Allen Ginsberg

Bob Dorough: Jazzman Reflects on Miles Davis, "Devil May Care" & More

Bob Dorough is the kind of musician who when he's performing in the area, someone makes sure to call the local newspaper and tell them about it. In this case the man who made the phone call was Houston jazz producer Joe Peine. (Thanks, Joe.) Perhaps best-known for the insouciant jazz standard "Devi ... More >>

Bob Dorough: The Story Behind "Schoolhouse Rock"

By the late '60s, despite a long and varied career that included the albums Devil May Care and Yardbird Suite, associations with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and perfecting the art of "vocalese" - assigning lyrics to the melodies of instrumental jazz solos - Bob Dorough could see the writing on t ... More >>

MountainFilm in Telluride on Tour

Doctors Who Rock: 9 Musicians With Their Ph.Ds

Alice Cooper recently received an Honorary Doctorate from The Musician's Institute in Los Angeles. After receiving the award, he said, "One more of these and I can write prescriptions." Now you know that Alice Cooper could one day write you a prescription... to rock. You're welcome. Out of sheer c ... More >>

Will You Be Watching the New James Franco Movie The Broken Tower?

James Franco has written, directed and starred in a new biopic, The Broken Tower, which was released on Video on Demand and digital download on Tuesday. The man behind the mustache is Hart Crane, a homosexual Jazz Age poet who committed suicide at sea after a turbulent life full of love affairs, den ... More >>

Uncovering Peter Case: The Rocks Off Interview

Julie EnsmingerPeter Case at Cactus Music last year​"I was always sort of not interested in what my generation was doing," Peter Case told Rocks Off 10 years ago after flipping through Louvin Bros. compact discs at a now-defunct bookstore in Sugar Land, surrounded by car dealerships, business ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Music Videos Of All Time

​It's hard to fathom a time before music videos, and it's even sadder to remember when channels like MTV and VH1 were wall-to-wall music videos. In between there was a golden age, when with every clip that you watched could spark a revolution in you, or at least change your fashion sense. It's ... More >>

Sgt. Pepper & Three Other Bum Albums By Rock Icons

​It was 40 (four) years ago today - in the UK, and tomorrow in the U.S. - that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, history stopped, the Summer of Love began, and critics freaked the fuck out. When the Beatles released their LSD-soaked counterpunch to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in June 1967, K ... More >>

The 31 Best Music Documentaries Of All Time

​Hands down, above all of these following music documentaries, Craig's Hlist's two favorite of all-time are The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years, and The Beatles Anthology. We can watch both on repeat for days and not complain. That will probably all change once we see ... More >>

Howl

10 Music Stories We Wish We'd Ignored This Year

​We in the alternative media - not necessarily the Houston Press and/or Rocks Off, not all the time - enjoy calling out our mainstream brethren. Whether it's ten books that didn't make The New York Times' "Best of 2010" list, or "10 Stories Our Print Version Accidentally Overlooked," us "under ... More >>

Bob Dylan Rolls With The Thunder In Shelter From The Storm

Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Years By Sid Griffin ​Of the many different periods in the career of Bob Dylan, the years 1975-76 were particularly productive on a variety of fronts: the recording of Desire, two Rolling Thunder Revue tours, filming of Renaldo & Clara, and ... More >>

Aftermath: Patti Smith, Not Quite As Mythic As Her Music, At U of H

Eric Hester/ photos courtesy of Voices Breaking Boundaries​Have you ever gone to see an artist, but then wished you hadn't? Not because of a bad performance, but just because the real-life person didn't fit so neatly into the tiny box you'd made for them in your brain? That's how Aftermath felt ab ... More >>

Dream of Life Offers An Intimate Look At The Newly Widowed Patti Smith

​Dream of Life, the 2008 documentary about Patti Smith, opens with Smith's own narration of the many loved ones she's outlived over the years. Among those names are her husband, MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith; her brother Todd; and controversial photographer and close friend Robert Mapplethorpe. ... More >>

Amiri Baraka

With more than 50 years as an artist and activist, this writer continues to bring readers new work

Naked Lunch

William Burroughs's writings made for a difficult, though not entirely inaccessible, film

Brentano String Quartet

Baritone Leon Williams adds his voice to the mix

10 Records for the Thinking Hardcore Fan

The 2008 release The Chemistry of Common Life, by the shadowy experimental punk band Fucked Up, took the indie rock world by storm, prompting some critics to call it a breath of fresh air from the moribund depths of hardcore. This Friday, Super Unison brings Fucked Up to Houston, and in celebration ... More >>

Eyeballin': Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

A shy and awkward Iowan prairie boy sits down in front of the camera somewhere in late 1970s New York, and out comes one of the most enigmatic and genre-confounding voices of our time. Recently released DVD Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell is less of a documentary and more of a dee ... More >>

Steak, Wine and Pie at Dharma Cafe

Like a Complete Unknown

I'm Not There and the changing face of Bob Dylan on film

Our top DVD picks scheduled for release on July 19

Hometown Legend

Coming of age and stayin' alive on the mean streets of Astoria, Queens

Eric Taylor

Saturday, January 21, at Anderson Fair, 2007 Grant, 713-528-8576.

Poster Child

Rice Gallery revamps the hippie aesthetic without selling out

Rotation

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Take His Word

Jerome Vielman brings spoken word to Industry Cafe

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Slanguage Arts

It's not your father's English class

Silent Type

The multitalented Alejandro Escovedo prefers to let the music do the talking

A Mojito? Ya Betcha!

The Latin fusion restaurant Bossa sports a Minnesota accent

Accidental Sexologist

When he was young, William Simon wanted to change the world. The late University of Houston sociology professor changed the way we view sex instead.

Back to the Beat

Source pays homage to Kerouac and company

Virgin Rebirth

The statue doesn't look like a traditional Our Lady of Guadalupe. But its appearance is just the start of the

Night & Day

June 25 - July 1, 1998

Rotation

Pillow Talk

Cornershop's East/West diplomacy is as soothing as it is sophisticated

Rotation

Rotation

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