Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m., tattooed Black Flag disciples are encouraged to stop by Vinal Edge in the Heights for sweaty fellowship with their fellow "barred" brethren to celebrate the release of Stewart Dean Ebersole's Barred for Life: How Black Flag's Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock's Secret Handsh ... More >>
I've had satellite radio in my life since Christmas. Nothing is better than falling asleep on the couch on a Saturday afternoon after a big fat lunch with Willie's Roadhouse playing; waking up every few hours to piss during a Ray Price cut and then falling back to sleep. What I love the most, besi ... More >>
This past week the Internet was abuzz with the news that two different versions of the 1980s hardcore-punk pioneers Black Flag are reuniting. Since Black Flag is so iconic to almost any punk fan, this is big news indeed. But there's a catch: neither of the two versions is the complete, real version ... More >>
One of my favorite pastimes is reminding my friends how old we are all getting, partly because I am cruel, and probably because even I am astounded that actor Steve Guttenberg is now three years older than Wilford Brimley was when they filmed Cocoon together in 1985. We can all think of things tha ... More >>
There have been punk-rock chicks as long as there has been punk rock. That much is true, but what is also unfortunately true is that the genre can all too often be a boys' club. Consider that emo, an entire genre based around angsty young men bemoaning their troubles with women, spawned from punk. T ... More >>
While the hallowed ground of Fitzgerald's has remained steadfast, becoming a seemingly permanent fixture in Houston's indie, punk and metal communities, other clubs have receded into the dustbins of history. Fortunately, the fecund eras of two - the Axiom and the Island - are being celebrated during ... More >>
Does the looming '90s revival presage a Nirvana-style breakthrough?
Next Thursday night, punk legend Keith Morris comes to Warehouse Live for his second Houston visit in a year with his group OFF!. The band is made up of Morris, Steven McDonald of Redd Kross, drummer Mario Rubalcaba, and guitarist Dimitri Coats, also front man of Burning Brides. OFF! was birthed o ... More >>
Twenty-nine years ago today, Metallica released their debut album on Megaforce Records, Kill 'Em All. It wasn't a smash success initially--Mötley Crüe were the reigning kings of metal on the West Coast in 1983, and Kill 'Em All wouldn't go gold for another six years. By that time, of course, Metal ... More >>
Black Breath, Martyrdöd, Burning Love, Enabler Walter's on Naylor June 29, 2012 All of six months has gone by since Walter's on Washington reopened in its new location on Naylor St., and last week I realized I'd yet to take in a show at the new place. The old joint had a fairly long reign as the t ... More >>
In terms of pure variety, the weekend of June 1-3 may be the most stacked weekend of music Houston will see this year, and that's not just because of Summer Fest. In addition to the wide variety of acts playing Eleanor Tinsley Park there's the regular weekend mass of shows taking place across the ci ... More >>
Tonight Jane's Addiction comes to the Bayou Music Center, touring behind last year's The Great Escape Artist, only their fourth studio album in their nearly 27 years as a band. A few weeks back Rocks Off talked to lead singer and Lollapalooza honcho Perry Farrell about the band's future and what cou ... More >>
When you think of punk rock, images of a bloodied Sid Vicious in a leather jacket may come to mind. Skinheads flipping off a camera. Henry Rollins and Black Flag destroying a crowd in a basement. Jello Biafra jumping into a surging pit of people after screaming about holidays in Cambodia. The Clash ... More >>
Have a G.G. Allin and bring in the New Year indecently!Everything is more exciting, sometimes even redeeming, when it has a cool name: Sexual acts, alcoholic beverages, movies, albums, etc. OK, maybe just sexual acts and drinks. Since there are thousands of sites that have the former covere ... More >>
"Dazed and Confused" indeed...Today I discovered Clipart Covers, a Tumblr site dedicated to remaking classic album covers with just clipart and comic sans, turning them into nightmarish, though amusing, affairs. Random urban-looking folks and what looks like a Wii avatar make up the cover of ... More >>
Photo By Edward CulverCheck out this great Q&A with Damaged photographer Edward CulverEvery modern punker has a story relating to Black Flag's Damaged, which turns 30 years old today. Some hate it, some love it, some blame it for the everything good or bad that happened in their lives since t ... More >>
Photos by David EnsmingerOFF!, Cerebral Ballzy Warehouse Live October 14, 2011 Some bands drag on for years, featuring only one original member, desperate to remain potent and pitched forward. Making potboiler punk, they endure the glare of the social-media era and endless new generations of ... More >>
"Can we have your brother's autograph?"Tonight the Alamo Drafthouse at West Oaks Mall turns punk rock as the theater shows the 1984 Alex Cox cult classic Repo Man, with a set from Houston punk laureates the Hates to start the evening at 9 p.m. The film, starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean ... More >>
Photos by Allison Wagonericeage, Balaclavas The Backroom at the Mink July 15, 2011 A lot of folks have a dirty habit of going full-throttle on a new band with only one album and a few singles, lumping praise on them before they can really live up to it. Aftermath has done it in the past (Die ... More >>
The Forrest Gump soundtrack debuted on June 28, 1994, a week ahead of the film itself, which would go on to smash box-office records, win numerous awards and become one of the most beloved movies of the past 20 years. It is still endlessly quotable, emotional, and entertaining, and the soundt ... More >>
