Thank God for press releases. Without them, how would we know about some of the least-interesting product announcements being made at shows like the huge NAMM music conference?

Here are just a few of the most-useless product announcements made in the last few days. And why do I have a sinking suspicion I’ll have part II coming soon?

Taylor’s Limited-Edition Guitars: You’ve gotta love a press release that begins with the words “Acoustic guitar players love wood.” And Taylor delivers: with guitars made out of exotic rainforest wood. Now that can’t be good for the environment, can it?

John Mayer-signature Stratocaster. I was hoping for a John Mayer signature keyboard since John regularly makes fun of his own keyboard skills, but I’ll have to settle for this.

Griffin iPod Cases: Stop the presses! A custom case — for the iPod? Whodathunkit. But what’s newsworthy here is clearly the watermelon pattern with which you can adorn your Apple player.

Evans Utility Key: Sure, having a drum key handy is nice, but what about when you need to open your next bottle o’ Miller Lite? Evans has your answer. Absolutely worthy of a press release, maybe even a demo video? (Flash animation?)

Jack Daniel’s Amp: Peavey has my absolute favorite of these: a Jack Daniel’s-branded guitar amp. (I’m not making this up.) It’s “a U.S.A.-made guitar amplifier inspired by the common American heritage shared by Peavey and Jack Daniel’s.” That heritage being — drunk guitar players?

Truly, a mark of excellence.

Okay, get back to whatever you were doing — I’ve got to get back to my Wild Turkey-edition Casio keyboard and L.S.D.-edition Moog Modular.

To make Friday truly a Day of Shame (hey, you have the holiday weekend to recover, at least if you’re in the US), I bring you: truly offensive, awful, and nausea-inducing album covers. No, not World’s Worst Album Covers (as pointed out in December by Music Thing.) The Museum of Bad Album Covers. (Hear that’s going to be on the Mall in Washington soon.)

How bad? Ethel Merman disco album bad. Eel in a condom bad. And yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders really did appear on album covers.

Embarassing, but as Tom observes today, sometimes bands look like douchebags on their own. That is, even when they’re not riding a giant rat.

Is there digital music anywhere in there? I was too busy trying to reorient my digestive system, so I don’t know. But this does come our way from the Electronic Musician newsletter, so at least if I’m off-topic, so is editor Gino Robair. And anyway, the next time your acoustic guitar-playing friend tells you technology is taking the soul out of music, agree with them, and say there’s just no one like Roger any more.

Kriminal, an English producer, today unveiled Karnage, a free Windows VSTi synth. (Kareful, Kriminal, or the use of all those K's could get you a Kall from Korg's legal department.)

Kriminal says he wanted a "workhorse" specifically designed for sounds
he liked. He got them — check out the demos for some fat analog
ugliness ready to cut through a mix. Sure, it's another synth with a
couple of oscillators and filter sections, but this one definitely
sounds unique. Karnage is due for inclusion on an upcoming CD +
tutorials from UK magazine Computer Music. (Oh, yeah, sure, Computer
Music has cool synths on a bundled CD and everything but . . . um . . .
the staff of Keyboard is cuter, right?)