Judith Owen and Harry Shearer, and Office Romance

A packed episode with new Christmas music from Phoebe Bridgers, Nick Lowe with Los Straitjackets, and guitarist Patrick Droney, who covers Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" as part of this season's Spotify Singles.

This week I have two interviews. First, I talk to singer Judith Owen and comic actor and satirist Harry Shearer, who have hosted "Christmas Without Tears"--a holiday Christmas party on stage--yearly since 2005. They talk about the event, Christmas music, and their plans to stream "A Very Virtual Christmas Without Tears" on Friday, December 11. Normally, they would have musical guests from the cities they perform in; this year, they'll have performances from Richard Thompson, Jon Cleary, Steve Lukather with Ringo Starr, Julia Fordham, Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony, The Stanton Moore Trio, burlesque artist Trixie Minx, Chris Difford of Squeeze, actor John Goodman, Donald Fagen, and many more. 

I interviewed Owen and Shearer about Christmas music for MySpiltMilk.com in 2012, and recently I talked to Shearer about his new album, The Many Moods of Donald Trump. 

After that, I talk to actress Amy Carlson (FBI: Most Wanted, Blue Bloods, The Society) and guitarist Seth Jabour (Les Savy Fav, 8G Band) to discuss Office Romance, their project with Syd Butler, also of Les Savy Fav and the 8G Band. So far, they have got together to record two Christmas records, the most recent of which, Holidays of Love, was released this fall. We talk about Amy's love of the classic Christmas compilations--the kind I talked about with Joe Adragna of The Junior League last year--and how Jabour and Butler's job making music for The Late Show with Seth Meyers helped them write music for the album. 

For the occasion, Carlson put together a Spotify playlist of songs that inspired her or that we talked about in our conversation.

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