#blackflagnerdstuffToday is Flag Day, a day where we honor the institution of the first United States flag in 1777. You know, Old Glory, the flag that looks really killer on bikinis in the '80s or when B L A C K I E wrapped himself in it at Free Press Summer Fest two weeks ago. The flag is a ... More >>
B L A C K I E Warehouse Live April 7, 2011 Well it wasn't quite 3-D, because real life itself is already four dimensional (props, Jim), but nonetheless, last night's experimental B L A C K I E gig in the studio space at Warehouse Live was eye-popping as hell. The show, opening with the Scr ... More >>
Boondocks, pictured more crowded than during happy hour The Place: Boondocks 1417 Westheimer 713-522-8500 The Hours: 5 to 8 p.m. daily The Deals: $1 wells and $2.50 for any draft The Scene: Boondocks has earned a dirty reputation, thanks in part to a long stretch of routine closing time fi ... More >>
"We were little pricks, but bored out of our minds..." The Adolescents on the 2007 Warped TourFor 30 years, seminal Orange County punk band the Adolescents has unleashed anthemic teen angst, since mutated into wise adult aggravation, in intermittent bursts. Sure, members come and go at revol ... More >>
Friday night Houston will see its first Social Distortion concert since Warehouse Live in late 2006. Lead singer Mike Ness played a solo date at the Meridian in mid-2008, doing select Social D hits and his own country-tinged stuff. Houston's punk-rock and rockabilly contingent sold this sho ... More >>
Marc BrubakerSaturday's Buzzfest has a lot to live up to...First of all, we sort of enjoyed ourselves at the last Buzzfest in May. Fred Durst told us he liked our Black Flag tattoo, and we finally got to hear "Nookie" live. We aren't going to say it was like being in the audience during a Bea ... More >>
Photos by Brittanie SheyFat Tony: Houston's Hot.For more pictures from Thursday's Reduxion, see our slideshow here. What if we threw a free show and nobody showed up? Luckily, Rocks Off did not have to find that out at our first Reduxion at Walter's on Washington Thursday night. Instead, we ... More >>
Rayhaan TraboulayBlack Flag makes a perfect soundtrack for stealing cigarettes and spray paint, says The Burden's Ryan Taylor (far right).Next Thursday is Rocks Off's maiden voyage of Redux-ion, a night we created for local bands to pay homage to some of their biggest influences. Along with Y ... More >>
This early L.A. Punk documentary
Actual songs may vary.Besides Saturday's Houston Press Music Awards showcase - be sure to tune into our Facebook and Twitter pages for plenty of chances to win more wristbands Friday - Rocks Off has finally nailed down all the details for the first installment of our monthly cover night, set ... More >>
It started one night on the patio of Big Star Bar in the Heights; over Lone Star and cigarettes, a handful of Houston music wags debated the shows they would pay top dollar to see from lartists, iving or dead. We argued the aspects of an At the Drive-In reformation, seeing Sam Cooke in 1963, ... More >>
Since his debut in 1981 as Black Flag's fourth, last and best lead singer, Henry Rollins has been the emissary of intelligent hardcore punk rock and its accompanying ideals. Through his five-year history with the band, from the LPs Damaged to In My Head, he brought an animalistic, poetic spirit t ... More >>
metal-archives.comA hometown D.R.I. gig, 1982Tonight at Wired Live, formerly the Meridian - or still the Meridian, just not for much longer; we don't even know at this point - you can watch part of punk and hardcore history duke it out with some of the new wave. Legendary crossover thrash band an ... More >>
Craig HlavatyThe Sword at Free Press Summerfest 2009This Sunday night, Austin's The Sword pulls into Warehouse Live to lay waste to our city's collective eardrums. The band was in town last August for Summerfest and was shit-hot, coming right off of an opening slot for Metallica over in Europe. T ... More >>
Photo by Troy FieldsThe musical act is the main draw at Howl at the Moon (612 Hadley, 713-658-9700), a dueling-piano bar in Midtown (and in Scottsdale, Charlotte, Baltimore, etc.). The bar features a stable of multi-instrumentalists whose job it is to work the crowd while plunking out up-temp ... More >>
Photos by Marc Brubaker/ Click here for a slideshowDeath, rebornThis year's Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin was the exact thing Aftermath needed in the midst of his fall concert schedule, even though the last day was marred by mud and constant rain. But after last month's dillo-dirtied Austin City Lim ... More >>
Don't act so surprised... As we can fatefully attest, rock and roll and tattoos go hand in hand. The first time Rocks Off saw a grizzled punk rocker walk by at Fitzgerald's back in the '90s with two sleeves full of tattoos and a chest full of nautical-themed art, we mentally pointed at him and said ... More >>
Amanda MertenSchool of Seven BellsFor the next three weeks, Rocks Off will be bringing you two or three short previews a day of artists playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park October 2-4. That's right, ACL is 17 days away - where is this year going? (Same place as all the ot ... More >>
When it comes to exercise, men and women don't have many different reasons for doing it. Mainly, both genders want to look better naked if perchance they find themselves without clothes on around a stranger they want to sleep with. Life expectancy, general health, and mental well-being are all se ... More >>
Chicks, man. Can't live with them, can't play music that objectifies them while in the car on the first date. What's up with that? You play one song with the queen mother c-word in it and she leaves the car before we get our complimentary paper crowns. We compiled a list of songs guaranteed to offe ... More >>
The heavily Hispanic roots — and present — of Houston's punk scene
Punk rock icon turned spoken-word artist loves animal attacks, hates homophobes
Former Black Flag frontman keeps the mike, loses the band
Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly
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