Gobble-Gobble! Happy Thanksgiving! If you love someone, make them this for Thanksgiving... Cream Sherry Pumpkin Bread from The Bread Bible 2 cups sugar 1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar 3 2/3 cups fresh pumpkin puree or 29 ounces pumpkin puree 4 large eggs 1 cup nut oil (such as walnut, almond, or sunflower seed) 4 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup cream sherry Change Measurements: US | Metric DIRECTIONS Prep Time: 1 hr Total Time: 2 1/2 hrs Preheat oven to 350°; grease three 8 x 4 inch loaf pans. In a big bowl, combine the sugars, pumpkin, eggs, and nut oil. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth, about 1 minute. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. With a spatula, combine the wet and dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Stir in the cream sherry; vigorously beat until thoroughly blended, about 1-2 minutes; the batter will be thick and fluffy. Scrape the batter into the three prepared pans, filling each no more than ¾ full. Bake immediately in the center of the oven for 65-75 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean; the top of the loaves will be crusty, and there will be a long crack down the center. Let stand for 5 minutes in the pans before turning the loaves out of the pans onto a rack, then turning them right side up to cool completely. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature overnight or for up to 4 days before serving.

Happy birthday to geekfreak! I may not always understand what he's nattering on about but I admire the passion with which he says it...and he definitely loves music. So crank the and ROCK 'N' ROLL Birthday Boy! Cheers. A very happy birthday to glicine too! Cheers!

GODHEAD! If the Fonda was an 8...the Roxy show was easily a 10! Full report and photos to come but with Thanksgiving impending and food and football picks still to be made...well, you understand. Cheers and Ta, CP! PM me your snail mail address, por favor. I owe you one.

I have 5 Lead Belly collections already, so I am going to have to go over this thoroughly to see if I really need another one or if it just duplicates what I already have. Maybe the sound is better...maybe it won't be.

Holiday Inn's aren't cheap, so he can't be that broke. Some people are living in cardboard boxes and would give their right arm to be able to stay at a Holiday Inn. Time for Scott Stapp to man up.

No he is not...he is from Creed.

I don't know...it's pretty self-explanatory. But I'll let CP speak for himself. You might have to wait a tad, though, as he has jury-duty this week.

Mmmmm...pumpkin.

Moby joins for the encore...

New Order set...

Joy Division set...

Ha! I am still awake from Monday as it is only 1:41am here in Hollywood.

Let the scoffers scoff and the haters hate but Peter Hook's concert at the Fonda Theatre Saturday night was insanely good. Much better than it had any right to be and it proved all the naysayers wrong. If you have been on-the-fence about seeing Peter Hook, afraid he wouldn't be able to do the Joy Division/New Order songs justice, take my word for it and GO! If you are not a Joy Division or New Order fan then you probably aren't aware of the split that has arisen between Peter Hook and his former JD/NO bandmates Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris. Bernard and Stephen are touring with their version of New Order and Hooky is touring with his band. Frankly, I don't really care who said what or to whom at this point...I just care about the music. Aside from the late Ian Curtis, the distinctive element of Joy Division wasn't Bernard or Stephen, it was Peter Hook. Hooky created a bass sound wholly his own and influenced countless bassists in the post-punk era. So if you ask me if I would rather see the original Joy Division bass player or the guitarist, my answer is easy...the bass player! 32 songs. Three hours. Moby joining for the encore. Closing the night with an extra song not listed on the setlist...JD's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Crowd goes bonkers. I haven't danced so much at a concert in ages. My legs were jelly and my feet dead-tired at the end but it was worth it. Shots and beers afterwards with friends at The Frolic Room across the street from the Fonda. Staggered home to bed at 4 in the morning. Memorable moments from the night...after a riveting full-length version of "The Perfect Kiss", Hooky bellowed to the crowd "That's how you play 'The Perfect Kiss'!" The bouncy crowd euphoria when they played "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "True Faith". Another moment...some retard keeps holding up a Man City jersey and Peter fixes him with a look and says "You're really putting me off with that shirt, mate!" No opening band. The first set was a 7-song Joy Division set lasting about 40 minutes or so. After a short 10 minute break, they came back and performed the entire New Order albums "Low-Life" and "Brotherhood" (possibly my favourite New Order album) in sequence. Then the encore with Moby singing the first two songs, "New Dawn Fades" and "Ceremony". Then the two New Order dance classics, "True Faith" and "Temptation", and finally bringing the evening to a close with the Joy Division classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart". It was 12:30am when the show ended. Hook's deep voice actually suited the Joy Division songs pretty well...there were moments when he sounded eerily like Ian Curtis. The New Order songs were sometimes out of his range and therefore he had the guitar player help him out at times. The main thing is he played the bass like a beast. The band is Peter Hook: vocals, bass, guitar and melodica; David Potts: guitar and vocals; Jack Bates: bass; Andy Poole: keyboards, backing vocals; Paul Kehoe: drums. I will try to sort my photos out and post them. Until then, here is the setlist from the saturday November 22 show. Next up...the all-Joy Division show Tuesday night at the Roxy! "Closer" and "Unknown Pleasures" in their entirety! Again thanks to the magnificent and gracious CP.

