Gift Guide: Pick presents that sing

'Tis the season to panic and realize it's only a month until Christmas.

Have no fear. I'm here to help.

At least, I'm here to help with someone who likes music: your 12-year-old brother who got his first iPod, the teenager just discovering Pink Floyd, your college-aged sister that you can't keep out of the rock shows, the folks who like concerts but two kids keep them at home, and/or your parents who refuse to believe that any good music was made after the Mamas and the Papas dissolved.

So here it is, everything from books to clothes to actual music that your favorite music fan will love.

Encore board game, $35

Everyone has that friend who knows the words to every song. Or thinks he does. Test your buddy's knowledge by playing Encore, where he has to sing songs that include words like “piano,” “love” or “highway.”

Gig Posters, Volume 1, $40

This collection of 700 concert posters showcases the best of the thousands that have been posted at gigposters.com. Bonus: 101 of them are perforated and can be taken from the book and framed.

“The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge,” $12.95

This book defines everything from Rickenbacker guitars to alt country, giving good laughs to real-life rock snobs and helping educate those who just want to know what the writers of Pitchfork.com are talking about when they say stuff like “sinister Krautrock of ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)'” or a song “clearly recalls Joey Santiago's shimmery lead on the Pixies classic ‘Here Comes Your Man.'” (Both quotes taken directly from Pitchfork.com album reviews.)

CD box sets

Every fan loves a CD box set that covers a particular genre, artist or event, and quite a few have been released this year.

Sinatra: New York ($79.98) features four discs of previously unreleased New York performances from Ol' Blue Eyes.

Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm ($79.99) is six discs of live performances and a book on the historic festival concert.

Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight ($59.98) is a four-disc set that covers the King's entire recording career. It has everything from “That's All Right” to “A Little Less Conversation.”

The Beatles box sets were released this summer and come in mono ($298.98) and stereo ($259.98). The stereo box set includes all 17 digitally remastered discs. The mono box set has each album with the exceptions of “Yellow Submarine,” “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be” because those albums were originally released in stereo, not mono.

T-shirts from your favorite rock stars, $25 and up at WornFree.com

From Kurt Cobain's “Grunge is dead” shirt to Joey Ramone's “N.Y.C” shirt, Worn Free sells reproduced replicas of the famous apparel your favorite rock stars wore. The tag of each shirt is a sticker that looks like a backstage pass, which includes a photo of a rock star wearing the shirt alongside the artist's name, date and venue.

Michael: From the editors of Rolling Stone, $29.99

Anyone still needing a Michael Jackson fix can check out this book, which includes features on and loads of photos of M.J., courtesy of the folks who have been covering him his entire career: the staff at Rolling Stone.

SA1 headphones, $80 from sleek-audio.com

These puppies aren't your average iPod earphones. First off, they can be used either plugged into your headphone jack or to transmit wirelessly from your iPod, meaning you don't have to worry about that pesky headphone wire while you're on the treadmill. In addition, the body of these sleek headphones is carved out of rosewood, meaning they both look snazzy and sound impeccable.

Rock Guitar T-Shirt, $29.99 from ThinkGeek.com

Everyone's seen the necktie that plays a song or the shirt that lights up, but this is something new. The shirt can be played like a guitar by fingering and picking major chords on the shirt's screen-printed guitar. “Strum” the guitar using the provided magnetic guitar pick, and the chords are played through the shirt's amplifier.

Contact the writer:

444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com

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