Arcade Fire

10 Signs Your Band Won't Make It at SXSW

Being a successful musician really has to be a slice of heaven. And of course the chicks are great. It's why from the beginning of time men (and women) have taken up instruments in the chance that they will be played in front of many, many others, some of whom could possibly want to have sex with ... More >>

Best Shows In Houston This Weekend: Rebelution, Graveyard, Every Time I Die, Walker Lukens, Etc.

Rebelution With J Boog, Hot Rain House Of Blues, Friday, 8 p.m., February 22 For a clue on just how much Rebelution must love ganja, beyond even the exquisitely explicit "So High" on its 2012 release Peace of Mind, consider that the Santa Barbara reggae-pop crew also issued acoustic and dub version ... More >>

Coming Soon to Houston: Tons of 2012 Critical Favorites

"No good bands ever come to Houston, I swear." Welp, you're wrong buddy. In the next few weeks and months, plenty of critical darlings are coming to Houston venues, and it's not even festival season. They are coming because they are actually on tours and not taking pity on us. OK, Houston crow ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Why Constellation Field Will Be Better for Music Than the Mitchell Pavilion

Constellation Field, the home field of Roger Clemens's newest team, the Sugar Land Skeeters, is now open and booking big named nostalgia/legacy acts on non-game days. Rocks Off is looking forward to seeing both REO Speedwagon and ZZ Top there next month. While we still trek out to the northern fore ... More >>

Summer Fest Round Table: 9 Locals To Watch This Weekend

Rocks Off polled our writers to see which local or regional artist they most wanted to see at Free Press Summer Fest this weekend. Alexa Crenshaw: Robert Ellis recently rebooted his mid-week honky-tonk events, fittingly dubbed Whiskey Wednesday with Robert Ellis. The problem now, though, is that th ... More >>

Last Night: Delta Spirit At Fitzgerald's

Delta Spirit Fitzgerald's April 12, 2012 I am concerned that younger bands these days are not learning the proper value of restraint. It's not even a generational thing, really. I had very little appreciation for or understanding of restraint myself until fairly recently, but a heart attack at age ... More >>

Last Night: Girls At Fitzgerald's

Girls, Young Man, Fanfarlo, Unknown Mortal Orchestra Fitzgerald's March 13, 2012 San Francisco's Girls kept it going strong last night, touring in support of their album Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Another vaunted acted of the Pitchfork set, they held up even better live than their 9.3 album prepared ... More >>

Springsteen Stumbles On Pedestrian New Album Wrecking Ball

Today sees the release of Bruce Springsteen's newest album, the compact and confounding Wrecking Ball, his first since 2009's Working On a Dream. Recorded and inspired partly by the recent Occupy protests, with most songs coming before the movement was even a physical thing, in any other year it cou ... More >>

Polyphonic Spree

You Bettah Work: 10 Rock/Pop Musicians Who Could Take Up Modeling

Lucky for Lana Del Rey -- whose awkward-at-best Saturday Night Live performance last weekend left indie critics second-guessing her skill -- she has a backup career on which to fall, if needed. Last week, days before becoming a poor bundle of nerves on SNL, the up-and-(maybe)-coming songstress signe ... More >>

Dead Rock Stars & Dia De Los Muertos Album Covers

Photo by Marco Torres​According to a recent Associated Press article picked up by everyone from The Huffington Post to Fox News, Day of the Dead celebrations are on the upswing, a trend attributed in part to the growing Latino population and Hispanic influence on the culture, as well as changi ... More >>

Touch the Sky

The 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival in exactly 12 paragraphs.

ACL: Adele & Mumford & Sons - Not Here, But Here

Photos by Marco TorresTrain a-Comin': The Secret Sisters​3:30 p.m. Still they file in. Watching the crowds trudge along Barton Springs Road, their eyes fixed on the pavement about five yards in front of them (not their phones), always reminds Rocks Off of a pilgrimage. And each festival has i ... More >>

ACL Fest Schedule Released; Your Guide To The "Death Duels"

Stevie Wonder on FacebookStevie Wonder: Even My Morning Jacket will be watching.​This morning, the organizers of the Austin City Limits Music Festival announced the schedule for the September 16-18 Zilker Park throwdown. We all knew there would be some tough choices, but Rocks Off found that w ... More >>

Centro-Matic

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

Pre-Concert Eating at Hubbell & Hudson

Photo by Katharine ShilcuttPre-concert picnic from Hubbell & Hudson.​Finding a good place to eat in The Woodlands prior to a concert at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion can be a struggle if you're on a budget and tight for time. No one wants to battle the circling cars around The Woodlands Mall ... More >>

Out Today: Tyler, The Creator's Goblin, The Cars Restarted...

