Austin Chronicle Corp.

Depeche Mode, The Cure, Kings of Leon, Phoenix, Lionel Richie Head 2013 ACL Fest Lineup

Moments ago, Depeche Mode, The Cure, MUSE, Kings of Leon, Atoms For Peace (featuring Thom Yorke and Flea), Lionel Richie, Phoenix, Wilco, Vampire Weekend, The National, and Eric Church were announced as the headliners of the 2013 Austin City Limits Music Festival, which plans to expand to identical ... More >>

Greenling.com Launching Home Delivery Service of Local, Organic Foods Today

You've probably heard of community-supported agriculture programs that allow you to pick up boxes of farm-fresh produce each week, like Utility Research Garden. And you may have heard about companies such as Austin-based Farmhouse Delivery, which delivers CSA boxes straight to your door. Now another ... More >>

30 Essential Texas Restaurants

Eat here before you die.

The 30 Best Texas Albums

Ranking the 30 best Texas albums of the past 30 years seemed like an impossible task. We did it anyway.

Atheism Rising

Those folks across Texas who don't believe in God are getting organized and going public.

5 Bands to Avoid & 5 Bands to See at This Year's ACL

If you are lucky enough to be going to ACL this weekend, you have no doubt been sitting in front of your concert schedule plotting your movements for this coming weekend. Alternately if you are missing out on ACL, a lot of the bands playing have been through Houston lately, or will be in town this ... More >>

Friends, Colleagues Remember SXSW's Brent Grulke

Rewind: Brent Grulke, SXSW Music Creative Director, Dies of Heart Attack Tuesday afternoon, SXSW staff began posting testimonials to their late friend and colleague, Brent Grulke, who had been SXSW Music's Creative Director from 1994 until he died after suffering a heart attack Monday morning in Au ... More >>

Lou Ann Barton

50 Rad Things Now on the Sig's Lagoon Walls

Within the past month, the walls of Sig's Lagoon have been transformed into a sprawling pop-culture collage of posters, photos, newspaper clippings, magazine covers, picture discs and cardboard cutouts courtesy of former Sundance Records owner Bobby Barnard. Since the longtime San Marcos music stor ... More >>

Robin Gibb Of The Bee Gees Falls Into Coma

Robin Gibb, one-third of fraternal British/Australian '70s disco-pop superstars the Bee Gees, fell into a coma Friday night in a private London hospital, according to wire services. Reuters reports that Gibb, 62, is surrounded by his family. He was hospitalized for pneumonia earlier this earlier t ... More >>

Roger Rouland: Creepy Ex-Baylor Lecturer Cops to Kiddy Porn Charges, Awaits Sentencing

As Bo Diddley once famously sang, you can't judge a book by lookin' at the cover. Except when you can, we would add, which certainly seems the case with Roger Rouland. The former Baylor lecturer pleaded guilty this week to possession of child porn two-and-a-half years after janitorial workers fou ... More >>

Riverboat Gamblers

Last Night: Ian Moore Band At The Continental Club

Photos by Jason Wolter​Ian Moore Band Continental Club August 11, 2011 Nostalgia has a funny way of creeping up on you when you least expect it. Aftermath suspects the Ian Moore Band would agree. As the quartet hit the home stretch of its 90-minute set Thursday with "Blue Sky" and "How Does ... More >>

Kings Of Leon Cancel Tour; 5 Ways Caleb Followill Can Get His Voice Back

Band cancels rest of U.S. tour including Texas make-up dates, TMZ says UPDATE (4:40 p.m.): It's official, as per Live Nation press release: It ain't happenin'. Refunds available either automatically (for online/smartphone tickets) or at point of purchase. GroovehouseCaleb Followill in happier voca ... More >>

Cover Story: Austin Fires Back

Feelings have been hurt​So I'd gotten up at 5 a.m. and spent the day at NASA's Mission Control, where along with about fifty other writers, talking heads and camera crews from Houston, New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, I'd been granted unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the final full- ... More >>

Top 10 Songs Famous Because Of A Movie

​Wednesday night, surf-guitar hero Dick Dale played to a packed Continental Club, in what Rocks Off's buddy Lonesome Onry and Mean and several others have since said was one of the best shows they've ever seen. The song that sent everyone home with their ears ringing and their fingers on fire ... More >>

Loud Is the Night

San Antonio's Hacienda blossoms under a Black Key's patronage.

Rhett Miller Talks Old 97's, Bob Dylan, Trains And More

Piper Ferguson​The band probably doesn't remember this, but one of the first interviews Rocks Off ever conducted as a quote-unquote professional journalist was talking to the Old 97's in their tour van behind Austin's Liberty Lunch as opener Don Walser(!) yodeled in the background. That was ar ... More >>

Heights-Area Walmart Poised For Vote Today: Let's Look At Three Recent Stop-Walmart! Fights

The City Council could vote today to bring a Heights Walmart one step closer. ​This morning, the Houston City Council is set to vote on a proposed "380 agreement" with developer Michael Ainbinder that would help him build a Walmart-anchored retail center near the Heights. The agreement, posted on ... More >>

Five Memorable Artist-Audience Altercations

Chris GrayWilco's Jeff Tweedy in a much better mood, March 2008There may be a very good reason Van Morrison said practically nothing from the stage Saturday night at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Judging from the plentiful comments here, here and over at the Chronicle's review, it would have ... More >>

The Rev. Billy Gibbons Scats About Old Buff Stadium And The Astros... We Think

Kevin Scanlon​It's a gray day in Houston today (no pun intended), and just this past weekend, only a promotional hoodie a friend fortuitously found at our Village Voice Media party - we have no idea who or what a "Mojofilter" is; we're just glad they didn't make keychains this year - kept us from ... More >>

