Bourbon Street

New Orleans Braces For Super Bowl XLVII Onslaught As Future Of The Game Is Debated

Excited tension hung heavy in the air in New Orleans on Monday evening as the coming Super Bowl XLVII super-storm of tourist dollars began to filter into town. Most streets downtown near convention center are already cordoned off. There are NFL banners blanketing the city. The Mercedes-Benz Superd ... More >>

Friday Night: Toadies, Helmet & Ume at House of Blues

Toadies, Helmet, Ume House of Blues July 20, 2012 The '90s were in high demand in Houston on Friday night. Up in The Woodlands, the Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Cracker and more packed 'em in to relive some of the decade's best one-hit wonders. Downtown, the Clinton-era jams were a little har ... More >>

Schilleci's New Orleans Kitchen Falls Short of Louisiana Flavor

New Orleans cuisine is the definition of hearty, spicy food. From shrimp Po-Boys to crawfish etouffee, each bite is filled with Cajun spice. Schilleci's New Orleans Kitchen has a menu filled with New Orleans classic dishes, but the lackluster flavors left me dissatisfied. I'd heard that Schilleci's ... More >>

Brian Downing: Alleged Alabama Teabagger Pleads Not Guilty (w/ VIDEO)

On the evening of January 9, 2012, the Alabama Crimson Tide beat the LSU Tigers in the BCS National Championship Game. They beat them like a drum to the tune of 21-0. The game was so lopsided that LSU amassed a grand total of 92 yards in total offense, five first downs and didn't cross midfield unti ... More >>

New Year's Eve Party at Sugar Land Town Square

The 2011 Houston Press Music Award Nominees

​Took us long enough, right? It's been so long since we've had the Houston Press Music Awards, which were last handed out the evening of August 11, 2010, that we almost forgot we were having them. Not really. How could we? If our numbers are correct, in the two weeks this year's nomination b ... More >>

Friday Night: B.B. King at the House of Blues

The blues is a funny ol' gal. By definition, the musical genre is a projection of the sadness and melancholy caused by a broken heart, or the lament of a "just can't catch a break" life. Yet the sold out crowd at the House of Blues on Friday night exhibited the exact opposite of sadness and downtro ... More >>

BestFest: thelastplaceyoulook Rolls In The Deep & All That Jazz

Photos by GroovehouseHair of the Dog: thelastplaceyoulook's Nava​If you missed Hell City Kings, the first band that played today, you missed out on a really religious experience. That could have been because frontman Josh Wolf made the set look like a Christian summer camp. Since it was so ea ... More >>

“Texas Zydeco”

Lady Gaga Sings The Big Easy Blues

Photos by Annelia WililamsEugene Moody​Rocks Off woke up to Lady Gaga on Good Morning America this morning. It looked like she was having a little trouble with her zipline. The reason Rocks Off woke up to Lady Gaga on Good Morning America this morning, instead of Channel 13's Eyewitness News ... More >>

Eric Allison: Alleged Child Molester Fished Dirty Diapers Out of Family-Restaurant Dumpsters

These are TOO CLEAN, damnit.​We're not sure if there's a 12-step group for (alleged) child molesters, but if so, Eric Allison's introduction might go like this: "Hi everyone. My name is Eric, and I (allegedly) fish dirty diapers out of trash bins at popular family entertainment establishments ... More >>

Bartender Chat: Ashelee Wells of III Forks

​When I first visited III Forks to interview chef/ owner Ozzie Rogers, I couldn't help but notice how invitingly elegant the bar area was; bright and modern, yet simultaneously classic and timeless. So recently, after a long day at the office, I headed back to check it out properly. I found ... More >>

Idol Beat: "Home Of Pirates, Drunks And Whores..."

​If you want to go to hell, you should take a trip To the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp. -- The Simpsons I kid. I mean, I haven't always been the biggest fan of the Big Easy, but that's mostly because I used to routinely leave a third of my brain cells and most of the contents of my di ... More >>

Buxton, Wild Moccasins Join New West Records

Here at Rocks Off, we try our best to cover all the local music news, both large and small. Where else are you going to read that you can play Slim Thug on Words With Friends? It is reasons such as these that we trudge the war zones of RSS feeds, seeking out crucial tidbits of information. Buxton o ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 2: Tony Mandola

​Yesterday, we spoke with Tony Mandola about his new restaurant opening in the spring, appropriately named Tony Mandola's (1212 Waugh). Today as we ask him about his recent award and how it really feels to be a Mandola. Eating Our Words: Your wife, Phyllis, of course, is part of a big Housto ... More >>

Cinema To Fall Asleep To

​As a rule, I try not to fall asleep in movies. Home viewing is one thing. There's a certain satisfaction one derives from bravely refusing to remain conscious through an entire screening of The Break Up, for example. Some would regard it as a feat of endurance to stay awake for the entire fi ... More >>

GAME TIME: Texans-Saints -- 5 Winners, 5 Losers

Oh, what the hell...go ahead and panic.​I keep trying to tell myself that the results of the Texans' trip to New Orleans last week didn't really count. Texans fans everywhere (and my liver) seem to disagree. New Orleans is one of a handful of places on earth that embodies the "too much of a ... More >>

On the Road in New Orleans

Shrimp and grits from Surrey's.​With the economy in the dumps and airline companies being more annoying than ever, more and more people are choosing to spend their summer vacation at closer, drivable locales. One popular destination is the Crescent City. With its old-world charm, plethora of g ... More >>

Strip Club Central: Clear Lake Gears Up To Fight T, A & Umlauts

Not in Clear Lake, please​A Houston City Councilman and a Clear Lake community association manager are up in arms over what they fear might be a strip club moving into their turf.Luks Cabaret (it's fancy because it has an umlaut, or it would if we could figure out how to do it) has a website, a bu ... More >>

