Bon Iver

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 >>

The Best of Coachella, Weekend One

Ed. Note: Rocks Off proudly presents to our readers coverage of Coachella's first weekend courtesy of our sister papers LA Weekly and OC Weekly. Karen O's Outfit Karen O's wardrobe on Friday night was bad-ass. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman appeared on the main stage in a technicolor cape draped o ... More >>

10 Signs Your Band Won't Make It at SXSW

Being a successful musician really has to be a slice of heaven. And of course the chicks are great. It's why from the beginning of time men (and women) have taken up instruments in the chance that they will be played in front of many, many others, some of whom could possibly want to have sex with ... More >>

Best Shows In Houston This Weekend: Rebelution, Graveyard, Every Time I Die, Walker Lukens, Etc.

Rebelution With J Boog, Hot Rain House Of Blues, Friday, 8 p.m., February 22 For a clue on just how much Rebelution must love ganja, beyond even the exquisitely explicit "So High" on its 2012 release Peace of Mind, consider that the Santa Barbara reggae-pop crew also issued acoustic and dub version ... More >>

5 Folk Acts Who Wandered Down the Synth Road

Mandolin enthusiasts Mumford and Sons have been on top of the world the past couple of years, dominating rock-driven radio with a folk sound that apparently touches the hearts of hard-rock bros around the world. Given that they have an apparently winning formula, one wouldn't expect them to change i ... More >>

Grammy Snubbed: Should We Really Feel Bad for Justin Bieber and Grizzly Bear?

You may have heard that the Grammy nominations were released this past week. It has some great choices from the committee, surprisingly enough. You've got nominations for extremely deserving artists such as Fiona Apple, Frank Ocean, Bjork, and Tom Waits. Even the Album of the Year award is a competi ... More >>

Top 5 Old Songs Ripe for Hipster Updates

After having grown up in a pop-music culture that every day grows more adept at rehashing, re-imagining and (let's be frank) flat-out stealing sounds from those who came before, today's indie bands are no strangers to aping their influences. And unlike post-punk and grunge before them, this class do ... More >>

The 5 Worst Cover Albums of All Time

I think when they're just starting out, every musician dreams of making a cover album at some point down the road. We all have our favorite songs that we wish we had written and we all fantasize about singing and playing them ourselves. It's why karaoke bars exist. Of course, everyone thinks they w ... More >>

Bon Iver, Hipster Doofus

Dust Off Your Flannel

Does the looming '90s revival presage a Nirvana-style breakthrough?

Children's Rockers Imagination Movers Come Draped In Full Rock Regalia

The Imagination Movers are one of the biggest things going in children's music, a rapidly growing genre increasingly populated by older modern-rock acts and singer-songwriters. Hell, the Verve Pipe play ACL every year to wide kiddie acclaim. Plus, if parents don't find it horribly grating you can ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Bon Iver Is the Clown Prince of Hipster Doofuses

Who is Bon Iver? The name originally referred to a band, I guess in the same way Nine Inch Nails referred to a "band," but since hitting it big, it's mostly just a nickname for frontman and songwriter Justin Vernon, who, depending on who you ask, may either be Jesus or the antichrist. Consulting my ... More >>

Bree of 13 Celsius Serving Crisp, Clean Bubbly Where Houstonians Picked Up Crisp, Clean Shirts For Over 70 Years

This week, over a delicious and refreshing Riesling (none of that crappy Blue Nun bullshazzy), we caught up with Bree at 13 Celsius. As other singles and groups trickled in to unwind with a post-work glass of wine in a decidedly low-key, non-Midtown-ish atmosphere, we got to know a little bit about ... More >>

A Texican In New Orleans: Lessons Learned From Jazz Fest

This past weekend was the last for this year's edition of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which started way back on April 27. The festival runs over two weekends, usually Thursday through Sunday. Obviously since it is a uniquely Nawlins institution going back to 1970, it's not a festival t ... More >>

Not A List: Your Favorite Musicians As Food

Sometimes an idea comes from the basest regions of your brain. Sometimes you think of something so stupid that you need to share it with your art director. Sometimes the snow comes down in June, and sometimes the Sun goes 'round the Moon, right? Anyone with a Tumblr who isn't addicted to free porn ... More >>

Readers Poll: Who Is the Most Overrated Artist in Rock History?

