Athens (Greece)

Wild Moccasins Tapped to Open Of Montreal's Spring U.S. Tour

Houston's Wild Moccasins have been hand-picked by Of Montreal to be the main support act on their Athens-based friends' three-week spring U.S. theater tour, New West Records announced Thursday. The two indie-pop bands have developed a similar sound -- drawing on elements of psychedelic '60s pop and ... More >>

Poverty at UH

Teaching fellows looking for raises.

Without Pay Raise in Twenty Years, UH Grad Students Take Petition to Masses

One month before your friends began painting their Facebook profile pictures red in support of gay rights, a group of University of Houston English Teaching Fellows swapped their main photos to something of the same color: a shot of the Cougars' mascot, blazing red, with a bit of text underneath it: ... More >>

Jordan Rethmeier: That's One Helluva Big Catfish, Dude

Catfish for dinner!! For the next month and a half. That's what would have been on the menu at the Jordan Rethmeier home after he reeled in a massive ol' blue catfish at Lake Zebco this weekend, except he released the fish back to the (relative) deep. Lake Zebco, in Athens, is the Texas Parks & Wi ... More >>

Five Art Masterworks That Should Be Metal Album Covers

It's not often that you get the opportunity to combine masterpieces of painting and metal. It's not completely unfounded, considering Guns N' Roses copped from Raphael's School of Athens for the cover of their Use Your Illusion set. But it's rare, like mixing pro wrestling and classical literature. ... More >>

Ever Wonder if Your Kid's Teacher Runs a Puppy Mill in Her Spare Time?

A former grade school teacher has been charged with animal cruelty after sheriff's deputies and SPCA workers seized 106 abused and neglected dog from her East Texas home Monday. The dogs were allegedly "forced to live in their own filth inside a feces-filled, urine-soaked home on the property" near ... More >>

Notes on Nashville: Drama and Deceit In TV's Music City

I barely watch episodic TV, let alone write about it, but ABC's Nashville made the idea irresistible. A 9 p.m. network drama set in the glamorous and backstabbing world of country music, amid the landmarks and tourist traps of the modern-day "Athens of the South," it offers sudsy tension and hopeful ... More >>

Drawn by Drunken Seven-Year-Olds

The five ugliest beer labels in Texas.

Does Dallas-Fort Worth Have the Worst Tippers in the State?

Last week, Eater alerted the great foodie masses to a website called Lousy Tippers that contains a pretty scary database of the nation's worst tippers. "There is a consequence," the site preaches ominously from its header. Call it the ultimate form of societal pressure to make sure you leave a grat ... More >>

Michael Phelps: What the Heck Is He Listening To?

When he competes, U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps is usually seen walking into the arena with headphones on, blasting music in order to get him pumped up for the upcoming race. But what the hell is he listening to? It's rumored that Phelps is a huge rap and hip-hop fan, but there's no telling what is ... More >>

Taste Perversion: Artichokes and Wine

"Taste perversion" is what the scientists call it. The expression refers to the way that foods (or drugs) can affect taste after they have been consumed. In the wine world, artichokes are considered one of the greatest offenders. The issue is caused by a component called cynarin (after the Latin ... More >>

Timon of Athens

Friday Night: Alabama Shakes at Continental Club

Alabama Shakes doesn't like the "retro soul" label that often is attached to their brand of music. But, if their raucous set at Continental Club on Friday night is any indication, they should embrace it because they certainly owned it. "Y'all gon' be alright," singer Brittany Howard told the packed ... More >>

All Shook Up

The Alabama Shakes ride their momentum right into Houston.

Top 5 Gifts for Wine Lovers

Photo by Jeremy Parzen.Decanters by Riedel take wine service to a higher level of aesthetic pleasure. ​If you're ever invited to dine in someone's home in France, please don't bring a bottle of wine. Nothing will spur a French host to recoil in abject dishonor and displeasure than the gift of ... More >>

Ten Tunnels Of Texas: Some Pretty, Some Odd, Some Bat-Infested

Love tunnels not included​A while back we presented a dozen of the most beautiful bridges in Texas, a state most people don't normally associate with bridges. They associate it even less with tunnels. Texas isn't exactly a mountainous state, and wherever there's a big outcropping there's gene ... More >>

Houston Commuters: Some of the Earliest Risers in Texas

WHAT time is it?​You know what sucks? Getting up early to commute to work. And we do a lot of it in Houston. The Business Journals website has crunched numbers from the Census' American Community Survey and ranked 500-plus communities according to how many commuters leave home from 5 a.m. to ... More >>

Ponderosa Gives House Of Blues A Mouthful

Photos by Jason Wolter​Rocks Off is usually ambivalent, at best, about restaurant shows. One of the few times we're not interested in live music at all is when we're eating, and we imagine we're hardly the only person who feels that way. Strolling violinists and mariachi groups especially get ... More >>

Blessed

Anderson Fair alumna Lucinda Williams returns to Houston.

Aluminum Show

25 Famous Bands' Less Famous Previous Names

​As promised, here are the answers to Rocks Off's "Original Band Name" quiz from Tuesday. John St. Lee, if you'd care to email us, we'll see what we can do about getting you a prize. Do you like Devo? 1. Chicago: At about 25 or 6 to 4, the Windy City jazz-rockers realized The Big Thing sucked ... More >>

Wanted More Dead Than Alive

Gurf Morlix reflects on compadre Blaze Foley.

$5 Awesome: Murry Attaway's In Thrall

Rocks Off has picked up some CDs over the years at prices so low we think that it would've been less insulting to the artists if we had stolen them. Some of these have become our favorite albums, and in this column we'll tell you what they are and why! ​Back in the days when Rocks Off's main ... More >>

Mia Kat Is Building A Scene, Not An Empire

​There are magical times and places when in music history, points both chronological and geographical where everything came together to birth first a scene, then a movement. We're talking about times like the early '80s when the Sunset Strip birthed hair metal, or when Seattle and Athens, Ga., ... More >>

Cactus Music/New West Partner Investing In Local Musicians

Jay Dryden/ Wild Moccasins on FacebookWild Moccasins on the Cactus Music in-store stage​Local businessman George Fontaine is another music-business player who is suddenly very high on the Houston music scene. And Fontaine is putting his money where his mouth is by investing in up-and-coming lo ... More >>

Give Me No Man's Land: 5 Songs For The Fallen

​Today is Memorial Day, and Rocks Off would like to honor our brave and beloved dead as we honor everything - through music. At no time in American history have there not been men and women in life-threatening danger trying to protect us, whether it was a declared war or not. This is a sacrifice w ... More >>

Dome Tome

Readers respond to our April Fools' Day Astrodome article.

Hazy Shade Of Winter: Are The Vancouver Olympians Listening To These Songs?

Rocks Off has Olympics on the brain. After hearing the theme from Chariots of Fire at the Houston Symphony and watching the bizarro Opening Ceremonies featuring Nelly Furtado, Bryan Adams and Sarah McLachlan, all we want to do when we get home from a long hard day is watch men in Vera Wang one-piec ... More >>

Superthief

Joshua Paul Calhoun likes to take things...BIG things

2007 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase

Branzini with Bouzouki

Alexander the Great Greek Restaurant brings you the best of old and new Greek cuisine

My Big Fat Greek Moussaka

The Pappas brothers wed their fast-food sensibility to their own culture

(Man) Love and War