​We now live in a world where Adele is a chart-topping artist, placing at number one slot the past few weeks, rubbing shoulders with the Foo Fighters, Katy Perry, Mumford & Sons, and Britney Spears. If Adele's 21 isn't on the top of everyone's best-of 2011 lists, there is no justice in the wor ... More >>

What Happened: 20 Lyrical Shots Of Tequila

"Tequila. Straight. There's a real polite drink. You keep drinking until you finally take one more and it just won't go down" - actor Lee Marvin (R.I.P.) ​How out of it is Rocks Off after Wednesday night's sublime Arcade Fire show? Even though we've known about it for weeks, it took us until ... More >>

Out Today: Steve Earle Is Alive, Bootsy's Aged Funk, And The Late Poly Styrene's Last Disc

​Yep, it's the third week now that we have been listening to the new Foo Fighters album, Wasting Light. We even acquired it on vinyl this weekend, so we are doubly screwed. Now we just need it on cassette tape and one of those toothbrushes that play music in your skull like you are schizophren ... More >>

10 Albums That Grew On Us Over Time

The King of Limbs has now been out less than a week, and Radiohead's latest effort has people torn, even fervent fans who think that Thom Yorke and his crew can do no wrong. Craig's Hlist listened to the half-hour album at least three times last Friday, just hours after it was released, and came f ... More >>

11 Musical New Year's Resolutions For 2011

​Craig's Hlist stopped making New Year's Eve resolutions the older and more stubborn we got. We normally don't quit or change things forever unless we are forced to do so. ('Sup, ladies?) This makes it hard for us to keep any New Year's Eve resolutions. If anything, it's easier to change organ ... 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 >>

Saturday Night: listenlisten At The Mink

Photos by Marc Brubaker​listenlisten, sIngs, Two Star Symphony The Backroom at the Mink December 4, 2010 A few hours before listenlisten's headlining spot at the Mink Saturday night, some friends asked Aftermath to pin down the band's sound. A visiting couple was stopping by the bar for the f ... More >>

What Is Classic Rock Today?

​What is classic rock in 2010? 15 years ago, it was was the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, anything Eric Clapton touched and every band your dad played in his car while he was making out with the girls he met before your mom. That's how we know classic rock: Big riffs, big voices, in ... More >>

Friday Night: The National At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​The National House of Blues October 8, 2010 Houston crowds like to party. The National does not. These two seemingly indisputable musical facts led Aftermath to imagine all sorts of nightmare scenarios for the Brooklyn band's visit to House of Blues Friday night, from t ... More >>

Rocks Off Explains Austin City Limits' "Survival Guide"

Mark C. AustinOne day Austin City Limits will live down last year's "Dillo Dirt" debacle. That day is not today.​This year marks the fourth year that Craig's Hlist will be covering the Austin City Limits Music Festival for the Houston Press and Rocks Off. Each year we get more acclimated to th ... More >>

ACL: What Could Possibly Be Worse Than Last Year's Mudbath?

Mark C. AustinCan't WAIT to go back!​In exactly one week, Rocks Off will be broadcasting live from the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin's Zilker Park. This will be our fourth spin around the grounds since 2007, and every year we swear we won't fall in love with a bartender in the me ... More >>

Black Crowes Pull the Plug

Band celebrates album's 20th anniversary by going on hiatus.

A Protest Playlist For The March On Washington Avenue

​Saturday marks the 47th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the huge civil rights rally in Washington D.C. where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. This rally is largely credited for helping to put enough pressure on Washington to pass the ... More >>

Ranch Style Beans

Local folk hero is well-rounded, to say the least.

Austin City Limits Festival Tickets On Sale Tomorrow At 10 A.M.

We're not saying Soundgarden is playing ACL, but you never know...​That's right. Now why would Rocks Off make something like that up? Hope you have $180 lying around and don't have any meetings or classes or anything like that tomorrow morning, because they're going to go quick. Better go ahead an ... More >>

sIngs

Love and Theft

The decade with no name left behind plenty of memorable music.

Million-Dollar Mud

The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival became a quagmire everywhere but onstage.

ACL Aftermath, Part 2: Now That That "Dillo Dirt" Unpleasantness Is Out of the Way, How About Some Music?

Mark C. AustinSeems like we recognize this guy from somewhere...​ More and more, Aftermath uses ACL more than SXSW to see which recent buzz bands are worth their salt, and of course to check on how some old favorites are doing. This year, tops on our new-to-us list were Blitzen Trapper, who manage ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: The Decemberists, Dapper and a Little Dangerous

Photo by Mark C. Austin​If there's one band Rocks Off didn't envy during Saturday's ACL downpour - seriously, Zilker Park smells like a stable today, moreso because the staff just finished seeding the mud-splattered grounds with hay - it was the Decemberists. The Portland collective closed out Sat ... More >>

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 >>

The Dears

Get Lit: I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto by Dave Thompson

If productivity alone conferred greatness, then flinty rock scribbler Dave Thompson would be the Trollope of pop-culture quick reads. I Hate New Music is the latest of over 100 titles this insta-book wizard has blinked into being. And dig the intro penned by the legendary Richard Meltzer, the Big Ba ... More >>

Fresh Fruit

Mango's attempts to resurrect Westheimer's bohemian past.

The Year in Albums

Aftermath: Hungry Villagers at Boondocks

Aftermath thinks the thing he likes the most about new bands is the sheer lack of pretense and ego. We love it when bands do sound check five minutes before they play to two dozen friends upstairs at a bar, with no setlist to be seen. Only armed with the songs they've been fine-tuning for ... More >>

Bryan Adams's 11, 11 Times Through

Just Like "Heaven"

Brent Green with Jeremy Gara and Howe Gelb

Aurora opens up “Media Archeology: Live and Televised” with a musical movie man

SXSW: Carbon/Silicon, Ting Tings, Santogold, MGMT, The Cribs, White Rabbits, Supersuckers and Robyn

The Seximals: Small Songs

Been a Long Time

But the Houston Symphony Wants to "Rock and Roll"

The Aeroplane Flies High

The devout cult of Neutral Milk Hotel should perhaps prepare for a second coming

Of Montreal, Tilly and the Wall, with Spain Colored Orange

Saturday, June 11, at Mary Jane's Fat Cat, 4216 Washington Avenue, 713-869-5263.