The concept of "overrated" and "underrated" has always confused me. There are groups that are critically lauded, yet got little commercial love, like The Band. And then there are groups that were almost universally reviled by critics, like Journey, who consistently managed to sell out shows, sell mi ... More >>

Trend Alert: 10 Artist/Brand Partnerships We'd Like To See

One of the most notable trends emerging from SXSW earlier this month was the increasing prevalence of financial partnerships between artists and brands. The highest-profile example of this phenomenon came courtesy of Lil Wayne, who taped a Mountain Dew spot from the stage at his Young Money/Cash Mon ... More >>

Flaming Lips And Their Fwends Set To Weird Up Record Store Day

In a few weeks on April 21, Record Store Day is yet again set to obliterate the wallets of record collectors around the country, and the Flaming Lips will have quite a release for fans on that day. What would you think if I said that they have been recording with none other than Ke$ha, Bon Iver, Nic ... More >>

Saturday Night: Praia Urbana At Last Concert Cafe

Praia Urbana Last Concert Cafe March 10, 2011 Between the unrelenting rain and RodeoHouston traffic, Saturday night got a little messy as Aftermath attempted to weave through the outskirts of downtown for the Last Concert Café's all-day electronica festival Praia Urbana. Nevertheless, considerin ... More >>

Are SNL's Divisive Musical Guests Making It Relevant Again??

Even as sketch comedy tastes have changed, and a segment of the population has sadly written it off as an unfunny relic, NBC's Saturday Night Live is still pulling in cutting-edge, marquee musical guests each week, in the process creating national stars or pariahs. Or sometimes both. Case in point ... More >>

Who The Eff Is The Ron River?: A Journey Into The Heart Of The Two Americas Of Bon Iver

"Who the fuck is Bon Iver" went the story last night on Twitter as indie musician and soft-spoken beardo Justin Vernon's Bon Iver project won a Best New Artist Grammy. Never mind that the man has been on the scene since 2008's For Emma, Forever Ago, but it still seemed to be deserved. Last year's se ... More >>

We Tell You Who Will Win Grammys So You Don't Have To Watch Them

SPOILER ALERT​The best thing about the annual Grammy nominations and awards shows is the clamor of anger that rises up when the mere mention of the event even comes up. Immediately people begin calling it a travesty, trotting out all the people who have been snubbed -- Jethro Tull beats Metall ... More >>

The 39th Pazz And Jop Poll Features Quite A Few Surprises

​And by surprises, I mean that I didn't like most of the albums in the top ten. Usually I fall lock-step in with the crowd, but this year not so much, with my love for arena-rock and Americana dominating my list. Pazz And Jop is the Village Voice's annual critics' poll, with critics from music ... More >>

Where Did Matisyahu's Beard Go? We Found It!

​Rapper Matthew Paul Miller, stage name Matisyahu, made waves this week by tweeting a picture of his face, shorn of the trademark Chassidic beard, along with a message promising "an amazing year filled with music of rebirth." The message on his personal site also mentioned "rules" in his chose ... More >>

Spinning the Black Circle

Is the music industry stabilizing?

From Hayes Carll To Cults: Rocks Off's Top 50 Albums Of The Year

It's that time of year again when we add our two cents to the cyber-orgy that are year-end best-of lists. Music blog Paste and British mag Q threw down with their top 50 earlier this week, so why not Rocks Off? These things just keep starting earlier and earlier each year, like the holiday shopping ... More >>

Five Curiosities from the Grammy Nominations List

The Grammy nominations were officially presented last night. Not surprisingly, Adele, who is considered a front runner in nearly every category she is nominated in, cleaned up with six nominations for her album 21, but was beaten out by Kanye West who had seven, though curiously not among them a nod ... More >>

ACL Last Night: Kanye West At Zilker Park

Marco Torres​By the end of the first night of this year's Austin City Limits, Kanye West had gone over his allotted set time by 15 minutes, turning in one of the most un-rap, rap shows, injecting a Bjork and Talking Heads stage-commanding sensibility into a collection of champion singles. It w ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Leaking 2011 Lineup On Turntable.fm

​After leaking artists including Okkervil River, Odd Future, X and - most people believe - Slayer, Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest has officially begun announcing its 2011 lineup via the brand-new file-sharing/social-media hybrid Turntable FM. Fun Fun Fun began streaming songs from this year's arti ... More >>

Forrest Gump & Other "Generation-Defining" Soundtracks

​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 >>

Out Today: Bon Iver's Bandwagon Bait, Weird Al Goes Gaga

Greetings From Bon Iver Land! Now, grab a rifle. It's almost dinner time.​In the next few weeks, you may be reading about the new Robert Ellis album, Photographs, so we are just giving you fair warning. It's a stunner through and through, and goes nicely with early morning traffic. Have you ev ... More >>

