’Tis is.”)
5. Field Report, “On Christmas Eve.” Alt-rock Milwaukee guys get gushy. “We all need something to believe, on Christmas Eve.”
6. “Christmas Eve With You,” Glee. An original, sung by Will and Emma on Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 2.
7. “Christmas Eve,” Justin Bieber.
8. The 24th Night, mb. Jaunty piano number, found here.
9. The Walkmen, “Christmas Party.” “By tomorrow afternoon as the last of the wraping paper is tossed into the fire. This christmas will be over. Why must it all go by so fast?”
10. “Silent Night.”

Last week we wrote an innocuous intro to a batch of book reviews, mentioning in passing that we were converting our house heating system from oil to gas. We were amused to see that the post was favorited on Twitter by the National Propane Gas Association.

Well, the NPGA’ll this one even better then. It is presented in honor of the completion of three weeks work in our house: the removal of two oil-based furnaces and an oil tank and the installation of two propane-fueled furnaces and a propane-fueled tankless water heater. We are wonderfully warm.

For the purposes of this list, ambiguous uses of the word “gas” were allowed, but specific references to gasoline were not. That would lead to a much longer list (of stock-car and trucking songs) for another time.

1. “Classical Gas,” Mason Williams. This guy is an American treasure. He was a comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers and other TV variety shows. He published a book of amusing poetry. He testified before congress by telling stories and playing his guitar. He collected songs about rivers. And he was an accomplished guitarist who had this amazing instrumental hit record in 1968.

2. “It’s a Gas,” Mad Magazine. Printed on cardboard as a giveaway in a 1963 Mad special issue, this song takes “gas” to its logical flatulent extreme.

3. Sage the Gemini, “Gas Pedal.”

4. Lil JJ, “This Song is Flammable, Call It Propane.”

5. A$AP Rocky, “Angels.” It begins “Ten gold chains, wood grain propane. Sell the whole thang from the cellphone rang.”

6. The Wrens, “Propane.” “38 hours since I got you home safe/ 42 gallons of your favorite propane.”

7. T.I., “Propane.” “I’m so on fire they call me Mr. Propane.”

8. They Might Be Giants, “Solid Liquid Gas Song.” So, “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas” is not the only TMBG gas song. And this one’s an original, not a cover.

9. Erik Friedlander, “Block Ice and Propane.” Friedlander was in New Haven in June with his concert of this title, about travelling cross-country with his photographer father.

10. “Propane for Life,” on the Louisiana Propane website.

11. “Propane for the People,” Saucer. A protest song penned after an explosion at the Sunrise Propane plant in North York, Toronto.

12. Pendulum, “Propane Nightmares.”

13. Kid Rock, “American Badass.” “30-pack opf Stroh’s, 30-pack of hoes, no rogaine in the propane flows.”

14. “All About Propane,” Mikey Bolt’s parody of Meghan Trainor’s “All About the Bass.”

15. The King of the Hill theme song.

16. “Mr. Gasser,” by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos. From Hot Rod Hootenanny, an amazing 1963 surf/garage album based on concepts by car-cartoonist Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.

17. The Wheel Men, “School is a Gas.” An answer song to the more credibly argued “School is a Drag” by the Super Stocks.

18. Flanders and Swann, “The Gas Men Cometh.” The British comedy duo, on how workmen just make more work for the next workmen.

19. There are multiple “Propane” songs which are direct parodies of the Eric Clapton hit “Cocaine.” The best known by Pinkard & Bowden, from the ealy ‘90s.

20. Gas-themed band names out there include The Gas Men, Bus Gas, Natural Gas, Propane Cowboy, Propane Penny, Propane James and yes, Propane Propane.

The trade journal Oil & Gas Monitor did their own list of songs about oil and gas, and proclaimed disappoinment in their findings. The list of “OGM’s Greatest Oil and Gas Songs that are NOT that Great” is here.

Told you yesterday I was gonna do this. All musicians owe a major debt to whoever first thought of collapsing the common phrase “I am going to” into a simple sharp duosyllabic utterance.

