Morning Shorts: Tea, oranges, bonus tracks

Leonard Cohen's back catalog will be reissued by Columbia Legacy, with the first three albums due March 27th, along with unspecified bonus tracks. Depending on the bounty I could well be suckered into padding Columbia's bottom line. What will the bonus tracks be? A good bet would be the 1968 BBC session Cohen recorded, including the otherwise unavailable track "There's No Reason Why You Should Remember Me"(thanks, Kwaya Na Kisser). The brief singalong is a good reminder of the power of Cohen's early catalog; see if listening to this doesn't make you dig up Songs and bedsit the night away.

MP3: Leonard Cohen - There's No Reason Why You Should Remember Me

The great Bishop Allen slip in under the wire with the final two EPs of 2006, November and December. The two preview tracks are below.

MP3: Bishop Allen - Calendar
MP3: Bishop Allen - Tea for Two

Will Ferrell must have been unavailable; John C. Reilly has been cast as the lead in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, a parody of music biopics co-written by Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks, the 40-Year-Old Virgin). What's more:

After writing song titles and lyric fragments into the screenplay, Kasdan and Apatow reached out to musicians they admired who could use the script cues for songwriting inspiration. The brainstorming has resulted in songs like Cox's first huge hit, "Walk Hard"; a tune from his "dangerous period" called "Guilty as Charged" and songs from a protest album he turns out during his socially conscious political phase named "These Are My Issues." Marshall Crenshaw penned the title song, and indie singer-songwriters Dan Bern, Charlie Wadhams and Candy Butchers co-founder Mike Viola are contributing material. The filmmakers have also recruited Van Dyke Parks, a legendary composer and producer who wrote lyrics for Brian Wilson, produced early Randy Newman and Ry Cooder records, and composed the feature soundtracks for "Goin' South" and "The Two Jakes," to write a musical sequence.

This blockbuster-to-be starts filming in LA in January, to be released in time for Oscar season, one only hopes.