Reports of Seattle's demise were premature. Now that they are getting some of their injured players back, their defense is starting to resemble last year's Super Bowl form. Looks like this is it for Harbaugh and the 49'ers. Another dismal effort at HOME. Colin Kaepernick looks decidedly average and none of their receivers have stepped up...where was Vernon Davis last night? Frank Gore is useless. His career is over. The Philadelphia-Dallas result yesterday may be a mirage in that the Eagles are the worst type of team to face on a short week. But give a team time to prepare and I think a good defensive team will slow down Chip Kelly's and the Eagles' fast-break offense in the playoffs. Sanchez sure looks like he is having fun after the hell he was in at New York. New England @ Green Bay...Brady versus Rodgers...this game will determine the MVP in my opinion.

11 years in a row for the Hokies! Are you doing the Hokey-Pokey Virginia? Nothing like Rivalry Week! Notre Dame @ USC! http://sports.yahoo.com/news/notre-dame-usc-rivalry-tradition-motivation-213629835--ncaaf.html;_ylt=A0SO80buhHlU2ckA2l1XNyoA Michigan @ Ohio State! Florida @ Florida St.! Georgia Tech @ Georgia! Mississippi St. @ Mississippi! Auburn @ Alabama!

Glad you got something for your trouble of waiting in the cold. Got stuck working today so missed getting Black Friday Record Store Day releases...Elvis, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Fishbone, Flaming Lips, and New Order were definitely on my list.

My second-favourite Sinatra album.

Amidst the holiday hubbub and all, I forgot about my meeting with one of the great rock and roll photographers, Mick Rock. He shot the cover of The Stooges "Raw Power" album, as well as many iconic photos of Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Lou Reed...and countless others.

Thanksgiving leftovers ROCK!

Yes, this is a must. Discovered this way of cooking turkey quite by accident 17 years ago or so when my oven was acting weird. The only way I cook a bird now.

All the usual Thanksgiving foods...and some unusual ones, too, as one of the two Thanksgiving dinners I was involved with was vegan. Oh...and copious amounts of Rioja. A hearty toast to all of you...

Yep...that clinches the deal. Best part is I can trade in my other collections for trade credit and pretty much get this new one for nothing.

Enjoy the Turkey Day games! Thursday Nov. 27 Detroit Dallas San Francisco Sunday Nov. 30 Indianapolis Houston Buffalo Baltimore Jacksonville Cincinnati St. Louis...Rams and Raiders...two teams that used to play in L.A. New Orleans Minnesota Atlanta Green Bay Kansas City Monday Dec. 1 Miami...if your Fins blow this Paul, grrrrr.

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....