1. Operation Ivy, “Gonna Find You.” Not to be confused with Joe Jonas’ “Gotta Find You,” from Camp Rock.

2. “Camptown Races,” Stephen Foster. Because “gwine” is just another form of “gonna.”

3. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” Bob Dylan.

4. Glen Campbell, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You.” This was Campbell’s swansong, released this past October but originally recorded in Jan. 2013 shortly before Campbell retired due to his continuing issues with Alzheimer’s.

5. “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” Roky Erickson and the Third Floor Elevators, one of the nuggetiest tracks on the influential Nuggets compilation.

6. “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Lenny Kravitz. He’s still going “gonna,” in his new record “Stand,” where he keeps saying “Are you gonna run again?”

7. “Cups,” Lulu and the Lampshades. Aka “The Cup Song” performed by Anna Kendrick in the movie Pitch Perfect. It contains the classic blues refrain “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.”

8. “Never Gonna Dance,” Fred Astaire. From the Fred & Ginger opus Swing Time.Post-Ramon

9. “Gonna Wanna Tonight,” Chase Rice. This country tune, released this past summer, sets some kind of record for slang contractions.

10. “A Change is Gonna Come,” Sam Cooke. One of the all-time finest pop protest anthems is a gonna song.

11. “You’re Going to Lose That Girl,” The Beatles. Technically it’s titled “You’re Going to Lose That Girl,” but that’s not how they sing it. Other fab “gonnas”: “Nothing’s gonna change our world” from Across the Universe, “They’re gonna crucify me” from “The Ballad of John & Yoko” and “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry.”

12. “Dem Bones Gonna Rise Again.” Greatest gonna song of all time. Incorporates life, death and knowing things.

13. Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off.” “It’s like I got this music in my mind, saying it’s gonna be all right, ’cause the players gonna play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake it off.”

14. Laurie Berkner, “I’m Gonna Catch You.” A kiddie-song classic. During her live sets, Berkner is actually chased about the stage by other band members.

15. “Mail Myself to You,” Woody Guthrie. “I’m gonna wrap myself in paper, I’m gonna daub myself with glue, stick some stamps on top of my head; I’m gonna mail myself to you.”

16. Shocking Blue, “Gonna Sing Me a Song.” The lesser hit by the Netherlands band responsible for “Venus.”

17. The Fantasticks Original Cast Soundtrack, “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.” Not a lot of “gonna” show tunes out there.

18. The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).”

19. Anne Johannsen, “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You.” Famously covered by Led Zeppelin.

20. Buddy Holly, “I’m Gonna Love You Too.” Covered by Blondie.

21. Joe Turner, “Flip Flop & Fly.” “When I get the blues, gonna get me a rockin’ chair.” Revived in the ‘70s by the Blues Brothers.

22. The Go-Go’s, “I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With a Dalek.” Not the ‘70s New Wave Californian Go-Go’s. This is a ‘60s British act of that name, featuring the childlike lead vocals of Sue Smith.

23. Ray Parker Jr., “Ghostbusters.” Who is that you are going to call? Steve Wynn’s wondrous band Dream Syndicate made live hay of this song on a 1984 world tour; seven varied versions of Dream Syndicate jamming on the tune can be found at the Dangerous Minds site here: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/sevens_cover_versions_of_ghostbusters_from_the_dream_syndicates_1984_tour

24. The Ramones, “It’s Gonna Be All Right.” The other Ramones “gonna” song is “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl.” This one’s more optimistic. Post-Ramones, bassist C.J. Ramone did a solo number called “What We Gonna Do Now.”

25. Small Faces, “Whatcha Gonna Do About It.” Infamously covered by The Sex Pistols on The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle soundtrack. Neither Faces nor Pistols correctly enunciate “What are you going to do about it?”

26. The Shangri-Las, “Give Him a Great Big Kiss.” “I’m gonna walk right up to him…” or her, in the case of the New York Dolls cover.

27. “Gonna Buy Me a Dog,” The Monkees. From the first Monkees album, in 1966. Peppered with ridiculous vaudeville jokes. Micky misses a cue because he’s giggling and vamping.

