Britt Daniel

Surely Galveston Can Do Better Than "Galveston"

Notwithstanding the recent Galveston-based Carnival cruise liner whose faulty engines landed its passengers in a world of hurt (and national headlines), the island is again throwing its arms open for the upcoming summer season. Last week the Galveston Island Convention & Visitors Bureau announced th ... More >>

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 >>

The 30 Best Texas Albums

Ranking the 30 best Texas albums of the past 30 years seemed like an impossible task. We did it anyway.

Behold the Texas 30, Plus Albums 40-31

At this point, hopefully you know what the Texas 30 is and why Rocks Off is counting down to the Top 30 Texas albums of the past 30 years, as determined by a statewide panel of professional music writers. The short answer is, of course, because we can, and because it was a great excuse to listen to ... More >>

The Texas 30: The Third Runners-Up, Albums 60-51

Friday, Rocks Off told you about our "Texas 30" project, compiling a list of the best 30 albums of the past 30 years. Today we're about to show you the first of three bubbling-under appetizer lists we did just to put a little oil on the gears. Here, starting with No. 60, is where it gets interestin ... More >>

Top 5 People Who Should Be Judging American Idol

Over the weekend American Idol, struggling to remain relevant in the face of the televised singing-competition series it spawned like The Voice and X Factor, announced its final judges' panel for the upcoming 12th season that begins in January. According to Entertainment Weekly, joining the previous ... More >>

Friday Night: Grandfather Child, the Suffers, etc. at Fitzgerald's

Grandfather Child, the Suffers, Brent Nettles, Don't Poke the Bear Fitzgerald's August 31, 2012 Rewind: Grandfather Child Prepare for Debut (print feature) "Lucas was always getting into things as a kid. Asking questions, touching things," says Lucas Gorham's aunt while Gorham and his band Grandfa ... More >>

Friday Night: Spoon At House Of Blues

Spoon House of Blues April 13, 2012 Spoon has two types of songs: Songs that cut and songs that groove. But they all sting. The songs that cut are choppy and a little clenched, like "Small Stakes" or "Got Nuffin'." The songs that groove are about as fluid as I think it is for music to possibly be; ... More >>

Spoon

Born This Way: The Ultimate Soundalike Playlist

​When Lady Gaga released her new single, "Born This Way," in February, it took less than a minute of the title track from her upcoming disc for fans and detractors alike to scream "Express Yourself!" in unison. Yes, it does sound like an amped-up version of the 1989 Madonna track. A lot. Thi ... More >>

Last Night: Arcade Fire At Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Arcade Fire, Explosions In the Sky Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion May 4, 2011 It was a sort of homecoming for titanic indie-rockers Arcade Fire Wednesday night in the Woodlands, as the band returned to Houston after five momentous years to play songs from The Suburbs, ... More >>

Last Night: No Age At Fitzgerald's

Photos by Marc Brubaker​No Age Fitzgerald's January 12, 2010 For more pics from last night's show, including lots of crowd shots, check out our No Age slideshow. We are only a little less than two weeks into 2011, and Aftermath may have seen the first best show of the year, with 50 weeks lef ... More >>

Friday Night: Interpol At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Groovehouse​Interpol Verizon Wireless Theater October 29, 2010 Interpol should not have been at Verizon Friday night. Not by any traditional yardstick. A decade or so after their first release, the Fukd ID #3 EP, Interpol is a genuine anomaly. In an age when image is everything in ... More >>

ACL Day 1 Recap: Sonic Youth, Spoon, The Strokes, Nice People...

Brittanie SheySonic Youth​ For lots more pictures from Friday, see our slideshow here. Rocks Off wonders what kind of guitar budget Sonic Youth has. They aren't very gentle with their instruments. This occurred to us as we were standing a few feet from the large screens projecting their exte ... More >>

How Is Houston Doing ACL-Wise?

Marco TorresThe Eagles have flown, at least as far as Houston is concerned.​If you have even bothered to venture out of doors during these days of 105-degree heat indices and "Unhealthy" air-quality advisories, you may have noticed that things have been a little light on the roadshow front lat ... More >>

White Rabbits

SXSW Aftermath: Mexican Spazz-Punk, Sulky Broken Bells, Spoon In The Pocket

Photos by Craig HlavatyMexico's scuzzy Hong Kong Blood Opera​ We stopped off Red River at Barbarella to see Mexico City's Hong Kong Blood Opera, decent Blood Brothers-style spazz-punk, buoyed by electrics and plenty of howling by the band's co-singers. If anything, they engaged the crowd and we hu ... More >>

How Much Can MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Etc. Really Help Bands Promote Themselves?

Sometimes getting signed to a major is no guarantee they'll push your music either... just ask Spoon's Britt Daniel. The likes of Facebook and MySpace have made it easier than ever for musicians' music to be available worldwide, but it crossed our minds that it also might be much more difficult to ... More >>

Spoon to Engage In Transference at Stubb's SXSW Wednesday

Yes, Houston, they'll be back...​Whenever Rocks Off thinks about Spoon - which, over the past decade, has been quite a bit - the one word that always comes to mind is "punctuation." No other band we can think of consistently crafts songs that are so heavily punctuated, from Britt Daniel's sharp-a ... More >>

Love and Theft

The decade with no name left behind plenty of memorable music.

2009 Concert Rewind: The 2009 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase and Ceremony

Showcase Sunday, Part 1 Shea SerranoRunaway Sun​ Dominique: "We guess critics would call her style 'neo-soul,' but it didn't seem very 'neo' to me, more like 'jazzy soul.' She fronted a piano-led trio with two backing vocalists and from the first sultry Fender Rhodes groove to the final explosive ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Superbanana slumbers innocently, unaware that he will soon face his fearsome arch-nemesis: Krypto-Monkey.​ Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we've decided to keep all these sausage and cheese Christmas gift baskets for ourselves. Jane Catherine Collins certainl ... More >>

Uprising

2009 wasn't a great year for albums, but songs were a different story.

Five Hour Energy

The 2009 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase in 300 minutes or less.

HPMA Aftermath: Ozeal & the Eulypians, Nosaprise, Benjamin Wesley, Tha Fucking Transmissions, Kristine Mills, Peekaboo Theory, Versecity and Spain Colored Orange

Chris Gray​Five hours is not a long time. It is if you're driving from Houston to Texarkana or Uvalde, maybe. But when hopscotching all over downtown trying to take in as much of the Houston Press Music Awards showcase as you can until your feet and your ears cry uncle, those 300 minutes go by in ... More >>

Merchant of Soul

Spoon's musical tinker Britt Daniel avoids the cringe.

Last Night: X at Warehouse Live

Texas Albums

2007's best Texas albums, from Houston, Austin and beyond

Our Favorite Albums of 2007

Panning for gold in an avalanche of 2007 releases

Last Night: Spoon and New Pornographers at Warehouse Live

Spoon

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

That's the Way They Get By

Spoon's Britt Daniel turns his camera on

Spoon

Gimme Fiction

Oranges Band

Saturday, December 6

Hardy Har Mar

Har Mar Superstar -- cynical parodist or sincere R&B devotee? You decide

Daniel's Boon

Spoon's Britt Daniel is a good guy. And his new album is even better.

Static

Rotation