Black Sabbath

Your Obscure Black Sabbath Primer: 10 Deep Cuts For Beginners

It seems so fitting that the most exciting year in Black Sabbath news since they hooked up with Dio again in 2007 ends with the number "13." That's also the name of the band's new record, which undoubtedly you've already heard the first single, "God Is Dead?", if you're a Sab fan at all. "God is De ... More >>

Revisiting Robertson Stadium's Forgotten Concert History

After years of dreaming, planning and even a little begging, the University of Houston broke ground on a new on-campus football stadium this month. It's a pretty darn exciting development for the Cougars that marks the beginning of a new era of UH athletics: The program will play its first season in ... More >>

Ty Segall: 2013's Busiest Musician?

One would think that after releasing three albums in a year, an artist might consider taking a "hiatus"; anything from a drug binge to a bender in Mexico. Not Ty Segall, he doesn't take breaks. He has formed yet another new project with guitarist Charlie Moothart, appropriately called Fuzz, and the ... More >>

Fresh Cream and the Top 10 Power Trios of All Time

Forty-six years ago this week, British blues-rockers Cream unveiled their debut album, Fresh Cream, one of the most deeply influential rock and roll records of all time. The original supergroup, the band was intended to unite the "cream" of the late-'60s British blues scene, featuring Eric Clapton ... More >>

10 Songs That Will Pack Your Wedding Reception's Dance Floor

Lil Keke's Heart of a Hustla

Squeezing the Lemon: Led Zeppelin & the 10 Most Shocking Rock and Roll Reunions

Five years ago this week, Led Zeppelin fans young and old squeezed their pants full of lemon juice when the band's three surviving golden gods -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - announced that they'd be reuniting for a one-off concert in London. John Bonham's son Jason would man the s ... More >>

25 Gorgeous GIFs From Lollapalooza 2012

Another Lollapalooza blog by our friends at City Pages -- ed. Lollapalooza 2012: The People BY REED FISCHER Ready for some GIFs? To quote Ozzy Osbourne, "I can't fucking hear you!" I said, ARE YOU READY FOR SOME GIFS?! This past weekend's running of Lollapalooza in Chicago was intense. The hea ... More >>

Linus Pauling Quartet

Bad Beef: 4 Examples Of Musical Feuds Gone Wrong

Competition is a good thing. It pushes people to work harder and be more creative. That drive to prove to the world that they're the best has lead musicians to some incredible heights. After all, competition gave us Pet Sounds and "Ether." Yet in the '10s, that competitive spirit has been pushed as ... More >>

Which Metal Bands Should Reunite?: Revocation Tells Us

Tony Norkus/ www.facebook.com/Revocationn​The music industry has lit up with some pretty high-profile reunions in the past few months. At The Drive-In and Refused both announced comeback shows within days of one another, and even Black Sabbath decided to reconvene for a new album and a world t ... More >>

The Warning: The 10 Heaviest Albums Before Black Sabbath

Forty-two years ago today, on Friday the 13th, the gates of hell opened up and belched forth Black Sabbath. Upon its release, the Birmingham band's eponymous debut album instantly became the heaviest, scariest, most evil record of all time, and it still ranks right up there. Calling this record "in ... More >>

Drum Kit From Hell: With Bill Ward Out, 5 Replacement Drummers For Black Sabbath

Drummer Bill Ward, furthest right, has left the band.​Black Sabbath's big reunion plans seem to be cursed. First, guitarist and the only consistent member of the band Tony Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma. Then they had to drop out of playing Coachella due to Iommi's diagnosis. The latest spe ... More >>

The Most Overused Expressions in Music Critics' Twitter Feeds: An Epic List

It is impossible to overlook this peculiar trend any longer: A few choice words and phrases seem to be dominating many of 2011's music critiques, particularly on Twitter. Seemingly forcibly wedged into friends' and journalists' 140-characters-or-less makeshift tweet reviews, the following words and ... More >>

Never Say Die!: Black Sabbath Reforming In 2012 For Tour & Album

​Today in Los Angeles, legendary, pioneering heavy metal group Black Sabbath convened in front of reporters at the Whiskey A Go Go to announce a 2012 reunion tour and album, set for a fall release. The event, hosted by Henry Rollins, was telegraphed by a countdown clock on the band's official ... More >>

Tony Iommi: Music's Other Man In Black Proves His Heavy Mettle

​Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath By Toni Iommi with T.J. Lammers Da Capo Press, 416 pp., $26. Imagine this passage being read in your best "Behind the Music" narration: It was in the center of a dirty, grimy sheet-metal factory in Birmingham, England, when a 1 ... More >>

For 4/20: Hipgnosis' Greatest Bong Hits

​Rocks Off doesn't know if it's our Shot In the Dark photo show tomorrow or that batch of brownies someone sent us, but we've been in a really visual mood this week. We can't remember exactly what it is, but something told us today might be a good day to revisit the work of Hipgnosis. The gro ... More >>

