CDs! Books! DVDs! CDs! CDs! CDs! BUY! BUY! BUY!

You know the ads. A promoter gets a big space and fills it with crap not worth buying. At least that’s what I thought before hitting the CD sale at the Brisbane Convention Centre one afternoon late in my annual sojourn home for summer holidays. My old man had warned me that he’d spent a whole $100 when he’d gone the year before, but given our diverging tastes in music I thought that meant it’d be full of older country stuff. I’d tried to not buy any CDs in December, as a test of willpower, but I said I’d go along just to hang with the family. It’s what summer holidays is all about.

But it was all so cheap. And not nearly as craptastic as I’d anticipated. I went a bit nuts (in no specific order):

• Worldwide Exclusives – Gilles Peterson
• Worldwide Programme 1 – Gilles Peterson
• Jazz Remixed – Various (Verve Jazzclub remixed by Incognito, Rockers HiFi, Frank Popp Ensemble & Others)
• Impulsive! Revolutionary Jazz Reworked – Various
• Relax – Various
• Mint 5 – Various
• Trav’lin’ Light – Queen Latifah
• One More For The Road – Toots Thielemans
• River: The Joni Letters – Herbie Hancock
• Timeless – Sergio Mendes
• Music for Zen Meditation – Tony Scott (Verve)
• Stax Does The Beatles – Various (Stax)
• Real Girl – Mutya Buena
• Encanto – Sergio Mendes
• Before Me – Gladys Knight
• Occasion (Connick on Piano 2) – Harry Connick Jr
• Destination Moon – Deborah Cox
• Ray Sings, Basie Swings – Ray Charles and the Count Basie Orchestra

I also picked up a bunch of soundtracks for a film scores show I’d like to do:

• The Mexican – Alan Silvestri
• Minority Report – John Williams
• Dave Chappelle’s Block Party – Various
• Hulk – Danny Elfman
• King Kong (2005) – James Newton Howard
• Spinal Tap – Spinal Tap
• Thriller Jazz – Various (Verve)
• The Bank – Alan John
• Gangs of New York – Various (Score pieces by Howard Shore)
• The Terminal – John Williams
• The Cotton Club – John Barry
• Spy Game – Harry Gregson-Williams
• Red Dragon – Danny Elfman
• All That Jazz – Various

It’s hard to walk past Christmas discs when you do Christmas and Christmas in July:

• Christmas in Soulsville – Various (Stax)
• Verve Remixed Christmas – Various

No CDs in January, I swear. I’ll be too busy transferring all of these on to the network & iPods.