Animal Collective

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Tonight: Danielson at Walter's on Washington

The career of Daniel Smith, leader and mastermind of Danielson, has a strange irony: his music promotes spiritual healing, oneness and love, but by and large, his audience has been attracted by its joyous perversity. Smith sings exclusively in a high, squeaky voice, and his twee, disorientingly ad ... More >>

Dave Wrangler Mauls Animal Collective, Stands Up Ludacris

Houston mash-up master Dave Wrangler recently remixed Animal Collective's "My Girls," from the Brooklyn buzzmongers' brand-new Merriweather Post Pavilion, for German Web site Byte.fm. It's something of a hit - "Since I put it out, I've had numerous inquiries for DJ bookings all over the country ... More >>

Aftermath: Annuals at Walter's On Washington

Photos by Liz Countryman If you could squeeze music from the udders of a cow, pour it a cup, mix in equal parts chocolate sauce and broken up pieces of stained glass stolen from the Vatican, drink it while on the down-slope of a roller-coaster, go home and sit on the back-porch and listen to your gr ... More >>

Don't Ever Count Britney Out — Just Like These Others.

Back in Black

Bam, It's Kam!

Houston's genre-hopping indie darling eyes SXSW

Young Mammals Chow Down on First LP Carrots

Dynamically Yours

Moments the Grammy Awards Would Rather Forget

Soy Bombed

Recent Super Bowl Halftime Highlights and Lowlights

Backfield in Motion

Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion

www.myanimalhome.net

Think Buckcherry Has Mellowed? Crazy Bitch...

All Lit Up Again

No Age: Nouns

All Lit Up Again

MGMT, Yeasayer

All Lit Up Again

Local Motion

All Lit Up Again

Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam

CD Review

Local Motion

CD Review

Dodos

concert preview

The Shins

Wincing the Night Away

Ariel Pink, Belong, Slovak Republic

7 p.m. Thursday, March 2, The Proletariat, 903 Richmond, 713-523-1199.

Got Live If You Want It

Our Spring/Summer concert preview, part deux

Aftermath: Yanni at Toyota Center

Craig Hlavaty Words like pageantry, wonderment, and spectacle aren't used very much in the Aftermath lexicon. It's hard to divvy out those special labels when we are covering bleeding dudes in bondage gear half-raping each other on stage, the weekly parade of washed-up alt-rock groups making another ... More >>

Friday Night Noise: Indian Jewelry and Prurient

Indian Jewelry, "Seasonal Economy" At its gnarliest, Houston's Indian Jewelry reminds Friday Night Noise of that brief period a few years back where James Toth was transitioning away from being part of being the "Wooden Wand" part of the "Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice" equation, towards the "s ... More >>

Digital Domain

Prolific Houston songwriter Joe Mathlete empties his vaults (almost) onto the Web.

Defending the Jonas Brothers: You Got a Problem With That?

​We have spent days wrestling throw pillows and chain-smoking cigarettes in the sun, sweatily contemplating why it is that we can't hate the Jonas Brothers. We can honestly say this isn't some crass devil's advocate playing rock journalist devilry. We can't find a reasonable flaw in the wares they ... More >>

"Just Us Ninjas Getting Shitfaced": ICP and Juggalo Nation Invade Warehouse Live

[Ed. Note: We are happy to report that Craig Hlavaty is safe and sound, if a little under the weather. Here is his report from Wednesday's ICP show.] Photos by Marc Brubaker/ Click here for a slideshow​ "Hey man, you look lonely. How's it going?" asks a big jolly Juggalo, face painted in a ... More >>

He Said She Said: Our Christmas Musical Wishlists, Part 2 - LPs Nobody Can Buy

​When He Said was four years old, all he wanted for Christmas was big brown tape recorder that Play Skool put out so he could record his own imaginary radio shows and crazed ramblings about He-Man. Santa Claus brought it that year, and He Said wore that thing out over the next few months. For Chri ... More >>

The AP's Year-End Album List Proves What We Already Knew: Rock Critics Are Assholes

​Rocks Off has previously lamented the dearth of critically popular acts that truly rock many times. We just can't get over the fact that adding distortion to your guitar is a virtual guarantee you won't get scads of rock critics jizzing all over you with steamy loads of orgasmic praise (unless yo ... More >>

Uprising

2009 wasn't a great year for albums, but songs were a different story.

Critiquing the Critics

Readers disagree with our statement that the AP's rock critics are assholes.

Previewing the Year Ahead In Local Releases

​ 2010 looks like it's going to be a banner year for music in general. We can look forward to a new Arcade Fire opus, another Spoon outing, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and a Beach House record that is already getting Animal Collective-like buzz. Rocks Off is chomping a ... More >>

Rocks Off's 2010 Predictions: The Fate of Owl City, Chingo Bling vs. Chamillionaire, the Next Twilight Soundtrack and Madchester In Katy

www.flickr.com/photos/dherholz/​ Adam Young of Owl City will mystify the scientific community, yet surprise no one in the music community, when he is hacked in half in a freak sawmill accident, and it's discovered he is filled with gummi bears. The Arcade Fire/Flaming Lips feud is resolved when ... More >>

Inquiring Minds: The World Of Ghost Mountain

​Tomorrow night at Walter's On Washington, three Houston bands throw down their first gigs of 2010. For Roky Moon & Bolt they have a new album in the offing and the future seems pretty clear cut. They are riding into this new year with quite an amount of steam behind them from most all the mus ... More >>

He Said She Said: 10 Artists Who Never Got Their Due

In the course of music history, some bands get that extra push by pop culture and become uber-iconic, while others, though just as deserving, go largely unnoticed except by those who choose to dig even deeper. For every Elvis Presley, there is a seedier Carl Perkins off to the side. David Bowie get ... More >>

Nothing's Wrong

Scott H. Biram cuts back on the craziness...just not in his music.