The 10 Best Rock Samples In Hip-Hop

​Rocks Off just finished reading Ian Christe's 2007 Van Halen biography, Everybody Wants Some, which chronicles the band's history from the Van Halen boys' entry into the U.S., the upbringing of David Lee Roth, and devastating, fatal 1985 crash into Mount Sammy Hagar. Sad stuff if you're a Rot ... More >>

Rappers: What Are Your Final Four Picks This Year?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Every Monday that isn't a national holiday, Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​This Week's Panel: Uzoy, Eskabel, Renzo, Kyle Hubbard, D-Risha and J ... More >>

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 >>

Match These Bands With Their Awful Original Names

​Provided they didn't take the easy way out and name themselves after a song (Rolling Stones), their hometown (Boston) or each other (Hall & Oates), almost every band that went on to sell millions of records, get tons of radio play and sell out arenas has had some form of the following convers ... More >>

Ozzy & Sabbath Songs We'd Like To Hear Tonight (But Won't)

​It's the curse of being a fan. You want to hear all your favorite songs, but you know that the artist only has so much time onstage, and what with trying to shill a new album nobody has heard and playing the requisite classics, may only have time for an obscure nugget or maybe two. With Ozz ... More >>

Bands Named After Movies, Characters & Other Film Stuff

​Ever wonder which of your favorite bands are named after movies? So have we. So we went out and did a little bit of research. BANDS NAMED AFTER ACTUAL MOVIES My Bloody Valentine: The seminal shoegaze act took their name from a low-budget 1981 horror movie about a guy who really, really hat ... More >>

Girl Talk Toilet Paper Mash-Ups Balloons = Party!

Marc Brubaker​ Aftermath didn't think it was possible to up the ante any more at this year's Summerfest until Girl Talk took the stage Saturday night. In our estimation, it was the biggest and baddest Summerfest party to date. We might even venture to say that achieved the biggest and baddest summ ... More >>

To Get You In The Mood For Summer Movie Season, The Worst Blockbusters Of The '00s

​For better or worse, the summer movie season kicks off this weekend with the release of Iron Man 2 (which I believe is a Black Sabbath documentary).It's the time of year when temperatures rise and IQs drop as folks looking for relief from the sweltering heat seek shelter in air-conditioned theate ... More >>

Back to the Future: The Musical Lineage of the Sword

Craig HlavatyThe Sword at Free Press Summerfest 2009​This 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 >>

Listology: Toxic Noise DJ Bakka's Top Bone-Crushing Jams

​Every third Wednesday at Boondocks, the space upstairs turns into the most fabulous place in Houston for rockers, punks and metalheads when DJ Bakka revs the turntables for his popular "Toxic Noise" DJ sets. It's like going to visit a high-school bully's bedroom in 1987. If you still miss Shanle ... More >>

Three Bassoons Walk Into a Bar...: The Near-Classical "Noncert" at Under the Volcano

Photos by Chris Gray​ Under the Volcano does not feel like Under the Volcano. The TVs are off, so no more NBA on ESPN. Hayes Carll's Trouble In Mind has come and gone - in its entirety - on the jukebox, taking its bad livers, broken hearts and drunken poet's dreams with it... mostly. Earlier, a re ... More >>

A Rocks Off Playlist: Halloween Songs That Don't Suck

Yeah... screw this thing.​Let's face it: the Monster Mash blows. So do many of the songs we're forced to suffer through every Halloweentide. A couple of years ago, Rocks Off heard "One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater" on XM Radio's Halloween-themed channel, and wanted to sneak into a ha ... More >>

Season of the Witch

U2's awe-inspiring Reliant Stadium show prompts a search for the unknown — and unknowable — in music.

Monotonix

Heaven & Hell: The Devil You Know

Jason Aldean

Retro Active: The Ian Gillan-Fronted Black Sabbath

Ian Gillan on his brief stint in Black Sabbath Last week, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, claiming that one of the promotion behemoth's subsidiaries, Signatures, sold a bunch of Sabbath merch after a licensing agreement expired in 2006. Though the idea of Blac ... More >>

Black Sabbath: The Rules of Hell Box Set Reviewed

Iron Maiden

Get Lit: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Joel McIver

Heaven and Hell

The Heaven and Hell tour stops Wednesday, May 2, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Robbins Dr., 281-363-3300.

The Jonbenet

Wednesday, July 26, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington, 713-862-2513

So, What Is It?

Gold Metal

Stapp Infection

Sanctimonious hypocrites need love, too

Between the Cracks

Profiling local bands

The Linus Pauling Quartet

Songs of the Cretaceous

Oneida, with Ume and the Jonx

Friday, August 12, at Rudyard's, 2010 Waugh Drive, 713-521-0521.

Hot Shows

Summertime concerts that will leave you sweating

Best Jukebox

Letters

Party of Helicopters

Friday, January 4

In The Dark