None. Oh sure, The Beatles and The Stones and Hendrix all had their moments of greatness, but their best days were behind them by the time I was old enough to appreciate them for the most part. As for Cream, The Who, Pink Floyd, Rush, and others....they don't come close, in my opinion. Grateful Dead? Phish? Ummm, not quite. I see many people mentioning Queen. Queen had moments of brilliance but never a sustained run of greatness. Their early concerts were wild but also wildly erratic and their later ones filled with too much pop fluff and soundtrack tunes. Many bands had a great album or a great concert tour but what set Led Zeppelin above the others in my estimation was the length and breadth of their run. Even if you want to deduct points for the long drum solos, their concerts were still out-of-this-world. And not in a shallow cheap way like Kiss...anybody can set off flashpots and explosions. It doesn't take much imagination to hire a pyrotechnics crew. Led Zeppelin set off explosions in your mind with their music and sheer charismatic aura. It wasn't just how hard they rocked or the musicianship or the stage-show trappings, either...it was something else. An indefinable weirdness...a strange otherness to their music that took you out of this world onto a different plane of existence. Pink Floyd and other psychedelic bands would try to achieve this but I found their efforts often fell flat. In Pink Floyd's case, it was simply because tempo-wise their songs were always the same boring pace and Roger's lyrics so whiny and misanthropic at times that it left me cold. Because of all the varied influences flowing thru Led Zeppelin's music...Celtic folk, Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues, North African and Arabic trance, Detroit Motown, Memphis funk, San Francisco acid rock, Yardbirds/Cream blues-rock...there was a textural density to their music and concerts that no other band of the time possessed. There have only been a few bands that I have seen where for a brief moment or two, I thought they were achieving a Led Zeppelin-like mystical, musical alchemy...to the point where I might have entertained the notion that what I was hearing was just as good as Led Zeppelin in their prime. And none of them were from Seattle. 1. Early Jane's Addiction...by early, I mean the first run of the band from 1986-1991. When they would slam into "Ocean Size", "Pigs in Zen", "Mountain Song", or the ethereal "Then She Did" or "Summertime Rolls", there was a vibe that was so intense and unreal that made those early Jane's Addiction shows electrifying. When JA were on, they were scary-good. And "Three Days" is no less than the "Stairway to Heaven" of the 90s, complete with epic guitar solo. 2. Sigur Ros. Coming all the way from Iceland, this is the music I imagine Jimmy would have created if he had spent more time developing his bowed-guitar technique as a way to compose songs instead of just a special-effect in the middle of "Dazed and Confused". Jonsi also had a way of singing that was just as alien-like as early Robert Plant. 3. Sonic Youth...mainly the SST years, especially the "EVOL" to "Daydream Nation" period. A strange choice to most of you, I am sure...but when Lee and Thurston would get their guitars clanging and banging in those weird alternate tunings, it was unlike any guitar noise I had heard, save the Velvet Underground and Jimmy's theremin and noise solo workouts. It was chaotic...it was loud...it was beautiful. Plus, Steve Shelley was an underrated drummer. The later Sonic Youth would get a little erratic album-wise, but every once in a while they would drop a mind-melting song or two...i.e. the mesmerizing 17-minute freakout of "The Diamond Sea".

Mum's the word. Shhhhhhhh....

I find the new U2 album hit-and-miss. And the flood of U2 Apple ads annoy me. If their ticket prices are reasonable, I will still see them in concert, for they usually deliver the goods live. But the last album of theirs that I found consistently good was "All That You Can't Leave Behind"...and that was 14 years ago!!!

We are heading into the home-stretch of the season, folks. Time is running out for making up serious ground on the leaders. It is going to call for some gutsy picking...going against the grain of conventional wisdom. Two items of note: 1) The bye weeks are over...we are back to full 16-game schedules! 2) THREE GAMES ON THANKSGIVING DAY!!!! Week 13 Schedule (ooooh, will this be an unlucky week? ) Thursday Nov. 27 (Happy Thanksgiving Football Day!) Chicago @ Detroit Philadelphia @ Dallas Seattle @ San Francisco Sunday Nov. 30 Washington @ Indianapolis Tennessee @ Houston Cleveland @ Buffalo San Diego @ Baltimore New York Giants @ Jacksonville Cincinnati @ Tampa Bay Oakland @ St. Louis New Orleans @ Pittsburgh Carolina @ Minnesota Arizona @ Atlanta New England @ Green Bay Denver @ Kansas City Monday Dec. 1 Miami @ New York Jets (Who at NFL headquarters thought the Jesters were fit for prime-time tv?!?)

