Bruce Springsteen

Buckwheat Zydeco

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 >>

Sunday: iFest In Downtown Houston -- Seun Kuti, Texas Tornados & More

Houston International Festival Downtown Houston April 29, 2012 See lots more on iFest's second weekend in our slideshows of the bands, the crowds and the arts & culture. I like iFest. I'm glad it's here. It's not the kind of thing I'd like to go to every weekend, but once a year is about perfect. ... More >>

MTV Unplugged's 10 Strangest Moments

Those of you fond of criticizing the lack of music on MTV, take note: The network's venerable Unplugged series returns on Sunday with a performance by British indie-poppers Florence and the Machine. It'll be the first of eight shows planned for this year, with The Civil Wars and Dierks Bentley alrea ... More >>

Tears In Heaven: The 10 Best Songs To Come Out Of Tragedy

Since the dawn of time, great art has been birthed out of great tragedy, happening numerous times with playwrights, artists, and musicians. In many ways, expressing grief through music serves as a healing agent that gets the artist through tough things such as the loss of a loved one. It also helps ... More >>

Boy Bands Are Back In Fashion, But Did They Ever Go Away?

One Direction, the newest UK pop import to make it to colonial shores, announced a full-scale summer tour Tuesday, including a Houston date on June 24 up at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Pretty big venue for a group that is just now breaking in America, and the Brit-Irish boy band just sold ... More >>

Why Taking The Piss Out Of Your Most Beloved Musicians Is Healthy

A few days back I wrote a less-than-excited review of Bruce Springsteen's latest album, Wrecking Ball. The Boss' official Twitter account has been retweeting every hyperbolic 140-character superfan review of the new disc. One guy claimed that Wrecking Ball made him sob on the side of the highway for ... More >>

Springsteen Stumbles On Pedestrian New Album Wrecking Ball

Today sees the release of Bruce Springsteen's newest album, the compact and confounding Wrecking Ball, his first since 2009's Working On a Dream. Recorded and inspired partly by the recent Occupy protests, with most songs coming before the movement was even a physical thing, in any other year it cou ... More >>

Top 10 Greatest And Most Essential Music Lists Of All Time

​Any fan of music journalism, well hell any sort of journalism in the past five years has seen a massive amount of top 10, 20, or 31 lists all over the Internets. They help cull information into one meaty morsel for you to swallow without, you know, have to type shit. Pretty cool, huh? As a ... More >>

Who Is Paul McCartney?!: Rocks Off Tells You

So, it's the day after the Grammys, and you may still be wondering who that "hella old" man with the droopy eyes playing the weird left-handed bass was on the telecast last night. You know, the guy next to the guy from Foo Fighters and that one other ancient-looking man in the tight jeans who looks ... More >>

Enjoy Your Lunar New Year With Some Of Music's Greatest Butts

According to Chinese reckoning, today marks the lunar new year. It's the Year of the Dragon. Specifically, the Year of the Water Dragon, which I'm told will bestow a peaceful energy on the coming year, favoring the ideals of negotiation and forward thinking. I know, right? BOOORING. We Americans kn ... More >>

Lord Lordy, Look Who's Forty: The Best Albums Of 1972

Last week I told you about the best debut albums of 1992, making a lot of us feel old in the process. Hell, I was only nine when those came out and I felt feeble making the list. This week we look at the best albums of 1972, now four decades in the hole, but no less fulfilling and influential. Wha ... More >>

Top Five Best & Worst Songs About 9/11

​This Sunday will be 10 years since America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. In that time, a lot of musical ground has been covered. Some artists mention that day only in passing, as Jay-Z and Alicia Keys do in "Empire State of Mind," but some have crafted songs about 9/11 itself. Some of thes ... More >>

10 American Anthems That Tell It Like It Is

​Captain America, Marvel's newest superhero movie, comes out today. We'll pause until the excitement passes. ... Rocks Off likes Captain America. The three comic books we read with any regularity as a scupper were Cap, Batman (Detective Comics), and Spider-Man. But we love America. The land ... More >>

Sgt. Pepper & Three Other Bum Albums By Rock Icons

​It was 40 (four) years ago today - in the UK, and tomorrow in the U.S. - that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, history stopped, the Summer of Love began, and critics freaked the fuck out. When the Beatles released their LSD-soaked counterpunch to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in June 1967, K ... More >>

Fake Problems

​It was 40 (four) years ago today - in the UK, and tomorrow in the U.S. - that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, history stopped, the Summer of Love began, and critics freaked the fuck out. When the Beatles released their LSD-soaked counterpunch to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in June 1967, K ... More >>