28. “Kansas City.” The legendary Lieber & Stoller songwriting duo crafted this R&B staple which relies on both “gonna” and “going to” in its lyrics. The singer is “going to” Kansas City, but he’s “gonna” get him a crazy way of lovin’ (or a crazy little woman), plus he’s gonna be standing on the corner of 12th Street and Vine.

29. “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” Folk standard covered by everyone from Odetta to The Blind Boys of Alabama to Moby.

30.  “Gonna Gonna Go!,” Rainbow. Aka “Gana Gana Go!” That’s the South Korean girl group Rainbow, not the Ritchie Blackmore band Rainbow. Blackmore’s “gonna” song would be his cover of Gene Vincent’s “Gonna Catch Me a Rat.”

We got our Christmas tree. Finally had to retire our decades-old metal stand, due to rust. Found a plastic stand at a tag sale. Aired it out outside in the rain. It appeared not to leak. Then we got the tree, thrust it in the stand, did all the screwy and wiggly things one does, and poured water into it. Seems like I poured into the wrong hole. In any case, the floor was all wet and an investigation of the waterholding properties of the stand is underway.
Found myself humming REM while messing with this stand, in the place where I live.

1. “Stand!,” Sly and the Family Stone. (Exclamatory mark is part of the title.) Greil Marcus writes poetically of Sly and the Family Stone in his classic tome Mystery Train. A cover version of this “Stand,” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers closed the great independent-spirit flick Pump Up the Volume.
2. “Stand,” REM. Though the video’s really more about jumping. “The season is calling,” it says. Hence the Christmas tree stand.
3. “Stand by Me,” Ben E. King.
4. “Not Afraid,” Eminem. “Not afraid to take a stand,” that is.
5. “Stand,” Donnie McClurkin, a God song by a popular gospel singer.
6. “Who’s Gonna Stand Up,” Neil Young. Released just this past September. “Who’s gonna stand up and save the earth? Who’s gonna say that she’s had enough?” (I really should do a list of “gonna” songs one of these days.)
7. The Stand, Original Television Soundtrack, W.G. Snuffy Walden. Out-of-print album of music by the ubiquitous TV-show composer, who was expressly summoned by Stephen King to do the score for this creepy plague miniseries. (Walden currently scores King’s Under the Dome series.)
8. “Stand,” Lenny Kravitz. “You’re gonna run again.” (I really should do a list of “gonna” songs one of these days.) From the Black and White America album, 2011.
9. “Get Up, Stand Up.” This 1973 composition, part of the first wave of reggae consciousness in the U.S., was apparently the last song ever performed live by its co-author, Bob Marley, on tour in Pittsburgh in 1980.
10. “Stand and Deliver,” Adam Ant. In their new book Mad World—An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defiined the 1980s, Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein argue that Adam Ant’s “theatricality, and the sense of community in his calls-to-arms struck a massive chord.”
11. “Stand With Hillary,” country song produced by the Stand With Hillary PAC for the former First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State’s presumably impending 2016 White House run. “Learnin’ hindsights always right.” Shoulda used Lenny Kravitz’s “Stand” instead (“You’re gonna run again.”)
12. Rascal Flatts. More stand country, with a literary tilt: “Life’s like a novel with the end ripped out.”
13. “Stand By Your Man,” Tammy Wynette. The ultimate country stand.
14.“Stand in the Rain,” Nightcore.
15. “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” Ann Peebles.
16. “Stand by You.” The song Chrissie Hynde regretted recording, until she was told by some other sell-out ‘80s star how it touched people.
17. Oasis, “Stand by Me.” “Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday…”
18. One Direction, “Stand up.” “Oh oh oh oh, so put your hands up. Oh oh oh oh, ‘cause it’s a stand up.”
19. Willie Alexander, “Taxi Stand Diane.” 1984 EP by the Boston music scene legend.
20. “Loo, loo, loo, loo, looloo loolooooooo.” Otherwise known as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” sung wordlessly by those who’d just recently called Charlie Brown a blockhead, when they have second thoughts about a sincere little Christmas tree he purchases in the A Charlie Brown Christmas. Linus Van Pelt’s blanket warms the Christmas tree stand. “All it needed was a little love.”