Welcome paul carruthers to the winner's circle for the first time this season...joined by previous winners Walter and LedZeppfan77...all at 12-3 for the week. Congratulations! Week 12 Results LedZeppfan77: 12-3* paul carruthers: 12-3* Walter: 12-3* Anjin-san: 11-4 jabe: 11-4 jb126: 11-4 Strider: 11-4 apantherfrommd: 10-5 Bong-Man: 10-5 ebk: 10-5 in_the_evening: 10-5 zepscoda: 9-6 mack: 8-7 * = Winner of the Week Season Standings After 176 Games 1. jb126: 121-54-1*** 2. Anjin-san: 117-58-1***** 2. Walter: 117-58-1**** 3. apantherfrommd: 113-62-1*** 4. Bong-Man: 109-66-1* 4. in_the_evening: 109-66-1* 4. paul carruthers: 109-66-1* 4. Strider: 109-66-1 5. ebk: 105-70-1** 5. mack: 105-68-1 6. jabe: 103-72-1* 6. LedZeppfan77: 103-72-1** 7. zepscoda: 94-80-1 * = Number of weeks won

Much respect for Pat Quinn. Rest in Peace. http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/11930311/nhl-reaction-pat-quinn-death The L.A. Kings (Quinn coached the Kings in the mid-80s) put out an official statement...from the Kings website: The Los Angeles Kings today released the following comments regarding the passing of long-time player, coach, executive and Hockey Hall of Fame chairman Pat Quinn. Quinn coached the Kings during the 1984-85 season, the 1985-86 season, and part of the 1986-87 season: Luc Robitaille: He was a great man for the game of hockey and a person who commanded a lot of respect. He was my first NHL coach and he made quite an impression on me as I was breaking into the league and learning the game. He also is the person who called me when I got the news I was being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Needless to say that will always be a special moment I will cherish, and receiving that news was an even greater honor coming from Pat. Jim Fox: Respect is the first word that comes to mind when I think about Pat. He had an extremely powerful persona and he commanded respect just by the way he carried himself. At the same time, he brought a calmness and when appropriate, a very sensitive side too. He knew when to be firm but he could also share a laugh with his players. I believe his biggest strength as a coach was his ability to find the strengths in his players as individuals and then mold that into a solid group who were striving for the same goals. He was a very effective teacher through a clear and direct manner of getting his point across. There was never a question of how much he cared for his players and his team and I will always remember Pat for the respect he showed his players. The hockey community will miss Pat and all that he brought to our game. Bob Miller: I am very sorry to hear the news of Pat’s passing, though we knew he was quite ill. Pat always had a big presence about him. He coached some great Kings players and was always very well respected by those in our organization and around the NHL. He was also a coach I think players certainly respected but maybe they were a little afraid of him as well due to his size. You didn’t want the wrath of Pat Quinn but, overall, what a great hockey career as a player, coach, GM and then as chairman of the HHOF. As the coach of the Kings he was really great to get along with from a media standpoint and very cooperative. He always took the time to breakdown the game for our fans. He had a lot of interests beyond hockey but hockey was his passion.

The Lakers season just gets more gruesome. Steve Nash. Julius Randle. Now add Xavier Henry to the list of Lakers lost for the season. Ruptured Achilles tendon. It won't be long before Kobe gets hurt again...just wait and see. Pitiful times for this long-time Laker fan.

Glad to be of service, Chicago. Many people are unaware that Scott is still going strong, putting out new music, and he just dropped a doozy of an album recently that is vastly different from his 60s output. "Soused" is his latest album, a collaboration with the "heavier-than-heavy" band Sunn O))). Intense is putting it mildly.

^^^ Sorry, I have such a distaste for that Winston jerk I cannot stomach FSU at all. But then, I don't care for any of the Florida schools. Both Notre Dame and USC (to their other big rival...UCLA ) lost this past weekend and enter this Saturday's annual rivalry game on a decided down-note. Both teams will be unranked and the buzz is definitely less than when the season started for both these teams.

^^^ Happy belated birthday to you. Warm and happy birthday wishes to some people I used to have fun chatting with but haven't been around in a long time...Kimbersays and Lëah! Hope life is good for you and you have a fun birthday today. Cheers to you both!

Ditto. I also had the audio of the 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD transferred to cd so I could listen to the RAH, MSG, Earls Court and Knebworth stuff.

Ha, even if I wanted to forget, you wouldn't let me. Two upset specials in a row...looking forward to your next one.