Talking turkey

You're back! We're back! Of course, we're all too fat and full from Thanksgiving to do much of anything but sit in front of the computer and read anyway, but I'm glad you're here. You might have chosen to lay on the couch and moan instead, so I appreciate you making the effort to sit upright (maybe) and put your eyes on this page.

First of all, your new releases list for tomorrow, assuming you are not on CD moratorium and can therefore buy CDs freely. See, each year around this time Sean and I are put on CD moratorium by our spouses and other family members. This is because we have histories of going out and buying the very CDs our spouses/family members had planned to buy us for our birthdays, which are around this time of year, and for Christmas. What, I'm supposed to wait until Christmas for the the Dec. 20 new Ryan Adams release? What-EVER. But this take-charge attitude apparently is irksome when someone's trying to shop for you, so we are forbidden from making our own CD purchases from roughly mid-November through Christmas. It is a test of mettle, I tell you, but them's the rules.

Luckily, tomorrow holds nothing too tempting in the way of new releases. We have:
Dave Matthews Band -- Weekend on the Rocks (RCA)
A 2-disc set of live performances from a September run of shows at Red Rocks.
The Darkness -- One Way Ticket to Hell ... and Back (Atlanta/Wea)
Martha Wainwright -- I Will Internalize (Maple)
An EP being released in Canada (I think), available in the US of A as an import.

Right, moving on.

When I was looking into what CDs were affected by the whole Sony BMG (rat! bastards!) XCP horribleness last week, I kept seeing one title that made a teeny, tiny little bell go off in my head. I ignored it at first, but then a TV ad I caught last Friday rang the bell good and loud ... and painfully. One of the titles added to the list as a footnote (because it's labeled as having XCP but doesn't, further showing us the genius at work in the hallowed halls of Sony BMG) is "7 Days in Memphis" by Peter Gallagher. Peter Gallagher, Peter Gallagher ...

OH.

THAT Peter Gallagher. He of the O.C. Of "While You Were Sleeping." Of "American Beauty." Of "Mr. Deeds."

He sings. Now, wait, the reviewers gush, he's not Just An Actor! He's also done Broadway. So he's allowed to have a CD and not get automatically made fun of a la Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis (whose album I heard playing in a Japanese department store yesterday, I'm not even kidding), or (shudder) Robert Downey Jr. So OK. I shall not make fun of him automatically.

I shall make fun of him for cause.

His sin? A terrible, awful, brain-meltingly horrible cover of Miss Lucinda Williams' "Still I Long For Your Kiss." Really, it's unspeakable. Almost as unspeakable as what I just read on the P.G.'s Web site in a review from USA Today -- a review wherein the reviewer, whom I now hate passionately and personally, compares his voice to Lyle Lovett's. Seriously, I am looking around for some sort of violence to commit. But I would prefer not to enact violence on my computer or furniture or husband because I will just be madder about it later. So I am just flipping the bird ... as hard and as heartfelt as I possibly can ... at this entire idea. Because the P.G. does NOT sound like Lyle Lovett. Even when I try to look at it objectively (which really I can't), no way. The better comparison, if one wanted to be charitable about it, might be Neil Diamond. Or, um, um, oh man I'm too mad now to do this. Let me go calm down a minute.

...

...

OK. I believe, before the recent unpleasantness, that we were talking about the P.G.'s cover of "Still I Long For Your Kiss" and how it is horrible. I can't even really describe it, just go on iTunes (or the P.G's music Web site) and listen to the snippet ... IF YOU DARE. Or catch the commercial on TV, which features that cover, but try not to vomit on your couch. And if you really want to purge some of that Thanksgiving excess from your system, read all about how this is Not! (stamping of feet) A Vanity Project! It is a tribute (stamping, stamping) to Memphis and the Stax era of soul music! And with that I will conclude lest I throw something, which is bad manners.

Hoooo-kay. On a happier topic (well, sort of), I have a new mix CD to make this week! Here in Japan I live on a U.S. military base, even though I am most emphatically not military and neither is my husband. Long story, involves the day job. Anyway, the base is doing a neat-o thing where you can make a care package for a servicemember from this base who is deployed to a war zone (let's say, for the sake of conversation, Iraq) for the holidays. So my husband and I are aiming to make the most bitchin' care package of all time. Today I queried several of my co-workers who have been in Iraq to ask them what the troops really dig in the care packages, and to my delight many of them said mix CDs are an excellent thing to get, better even than candy. But here's the rub: I don't know who I'm mixing for. I don't even know if it's a man or a woman. I know he/she is an airman first class, which means they are pretty young, maybe 20ish. That's it. So ... how do you make a mix CD for a stranger? My strategy to start out with is to cast a wide net, include music from many genres and just deal with the fact that that means there inevitably will be something on this CD the person hates. But I'm hoping that also helps ensure there's something he/she will dig. This should be interesting.

Any suggestions? (and don't say Peter Gallagher -- the brave men and women in our armed forces have been through enough already ...)