Peter Gabriel & the New Blood Orchestra

Your Favorite Bands: How To Correctly Pronounce Their Names

​Back in December 1998, when Eminem was just hitting MTV and rap radio, we remember people pronouncing his name as "Eee-mine-im," and not the candy-inflected way it actually was. We even made the mistake during our first viewing of "My Name Is" late at night on the video channel and calling a ... More >>

Out Today: My Morning Jacket Back In Form, Vedder's Ukulele Slays

​This week brings a new My Morning Jacket album, an Eddie Vedder ukulele outing, the umpteenth Dave Matthews Band live collection, and Ozzy's past barks at the moon. We are just now hitting the busy summer release period, so these blogs in the next few weeks will be getting jam-packed. In th ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

Peter Gabriel Coming To Houston June 16

​It's been eight years since former Genesis front man and mainstream avant-garde pop artist Peter Gabriel has performed in Houston, and on June 16 he will remedy that with what is sure to be a sold-out affair at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Last Saturday on his official Web site, Gabr ... More >>

10 Albums That Grew On Us Over Time

The King of Limbs has now been out less than a week, and Radiohead's latest effort has people torn, even fervent fans who think that Thom Yorke and his crew can do no wrong. Craig's Hlist listened to the half-hour album at least three times last Friday, just hours after it was released, and came f ... More >>

Top 10 Worst Top 10 Lists Of 2010

​Now that's a headline, ladies and germs. It has the added benefit of being succinct as well. That's exactly what we're summing up here, the worst Top 10 lists our peers have written this year. Let's get started, as we've got a lot of ground to cover. 10. This One Not really, this is just t ... More >>

Kanye's Best My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Lyrics

​It doesn't hit the streets, legally, until Monday, but Kanye West's long-gestating My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy leaked a few weeks back. Since then, Rocks Off has been spinning our preview copy quite a bit at the office. It's not the completely finished version about to hit stores and ... More >>

Five Recent Movies That Needed A John Hughes Soundtrack

​Even though John Hughes had not made a decent movie since 1991's Dutch (missile twisters FTW) when he died one year ago today, the world still mourned the loss of one of the best filmmakers to ever take on the human experience. Hughes may have only dealt with dysfunctional Midwesterners, but ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: Aftermath

Photo by Mark C. Austin​Was it something we said or did? Aftermath openly gushed about how great the weather was on Friday and how it seemed that maybe, just maybe, we were going to finally attend an Austin City Limits (ACL) that didn't consist of heat and dust. Well, it seems that the powers ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Three: Mud!

Photo by Craig HlavatyNo, that is not Rocks Off.​At this point Rocks Off is so jaded from mud, rain, bro-dudes, and janky taxi-cab politics that Eddie Vedder himself could be standing before us and we wouldn't know him from Adam Lambert. As Willem Dafoe said in Platoon "The worm has turned for you ... More >>

ACL 2009: Best Tweets Of The Weekend

Armed with our sort-of handy cellphone we were able to Tweet from ground level at the festival, with sometimes hilarious and vulgar results. Mostly the latter, because we are foul people. Over time, our Twitter updates devolved into angry rants, as you will see below.@hprocksoff sez:Oh god they real ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: Live Shots

Photos by Mark C. AustinMute Math​The second day of the festival was so busy (and so rainy) that we barely had time to get back to our laptops and card readers to upload photos. So - one day late - enjoy our favorite shots from Day Two of ACL, featuring Bon Iver, Citizen Cope, Grizzly Bear, Mute M ... More >>

Local Motion: Top Sellers at Area Record Stores

Cactus Music 2110 Portsmouth, 713-526-9272 www.myspace.com/cactusmv1. Springfield Riots, Say When EP 2. Todd Snider, The Excitement Plan 3. Jubal Lee Young, Last Free Place in America 4. Sonic Youth, The Eternal 5. Steve Earle, Townes 6. Elvis Costel ... More >>

Through Being Cool

This Week in SXSW: Katy Perry Kisses the "Lake of Fire"

There's now less than a month to go until we here at Rocks Off throw sobriety and sane living to the wind at this year's SXSW festival. This past week we learned of a boatload of new stuff about the weeklong liver-damaging voyage in March, so here goes... The list of bands keeps growing and gro ... More >>

Moments the Grammy Awards Would Rather Forget

Soy Bombed

Top Ten Americana Albums of 2008

Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn't nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn't feel right stuck in the category. Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while Blitzen Trapper's fantastic ... More >>

Tonight: Peter and the Wolf and More at ArtStorm

Austin's Peter and The Wolf does road music. Not road music in the sense that Sammy Hagar did songs for the open road. Chief P&W songwriter Red Hunter's songs remind Rocks Off of walking down gravel roads, occasionally wiping sweat from our brow and meandering with no destination. Hu ... More >>