Chicken on the Bayou Boudin Shop

​In the past when we've asked friends what makes good boudin, the answer is always simple - "somewhere on the side of the highway." About 15 miles east of Lafayette on I-10 lies Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, also known as "the crawfish capitol of the world." And across the street from the much adv ... More >>

Treme: Right Place, Wrong Time

​The third episode is potentially a tough one in a ten-episode arc like the one we're getting in the first season of Treme: Far enough in that characters have been set up, not quite at a major halfway point that would entail some twists or the onset of the momentum that will carry the narrativ ... More >>

Treme: Right Place, Wrong Time

​The third episode is potentially a tough one in a ten-episode arc like the one we're getting in the first season of Treme: Far enough in that characters have been set up, not quite at a major halfway point that would entail some twists or the onset of the momentum that will carry the narrativ ... More >>

Rick's Picks For iFest's Second Weekend

Ed. Note: Here are Houston International Festival Director of Peforming Arts Rick Mitchell's choices for can't-miss acts for the festival's second weekend, spread over five categories. Rick should know; he books all the artists. Rocks Off will follow with a few more picks of our own a little later o ... More >>

Treme: The Battlefield

​It became clear with this week's Treme, "Meet De Boys on the Battlefront," that creator David Simon has taken the fierce territorial pride that urged him to chronicle Baltimore in The Wire and grafted it onto New Orleans. If the earlier show was about seeing a city in decline in the aftermath ... More >>

The Treme Files: The Battlefield

​It became clear with this week's Treme, "Meet De Boys on the Battlefront," that creator David Simon has taken the fierce territorial pride that urged him to chronicle Baltimore in The Wire and grafted it onto New Orleans. If the earlier show was about seeing a city in decline in the aftermath ... More >>

Robb Walsh's 100 Favorite Houston Dishes #73 Greek Burger at the Hubcap Grill, 1111 Prairie

​Over the course of the next few months, I'm counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in ... More >>

Odd Pair: Crawfish Boudin and Old Barossa Blend

​Boudin reminds us of sitting on Bourbon Street on a hot, swampy night listening to a little Zydeco with an ice-cold Abita. Beer and boudin is a perfect combo, like peanut butter and jelly. To spice things up a bit, we might opt for a Sazerac or a Hurricane, but definitely not wine. Nothing ab ... More >>

What's In a Name? Psychobilly Undertakers 13 Black Coffins

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off, we're trying hard to decode Houston's oddest monikers in order to find a little meaning. ​ Psychobilly is a genre whose entire purpose, in our opinion, is to achieve maximum delinquency, like a grindho ... More >>

Top 5 Sauces That Make Chains Worth Visiting

​A purist would say a good bread or steak should stand on its own -- to sauce is to sin. But if A1 is the cardinal crime of fine dining, these sauces prove the opposite: a fine one can slather salvation over a culinary insignificancy. 5. Chick-fil-a Polynesian Sauce- In the world of fast-foo ... More >>

In Honor of Michelle Obama and "Shortsgate," the Best Ass Songs of All Time

In a year when the biggest news stories aren't about war or the environment but a mentally unbalanced woman having a litter of children and the death of a creepy pop singer who hadn't put out a decent album in 25 years, it should come as no surprise that so many people would be up in arms ... More >>

Moody Gardens, A Bigger Tourist Attraction Than The White House

If you had your choice to stand anywhere as a tourist in the United States, where would you choose?The Las Vegas Strip? Mount Rushmore? The White House?No way, dude -- you prefer to be standing in Moody Gardens in Galveston.At least you do if you're one of the respondents to what has to be described ... More >>

Calliope's Po-Boy and The Big Mamou

Gothtopia: Searching for the Perfect Vampire Anthem

Note: Lost in all the inaugural hoopla this week was the fact that Monday was Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday. No better time, then, to debut Rocks Off's new Goth column... Recently, my wife and I made our way down to the Houston Public Library to hear a talk with Charlaine Harris, author of ... More >>

Saturday: Dash Rip Rock at the Continental Club

A sort of swampy Supersuckers, New Orleans trio Dash Rip Rock - whose last album Hee Haw Hell was the rather ambitious cowpunk retelling of Dante's Inferno - have returned to more earthly concerns on the new Country Grilfriend (Abitian). That means, according to the liner notes, "songs [that] will b ... More >>

Via Colori

The Center for Hearing and Speech holds its annual draw-a-thon

Muffuletta Burger at Hubcap Grill

Weird and Wild at Hubcap Grill

Gulf Coast Jam

Blue-eyed soul legends the Boogie Kings, Jerry LaCroix and G.G. Shinn hit Port Arthur

The Soul Rebels Brass Band Find a Houston Home

New Orleans flair arrives on booming Almeda Boulevard

Houston International Fest 2007

The Bayou City's biggest festival continues making strides toward total recovery

Au Revoir, Chauncey

The goat and his two humans go home to New Orleans

Welcome, Neighbors

Houston's music community responds to an unprecedented influx of talent

Animal House

Bad behavior at UH's Phi Kappa Theta fraternity

One More for the Road

Local musicians regale us with more tales of woe, joy and debauchery

St. Patrick's Day Guide 2005

Letters

Wretched Research, Godwin's On Target, Culture Jocks

Zydeco's Birthplace

Hint: It's where you're standing

Viva Verdi

Compelling leads take Traviata past staging problems

Catch of the Day

Joyce's Oyster Resort proves to be a pearl of a place

Mr. S.O.B.

Rick's CEO Robert Watters wants to make sexually oriented businesses respectable. So why, in his adopted hometown, does he get no respect?