Austin City Limits

Coachella 2013 Takes It Back to the '90s

Coachella, the Only Music Festival That Matters (or so we're told), announced its 2013 lineup late Thursday night, no holograms or Rolling Stones included. Instead, two beloved '90s UK acts whose popularity in the U.S. is spotty at best, Blur and the Stone Roses, headline the first night of the tw ... More >>

What Made Milwaukee Famous

Band of Heathens

RIP Joe Gracey, Austin Media Giant

​Another Austin music legend, Joe Gracey, passed away this morning of cancer complications. He was 61. When Lonesome, Onry and Mean arrived in Austin in June, 1973 after having worked in radio in West Texas, Gracey immediately became our hero. A disc jockey at the notorious KOKE-FM, Gracey an ... More >>

How To Survive An Outdoor Concert Disaster: Ten Semi-Helpful Tips

​The summer festival season is winding down, but even as that stops, the fall festival season begins. The weather will be getting nicer, and it will actually be pleasant to be outside, so we're looking forward to it, especially with Austin City Limits, our own BestFest and Fun Fun Fun Fest all ... 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 >>

Crazy In Alabama: Hangout Festival Preview

jambase.com​This weekend this member of Rocks Off is heading to Gulf Shores, Alabama, for the Hangout Festival on the beach. Well, hopefully, considering the drive may take us through some rough waters due to the flooding in the deep South. Let us pray... Anyhow, this is the second year for H ... More >>

Guns N' Roses, Rolling Stones, Prince Coming In 2011?

Sind Axl und Slash wieder Freunde geworden?​Rocks Off is in the concert business for all intents and purposes. We scour Pollstar and other Web sites and almost hourly looking for new shows and tours to tell you about around the clock. In the span of writing this introduction we just listed Luc ... 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 >>

ACL Day 3 Recap: Devendra Banhart, Band Of Horses, Other Beardos

Photos by Marco Torres​Aftermath doesn't know the bargain Austin City Limits promoter C3 Presents gets by booking both Lollapalooza and ACL, but to this dog-tired participant, this year's Zilker Park festivities ended up feeling less Austin weird and more something-something. Not that it's a ... 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 >>

The Eight Stupidest iPhone Music Apps

​Apple's foray into the social-network field failed big-time last month with the release of Ping, the iTunes-linked program that promised to connect you to your favorite artists, as long as your favorite artist is Justin Bieber. When it comes to iTunes, we at Rocks Off are a discerning sort. ... More >>

"Free Press Summerfest 2010" With The Flaming Lips, Girl Talk, Slim Thug, Stars, Lucero, Ra Ra Riot, Mix Master Mike, Medeski, Martin & Wood

Free Press Summerfest

FAIL: Jeff Beck, Jonas Brothers, Lilith Fair, ACL Fest

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

The Hickoids, Dash Rip Rock

Twitter You've Heard Of (Grrr), But What's a Drobot?

​Rocks Off's sister music blogs have been kicking ass on music analysis lately. At The Sound of The City, critic Christopher R. Weingarten talks about how Twitter and search-engine optimization (SEO) are ruining music journalism. And if you think Austin City Limits was a mess last year, check out ... More >>

Magnolia City Mixtape: All The Scoop In One Fell Swoop... ACL Starts Us Off

Mark C. AustinWe sure hope this doesn't happen two years in a row at ACL.​ Austin City Limits will be October 8-10 this year, and MCM expects the line-up to be released in the next month or so. You can sign up for the e-list to get first notice of who's playing. If your profile is updated by today ... More >>

Tegan and Sara

Get "All Jacked Up" at Rodeo's Hideout With Gretchen Wilson, Dale Watson, Honeybrowne, Others

The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo announced the lineup for its smaller Hideout venue this morning and, well, it's countrier than the Black Eyed Peas. This year's bill includes "Here for the Party" girl Gretchen Wilson, a contestant from CMT's Can You Duet (O'Shea), some legit honky-tonkers (Da ... More >>

More SXSW Speculation: Perhaps a Visit from the Plastic Ono Band?

