Proud parents?

​With every gossip site on the planet reporting that Beyonce has given birth to Blue Ivy Carter just yesterday, Rocks Off suddenly realized that we haven't gotten her a thing! While we make a quick Target run, we thought it might be fun to ponder what sort of gifts Beyonce and Jay's rich celebrity pals might have planned for her baby shower. After all, mom is a global superstar and dad is a rap legend -- this kid is destined to be pop royalty. Some stupid breast pump simply won't do! The following suggestions, we feel, would make far more worthy presents for 2012's first celebrity parents.

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​In the late '70s, there was a movie spoof on Friday the 13th called Saturday the 14th. It was about as dumb as you imagine it would be. Well, insert punchline here because Black Friday is over, but we are still smack dab in the middle of Cyber Monday, where instead of being stampeded by rampaging shoppers hell bent on getting a cheap flat screen, you might instead get your email hacked by a nerd hell bent on getting a cheap flat screen.

Musicians over the years have often railed against the excess of modern capitalism. Others have made it rain and reveled in the opportunity money has given them. Either way, people love to talk about stuff they buy...and sing about it too. So, here is some music to rock your Cyber Monday.

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Audiophiles think Doc Brown's speaker sounds like shit.

​In a classic bit of stand up comedy, Steve Martin described his obsessive search for the best stereo system of the day. He kept adding more and more speakers until he finally reached the "google-phonic" stereo with the closest number of speakers to infinity, which, like all the rest, sounded like shit. Then, he thought, "maybe it's the needle."

Audiophiles must love that joke because, despite the fact that vinyl hasn't been in mass production for over 20 years, they still think it is the only option for listening to music well. They are the hardest of hardcore music nerds. They live for vinyl re-issues, die at the thought of MP3 compression, drool over speaker systems that cost about as much as a down payment on a luxury automobile and believe we're all idiots for thinking the stereos we bought on sale at Best Buy "sound fine."

While we tool around in our cars with our factory stereo system and listen to our crappy earbuds, audiophiles are adjusting the acoustics of their media rooms with the precision of a professional recording studio. They are dead ass serious about sound.

If you have one of these folks in your life, first, we're very, very sorry. Second, we offer you a little help on what to get the man or woman who craves the purest of audio.

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Remember Big Mouth Billy? Yes, you do.

​The holiday season has crept upon us once again. There is nothing kids love more than toys that can bust a move. Dancing toys have always made the list of hot commodities during the Christmas season. Even some adults are amused and intrigued by their favorite characters moving to the beat. Here's a list of some of the best dancing toys of the past and present.

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​As the timeless tale of the Little Drummer Boy reminds us, there is no greater gift than the gift of music. But what about those on your Christmas list who already have plenty of music in their lives? Buying gifts for musicians is no easy task -- most of them already own the entire Rush discography, and subtle hints that maybe, possibly they should consider taking lessons are impossible to wrap.

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​When so many Americans will be camping out at Best Buys and fighting over big screen televisions at Walmart, music fans will be sleeping soundly in anticipation of Record Store Day's Black Friday events.

The now annual day celebrating the stores that once carried the weight of music sales is held each spring, but it has become popular enough that it has spawned a second day held the day after Thanksgiving. Given the notorious nature of Black Friday, it makes sense that independent record stores would wish to participate in the mayhem in their own way.

We'll have plenty of coverage next week of all the event held at local stores, but stay tuned this afternoon for a contest we will post on Rocks Off as a precursor to next week. The winner gets a swag bag full of record store goodies from Cactus Music! Knowledge of vinyl and logos will be helpful, so study up.

​Street Player: My Chicago Story
By Danny Seraphine
Wiley, 304 pp., $24.95.

From their 1967 founding to his unceremonious ouster from the group in 1990, Danny Seraphine provided the pounding backbeat for Chicago, both for the early, raucous jazz/rock material and the later, mellow Top 40 hits.

In Street Player: My Chicago Story, Seraphine writes about his early days running with gangs, his wild ride with the group, and his life afterward. Currently the leader/drummer of California Transit Authority (which has released one record, Full Circle), Seraphine also gives drum clinics around the country and has an upcoming DVD, The Art of Jazz/Rock Drumming.

Rocks Off spoke with the skin-thumper about the book and why Houston has provided two not-so-great memories for him.

RO: Musicians sometimes embellish a shady past, but you actually ran with some pretty tough street gangs. What would your life have been like if you never got that call to join [pre-Chicago] band Jimmy Ford and the Executives?

DS: No one knows, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I quit school, I was confused, and I was with a violent crowd. I wasn't headed in a very good direction, and that call sort of pulled me out of that and put me into music.

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​Apathy for the Devil: A 70s Memoir
By Nick Kent
Da Capo Press, 416 pp., $17.95.

While Cameron Crowe's wonderful but fictional Almost Famous told a sanitized story of music-journalist-meets-bands in the '70s, Former New Musical Express writer Nick Kent's memoir is a warts/coke spoons/social disease-and all tale of the same era.

And know this: Nick Kent had more fun by age 24 than you will during your entire life.

His fascinating eyewitness accounts include musical (but mostly non-musical) recreational pursuits with a who's who of '70s rock: Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Brian Wilson, The Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde (with whom he had a romantic relationship), favorite running/drugging buddy Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and a string of others.

In fact, Kent is something of a Zelig of the period, popping up just about everywhere a guitar chord is struck or a line of blow laid out; a subplot of the book is Kent's own long heroin addiction and what it reduced him to.

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​Life
By Keith Richards with James Fox
Little, Brown, And Company, 576 pp, $29.99.

Watch this first. It's Keef's own intro to Life: "It starts with a bang."

The first chapter of Keith Richards' first-ever memoir, Life, reads like a deleted scene from the Johnny Depp movie Blow. There are knives, cocaine, briefcases filled with cocaine, crooked cops, lawyers, more cocaine, a parade of fans and our boy Keef in the middle of it all, nonplussed and waiting it all out.

And within a matter of pages, we are back to World War II, watching little Richards being born during a rain of German artillery shells in England, proving that the man has never been one for serenity and silence.

Life, simply put, is perhaps the best rock and roll book ever written, by someone who has been on the front line since almost the beginning, first as a fan, then a struggling artist, a teen sensation, a counter-culture figure, a libertine drug user making some of the most iconic riffs we will ever hear, and onto rock and roll legend. He personifies the genre at this point, too tough or too stubborn to die.

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​AC/DC: High Voltage Rock 'n' Roll - The Ultimate Illustrated History
By Phil Sutcliffe
Voyageur Press, 224 pp., $35

A genuine coffee table book on the greatest exports to ever come from Down Under is cool enough, but the fact that the cover has a cut-out circle that allows you to "spin" Angus Young in the stage is pure design genius.

While clearly a clip job from previous sources, the book's just-the-facts text nevertheless tells AC/DC's complete story with enough general history for casual fans and details and great quotes for diehards.

Many of the best ones come from vocalist Bon Scott, often ironic in light of his "death by misadventure," such as "It's only rock 'n' roll and I like it. But I want to have a base...planes, hotels, groupies, booze, people, towns. They all scrape something from you."

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