Well it's that time of year again, the TV ads have already got the majority of the UK in a state of near panic, and some of our minds are slowly turning to piss ups, turkey dinners, huge credit card bills and Slade on the jukebox on Christmas Eve.

Such is the indelible mark the band's 1973 Christmas number one 'Merry Xmas Everybody' left on the nation's psyche that if it went missing one year I think there would be a national outpouring of real grief in our land of joy. I mean, it's as much a part of Christmas as the Queen's speech - don't you think?

Anyway enough waffle, Slade were a massive influence on my formative musical years and are still one of the best bands I've ever seen live. The 'Merry Xmas Everybody : Party Hits' collection from Universal does go someway to representing this by capturing some of the band's twenty three Top Twenty singles along with some specially recorded seasonal track treats (which I think If I'm correct were available in one way or another on 'Crazee Christmas' and 'Crackers' previously) just in time for getting your boots on ready for the office shindig.

It's always a pleasure to hear 'Coz I Love You' and 'C'mon Feel The Noize' cranked up to the max, so as an album to stick on at any of the aforementioned parties this is a guaranteed floor filler. The seasonal tracks will have an obviously short shelf life, but when it comes to the album's lead and title track I think back to the warm spring of 1982 and Bristol Colston Hall, and the fact that the crowd demanded said song be played before they left the hall that night is tantamount to its real quality as a timeless feel good anthem.

As the blurb that accompanies 'Merry Xmas Everybody : Party Hits' says - remember Slade is for life not just for Christmas.

Which is exactly what Salvo have been doing now for around the last three years with their almost faultless reissues of the band's musical legacy. Capturing the band's studio and live BBC sessions between 1969 and 1972, 'Live At The BBC' is a two disc set that really captures the sound of a band seizing control of their own destiny. On disc one (The Studio Sessions) Slade move from being described as skinheads to heavy rockers by host Brian Matthew in the space of only a few tracks without once not sounding like the band we all grew to love around 1972, when they literally exploded with 'Slade Alive.' Okay, they may have occasionally dipped into areas like psychedelia with tracks like Traffic's 'Coloured Rain' and may have got it wrong once or twice in the covers department - a truly horrible 'Nights In White Satin' features here - but over all this is the band quite like no one else at that time as Mr Matthew quite rightly points out ("far too few groups around like Slade") ahead of solid run through Moby Grape's 'Omaha'.  

Disc two is a live concert from Paris Studios from August 1972, and in spite of the then typically reserved audience reaction Noddy, Don, Dave and Jim manage to get the roof off eventually with a set closing coupling of 'Get Down Get With It' and a rip roaring take of Little Richard's 'Good Golly Miss Molly'. Amongst all this rock 'n' roll racket you also get some fledgling versions of 'Look Wot You Dun', 'Coz I Luv You' and soon to be new single 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now'; the rest as you know from the legacy of the 'Merry Xmas Everybody : Party Hits' album was glam rock history in the making.

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