Bonus tracks: Brylanehome Musical Rotating Christmas Tree Stand. $21.99 from amazon.com. “Plays 8 holiday songs as it spins, to display a 350 degree view of your artificial tree.”

To accommodate iOs 8.0 a couple of months ago, I had to clean out my phone—a virtual extension of all the moving and unpacking I’ve been doing in the physical realm lately. A rewarding exercise.

Lately, I’ve been using the “Music” area of my phone for whole albums from FIDLAR, The Orwells, The Dirtbombs and the two Early Songs of Randy Newman compilations on Ace Records. Those previous binges are the only reason those bands aren’t on my phone right now. Other major favorites that have lived on my phone for ages and are not currently represented are ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears,” Moes Haven’s “Peter Bogdonavich Can’t Stop Talking About Orson Welles,” Frankie Trumbauer & Bix Beiderbecke’s “Borneo,” Danny Kaye & The Andrews Sisters’ “Bongo Bongo Bongo,” John Alden Carpenter’s “Krazy Kat” ballet score, and many different tunes by Mark Mulcahy, The Archies and the great Bert Williams.

Here’s the current line-up, judiciously selected from my iMac library. I wasn’t trying to select exactly 50. That just happened.

“American Beat ’84,” The Fleshtones

“Apathy,” Mikal Cronin

“Are You Ready for the Fallout?,” Fastball

“The Ballad of the Sad Young Men,” Tani Seitz (The Nervous Set original cast soundtrack)

“Bang Shang a Lang,” The Archies (this song is also my ringtone)

“Beatnik Love Affair,” Noel Coward

“Book of Revelation,” Mr. T Experience

“Can’t Stop Singing,” Teen Beach Movie soundtrack

“Dishonest John,” The Jim Jones Revue

“Doin’ the New Lowdown,” Don Redman Orchestra

“Don’t Sugar Me,” Walt Kelly & Norman Monath (I Go Pogo)

“Every 1’s a Winner,” Hot Chocolate

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Zeppo Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Chico Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Harpo Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“Everyone Says I Love You” (Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers soundtrack)

“The Fatalist,” Lyonnais

“Faust,” Secret Colours

“The Girl from Ipanema,” Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

“Goin’ Down,” The Monkees

“Gotta Find You,” Joe Jonas (Camp Rock soundtrack)

“Hello Dolly,” The Shadows of Knight

“Hit Me,” Faust

“Hymn to Fredonia,” Marx Brothers Duck Soup soundtrack

“I Know a Place,” Petula Clark

“I Like Bananas,” Henry Hall & His BBC Dance Orchestra

“I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party,” The Divine Comedy

“Let the Fireflies Fly Away,” Mark Mulcahy

“Lies,” Nancy Sinatra

“Living is So Easy,” British Sea Power

“The Monkey Song,” Hoagy Carmichael

“My Hat’s on the Side of My Head,” Al Bowly

“No Future Part II: The Airing of Grievances,” Titus Andronicus

“No Future Part III: Escape from No Future,” Titus Andronicus

“Not Lately,” Bert Williams

“Oh, Is She Dumb!,” Eddie Cantor

“Olly Olly Oxen Free,” Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra

“The Perfect Nanny,” Louis Prima & Gia Maione

“Randy Scouse Git,” The Monkees

“Sodane,” Pastels & Tenniscoats

“Sugar Sugar,” The Archies

“Tapioca Tundra,” The Monkees

“This Time Josephine,” The Fleshtones

“Two Lovely Black Eyes,” Charles Coburn

“The Underture,” Alice Cooper (Welcome 2 My Nightmare)

“Village Green” Ray Davies and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, from The Kinks Choral Collection

“Watching the Knife and Fork Spoon,” Don Redman Orchestra

“We’ve Got the Look,” The Tyler Trudeau Attempt

“Where the Wind Blows,” Coco O. (The Great Gatsby soundtrack)

“Suds!,” w.h. Walker

“1, 2, 3, Partyy!,” Mission of Burma