Hollywood Shuffle: Thunder Soul Director Mark Landsman On His Kashmere Stage Band Documentary

​Last week, Hollywood Shuffle told you about a new documentary, Thunder Soul, featuring Houston's legendary late-'60s/early-'70s funky high schoolers, the Kashmere Stage Band. The director, Mark Landsman, is currently in Austin prepping for the world premier of the movie at SXSW Film. A couple of ... More >>

Happy Anniversary Texas Music Magazine, or "Austin and (Maybe) Everything After"

​Towards the end of last week, Rocks Off got the latest issue of Texas Music magazine in the mail, which just happens to mark the quarterly periodical's tenth anniversary. Naturally, as just about every publication does when it reaches such an august milestone - no mean feat for a magazine in this ... More >>

Love and Theft

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

In the Pit

It's easier than ever to take pictures at concerts. Unless that's your job.

Before It Was the Tower Theater, It Was Clubland, and Rocks Off's Friend Worked There

joe_stephens_3'​Monday's news that the Hollywood Video located in the old Tower Theater will soon shut down has put Rocks Off on one of our periodic nostalgia kicks, and this one actually comes with a personal connection. Before the Tower was one of Houston's main mid-size music venues in the firs ... More >>

Before It Was the Tower Theater, It Was Clubland, and Our Friend Worked There

joe_stephens_3'​Monday's news that the Hollywood Video located in the old Tower Theater will soon shut down has put our sister blog Rocks Off on one of our periodic nostalgia kicks, and this one actually comes with a personal connection. Before the Tower was one of Houston's main mid-size music v ... More >>

R.I.P. Bill Narum, KLOL Co-Founder, Leading Texas Counterculture Artist and ZZ Top Stage Designer

​Bill Narum, a key figure in Houston's counterculture in the late 1960s and early '70s, passed away Wednesday night at his home in Austin. The cause of death was an "apparent heart attack or something that took him quickly while sitting in his studio at the art table in his chair," said Narum's cl ... More >>

"Buddha Bubba": Billy Gibbons and Bill Narum's Fellow Artists Comment on the ZZ Top Graphic Designer's Passing

​When Rocks Off learned that Texas countercultural icon and longtime ZZ Top graphic designer Bill Narum passed away Wednesday night, one of the first things we did was reach out to the ZZ camp for a statement. The Lil' Ol' Band from Tejas' publicist just got back to us with a message from the ... More >>

Rocks Off Is Going to Become a Kings of Leon Fan Today If It Kills Us

​Rocks Off has always been a little puzzled we're not more of a Kings of Leon fan. It definitely puts us in the minority when it comes to our social circle, because everyone from cranky music critics and their musician sons to, well, pretty much every female friend or acquaintance we've got is in ... More >>

Random Notes from ACL: The Grass Is Always Greener...

Chris GrayIt's a little more crowded than this at Zilker now, but it was fun while it lasted.​ The grass is especially sweet at this year's ACL festival. The new turf at Zilker Park is nice too.Now we are in the media tent, surrounded by friends and family: Rocks Off's Austin Chronicle mentor (and ... More >>

You Can't Handle the Heat: The 19th Annual Austin Hot Sauce Festival

Photos by Katharine ShilcuttFour different salsas, none of them fit for human consumption.​There was a point, roughly around the 84th salsa that I'd consumed, when I was absolutely certain that I was about to see the face of God. If I were a Simpsons character, this would have been when I'd just c ... More >>

Sherwood Cryer, Gilley's Co-Founder and Ornery Cuss, Dies at 83

Chris GraySherwood Cryer at G's Ice House, 1999​Sherwood Cryer, who co-founded legendary super-size Pasadena honky-tonk Gilley's and watched it rocket to worldwide fame in the wake of 1980's Urban Cowboy before a bitter falling out with his partner Mickey Gilley led to the club's demise, passed aw ... More >>

Houston Breakfasts vs. Austin Breakfasts

Photo by Robb Walsh​This plate of huevos rancheros with bacon and homemade flour tortillas set me back $2.29 at Taqueria Jesus Maria in South Houston. You can breakfast equally well at dozens of other taquerias all over town -- Kiko's on Fulton and Pancho Villa's on Wilcrest both charge $2.99. ... More >>

Aftermath: SXSW

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Ben Mallott at McGonigel's Mucky Duck

www.benmallott.comWith its outrageous cowboy boots and fringed pant legs, the cover of Sugar Land native Ben Mallott's Look Good, Feel Good had just enough of the bells and whistles to make me think this could be another Texas music wannabe floating along on his Undecided/General Studies degr ... More >>

RIP Gary Kurfirst

Stop Making Sense Music-business legend Gary Kurfirst passed away from undisclosed causes while on vacation in Nassau, the Bahamas, January 13. A venue owner, talent manager, film producer and label founder, Kurfirst opened New York City's Village Theater, later known as the Fillmore East, in 1967 ... More >>

Dispatch From the VIP Grove

SXSW Last Night: Houston Hijacks the Austin Music Awards

Texas Albums

2007's best Texas albums, from Houston, Austin and beyond

The Gourds

concert preview

How Low Can You Go?

Let's see with the last installment of our guilty-pleasures project

The Return of the Band of Rhythm and Pleasure

The Hollisters reunite to rock the East Texas pines

Playbill

What a Ruckus

Monkey around at Theatre Illuminata's cabaret

Playbill

Cardiac Kids

The Austin rejects of Young Heart Attack rule Houston and the UK

Living in Harmony

Global Groove's Wednesday-night jam puts the hump back in hump day

Cowboy in the Kitchen

Welcome The Houston Press's new food critic, Robb Walsh

Static