How Far Did We Have to Scroll Down In the 2010 Pazz & Jop Poll to Find a Houstonian?

Congratulations, Slim Thug! Your album was Houston's biggest critical success last year... sort of.​Our sister paper in NYC's Cooper Square, the Village Voice, released its Pazz & Jop poll Thursday. The annual coast-to-coast survey of music critics ranks the previous year's best (according to ... More >>

Solange Knowles Admits She's A "Blipster"

​ As a white thirtysomething male who digs Merle Haggard, Al Green and Skynyrd, Rocks Off is well aware our hipster cred is pretty much in the toilet. Even the bands we do like that were once considered at least kinda "cool" - Wilco, Spoon, Phoenix - now share air time with Jack Johnson and the Da ... More >>

The 7 Most Polarizing Albums In Recent Memory

​This Monday night, MGMT hits the House Of Blues behind new album Congratulations, which has been getting one of the most tepid responses for a new album by a buzz band in recent media memory. The people that jumped on the bandwagon in 2008 after the Brooklyn-based then-duo released Oracular Spect ... More >>

Will The Real Fun Fun Fun Fest Lineup Please Stand Up?

Marc BrubakerMetallagher at Fun Fun Fest 2009​Lots of late-night intrigue in the Twitterverse, as anticipation for the announcement of the lineup for Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 builds to a boil. Late Wednesday, Austin blog Party Ends published a list including Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, Ga ... More >>

FAIL: ABBA, Animal Collective, Diddy, Pete Doherty

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Hooray! Now Your Feet Are Boring, Too!: A clothing designer called Keep took a whole bunch of ecstasy (probably) and then invited Animal Collective's Avery Tare to design some shoes for them. By "design," we of course mean "scribble on some plain beige ... More >>

Start Wearing Purple: No Bullies Allowed

​Bullies suck. Growing up, Craig's Hlist watched a lot of kids in school getting the brunt of the, quote-unquote, "cooler" people giving them hell for being big, gay, handicapped or just smart. They would start fights, make up songs or stories about them, or find ways to embarrass them in fr ... More >>

Backmasking Bieber, Black Keys, Kanye, Etc.: What Do You Hear?

​"It's my sweet Satan ... Oh I will sing because I live with Satan." "Turn me on, dead man." "Turned out nice again." "Eat donkey crap." Every since the beginning of rock and roll, listeners and disgruntled parents alike have been searching for hidden meanings in music. Was Paul dead, w ... More >>

John Lennon's Top 10 Solo Songs

Cactus Music is hosting a Beatles & John Lennon DJ session featuring DJ Black Slacks from 5-7 p.m. today in the Record Ranch, 2110 Portsmouth. ​Today marks 30 years since humanity lost John Lennon. The man has haunted Craig's Hlist since he was very little, when the man broke out from being t ... More >>

Kids These Days...

Rocks Off is following our sister Houston Press blogs into the choppy waters of "Comment of the Day," choosing a comment or a handful of comments from the previous day we find especially enlightening, infuriating or just plain hilarious. We're glad our readers have opinions, whatever they are, about ... More >>

Top 10 Worst Top 10 Lists Of 2010

​Now that's a headline, ladies and germs. It has the added benefit of being succinct as well. That's exactly what we're summing up here, the worst Top 10 lists our peers have written this year. Let's get started, as we've got a lot of ground to cover. 10. This One Not really, this is just t ... More >>

10 Uncool Artists Primed For Hipster Rediscovery

Tumblr"Aw, dammit, I grabbed Dad's iPod by mistake. Paul Simon... is that one guy, or two Beatles?" ​Remember emo kids? Only a few short years ago, the nation's venues of the nation were filled with kids in all black, wearing ultra-skinny jeans, eyeliner, white belts, and identical chopped-mea ... More >>

SXSW: Hunx Shows Off His Junk At Red 7

Craig Hlavaty​It's a proud day when we can write a headline like that, especially for a band as fun as Hunx & His Punx, who played a cherry mid-evening set as Red 7 on Saturday night. During a SXSW so far which has seen us walk out of many venues after hearing way too many Vampire Weekend and ... More >>

Ukuleles: Suddenly The Hippest Instrument Going

​Trends in music can be as prevalent - and subsequently fleeting - as they are in fashion. Though the eagerness to join trendy-indie bandwagons can be puzzling, music's most recent instrumental trend, the ukulele, grabbed our attention, especially after SXSW. Among the dozens of SXSW-related ... More >>

Who Will Write The First "Osama Is Dead" Hit Song?

​Now that more details are starting to emerge about Sunday's Navy SEAL helicopter raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden and several members of the al-Qaeda jefe's entourage - especially how the months-long planning and 40-minute firefight was planned in total secrecy, and executed ... More >>

2 Become 1: Musical Match-Ups We'd Like To See

​Kanye "Hitler" West and Jay-Z released their (overused music writer word alert) epic Watch the Throne album this week, to mostly great reviews. This fall the first fruits from the recently announced Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration should be on the store shelves, which still sorta weirds us o ... More >>

Gang Gang Dance

​Kanye "Hitler" West and Jay-Z released their (overused music writer word alert) epic Watch the Throne album this week, to mostly great reviews. This fall the first fruits from the recently announced Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration should be on the store shelves, which still sorta weirds us o ... More >>