​We haven't even passed MLK Day, and already Rocks Off is spinning our collective wheels about SXSW. Hell, we haven't even covered RodeoHouston, and we have already begun talking about where we are going to crash every morning at dawn. Rocks Off would like to admit that even on the way home from A ... More >>

Drive-By Truckers

Epicurean Adventure at Bayou City Arts Festival

Photos by Katharine Shilcutt David Cordua in the demonstration tent.​Perhaps we our hopes were too high for what is essentially a street festival (large and wonderful though it may be). Or perhaps our bodies were still too water-logged and mud-coated from last weekend's three-day exercise i ... More >>

Aftermath: Kings of Leon, and Their "Fans," Trying Our Patience at Toyota Center

Photos by Groovehouse/ Click here for a slideshow​ Aftermath has seen almost every single step on the road to fame Kings of Leon have taken since their debut album Youth and Young Manhood in 2003. We heard a track off that album in mid-2003, "California Waiting," on a radio show while living in Sa ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Three: Spin the Black Circle

Photos by Mark C. Austin​It only took one song in to Pearl Jam's Sunday night closing set at the Austin City Limits music festival for it to dawn on Rocks Off that for way too long this band has been forsaken by back-handed hipster discount and radio-influenced apathy. No band from the grunge- ... More >>

Live From ACL: Buckets of Rain, and a Bright Spot or Two

Photos by Chris GrayThis photo was NOT taken Saturday. Trust us.​ The streak is over. In eight years, Austin City Limits has seen plenty of days of unbearable heat, but hardly any rain. The most significant time was during Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' headlining 2006 set, but even that was m ... More >>

Aftermath: Them Crooked Vultures at Stubb's in Austin

Photos By Craig Hlavaty​Just a few short hours ago Aftermath saw the rock world's newest supergroup in action as Queens of The Stone Age's Josh Homme, ex-Nirvana drummer/current Foo Fighters helmer Dave Grohl, and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones took the stage at Stubb's in Austin for a warm- ... More >>

Songs By ACL Artists That Should Be Covered By Other ACL Artists

Isn't it fun to imagine all your favorite bands are best friends? And that when they spend time together, as so many of them are doing right this second at the Austin City Limits festival, they would inevitably learn each others' songs? Here are some songs by ACL bands which we'd like to see covered ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Golden-brown is the proper tone for any loaf of sourdough / Hollywood starlet.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where today we're bitterly sniffling at the fact that everyone else from the office is at the Austin City Limits festival. It's cool! There's lots of fun ... More >>

Cleanse Your Dirty, Dirty Soul With the Blind Boys of Alabama at House of Blues

Ladies and gentlemen, Rocks Off doesn't mind telling you he feels a little dirty after editing that last Britney Spears post. We swear, we ourselves have never, ever rubbed one out to the cover art of Oops... I Did It Again - we just wish we knew why we always have such a hard time getting the damn ... More >>

Some Further Thoughts on iFest, and Festivals

Photos by Chris Gray Skyscrapers - something you won't see at Austin City Limits. Western Swing maidens the Quebe Sisters performed in the shadow of the Jesse H. Jones Library.Previously, Rocks Off's idea about what a "festival" should look like, and what to expect, came from his exper ... More >>

SXSW: Protest Outside Austin City Limits

A dozen Austin activists staked out the four corners of the University of Texas communications building earlier today, passing out flyers to people on the way to Ben Harper's Austin City Limits taping. Surprisingly, the flyer had nothing to do with herb not being a gift of the earth, but rather was ... More >>

iFest Unveils Complete Lineup

Photos courtesy of iFest BeogaSince we're already playing hangman today, here's another riddle: What do America's finest genre-hopping Latino band, Houston's best Guinness-chugging rockers, a daughter of the nation's premiere gospel family, a perennially unsung honky-tonker who sounds like th ... More >>

14th Annual Houston Women's Festival

Carrie Rodriguez leads a full day of music by local female musicians

Aftermath: The Black Keys at Meridian

So There's This Little Festival In Austin This Weekend...

ACL Dudefest: M. Ward, David Byrne, Bobby Bare Jr. and Ryan Bingham

Tonight: Back Door Slam at Warehouse Live

Tonight: Heartless Bastards at Last Concert Cafe

Drive-By Truckers, A to Z

Alabama Ass Whuppin'

This Just In: Butthole Surfers Moved to Meridian

Grupo Fantasma

Conroe Cajun Catfish Festival

The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker

Speaking of Umbrellas...It's Bumbershoot Time

The Gourds

concert preview

What Made Milwaukee Famous

What Made Milwaukee Famous performs Friday, March 2, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington, 713-862-2513. Dr. Dog also performs.

Freestyle Fellowship

Sometimes awesome live bands also make magic in the studio

Festivus Maximus

The Austin City Limits Music Festival's got a roster that won't quit

Flop Like an Eagle

Brad Tyer checks out of the Hotel California after five songs