Last Night: Alejandro Escovedo At House Of Blues

Photos by Jason Wolter​Alejandro Escovedo House of Blues Bronze Peacock Room March 3, 2011 This never would have happened in Austin. In our fair state capital, Alejandro Escovedo is worshiped like a god, and more people would show up to watch him wash his car than came out to House of Blues' ... More >>

10 Good Differences Between 2000 and 2010

​Note: This was written by Richard Connelly and Craig Hlavaty We take a look in the print edition this week at a decade most of us would just as soon forget, the period from 2000-2010. But we have to admit not everything was bad. Cell phones, for instance, got a hell of a lot better. So loo ... More >>

Rolling Stone's 25 Worst Cover Misfires

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more. The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film H ... More >>

The Hold Steady

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more. The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film H ... More >>

Last Night: Vampire Weekend And Beach House At Verizon

Photos by Mark Britain​Vampire Weekend, Beach House Verizon Wireless Theater October 7, 2010 It's hard to quantify a show featuring two of the darlingest indie darlings the indie-darling machine has ever invented back-to-back in a non-festival setting. These events don't happen often, because ... More >>

House Of Blues Extends Tax-Free Merch Sale Through 7 p.m. Today

​House of Blues has extended its "Great Rock 'N' Roll Sample Sale" to a second day, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today in the Bronze Peacock Room. Sales tax for all merchandise, available for as low as $3 for CDs and hats (Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, KISS) or even $1 for tour programs (Springstee ... More >>

What Does Katy Perry Taste Like?

​Last week when we gave Kesha a bloggardly shellacking, we compared her and other female pop stars of her ilk to burritos. You may remember we said she was a gas-station burrito and Miley Cyrus was a Big Mac wrap. It was either a stroke of genius or the starved ramblings of a music writer subs ... More >>

What Does Katy Perry Taste Like?

​Last week when we gave Kesha a bloggardly shellacking, we compared her and other female pop stars of her ilk to burritos. You may remember we said she was a gas-station burrito and Miley Cyrus was a Big Mac wrap. It was either a stroke of genius or the starved ramblings of a music writer subs ... More >>

Bono, Gaga And ZZ Top Write Like Raymond Chandler? Who Knew?

​Ask anyone who really knows Rocks Off, and they'll probably tell you we can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. We proved this once again earlier this week, when we updated our Facebook status with a plea for someone to explain to us what in tarnation a "meme" is. We should have waited ... More >>

The Gulf Coast At iFest: Joe Ely's Rattlesnake Rock, Soulful Latinology, Voodoo Brass And Creole Zydeco

Over the next two weeks, Rocks Off will be previewing acts performing at this year's Houston International Festival Saturday and Sunday and April 24-25 broken down by genre (loosely, anyway) and with a guest pick from a true insider: iFest Director of Performing Arts Rick Mitchell. We're doubling up ... More >>

Fails Of The Week: Insane Clown Posse Hates Science, No Dylan In China, Rihanna & Ke$ha's Auto-Tour

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

They Were Kinky Before Kinky Was Kinky: Musicians Who Have Held Public Office

From Ted Nugent to Bruce Springsteen to those adorable Dixie Chicks, "Masters of War" to "George Bush doesn't care about black people," musicians have never been shy about voicing their political opinions. But when it comes to putting their money where their mouths are and filing the necessary pape ... More >>

Guitar Zero: Played It 'Til My Fingers Bled...

No, this song is NOT about the year of Woodstock and the Moon Landing. It was the summer winter of '69 2010. Robert told me to come up with five songs I wanted to learn how to play (on guitar, in case you weren't keeping up). The Wife, seeking to maximize the parental utility of my music lessons, h ... More >>

Announcements That Are Almost As Startling As Mark McGwire's Steroid Confession

​Former St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire gave a statement today to the Associated Press admitting he used performance-enhancing drugs during baseball's steroid era.The sports world is reeling from the confession, which came completely out of the blue. It is, of course, absolutely shocking; in fact, ... More >>

Live with Me

The best Houston concerts of 2009: U2, George Strait, Kid Cudi, Jandek, Peaches and even T-Pain.

Live at Liberty Hall

The short but storied past of Houston's legendary live music venue.

Miss Pop Rocks Watches the Super Bowl

Oh God, my stomach is so distended. WHY do I do this to myself every Super Bowl Sunday? I watch one football game each year and it's this one, and the only reason I watch it is to have an excuse to eat snacks and watch commercials. A few thoughts on this year's game: First of all, choirs are ver ... More >>

Don't Stop Believin'

Oh God, my stomach is so distended. WHY do I do this to myself every Super Bowl Sunday? I watch one football game each year and it's this one, and the only reason I watch it is to have an excuse to eat snacks and watch commercials. A few thoughts on this year's game: First of all, choirs are ver ... More >>

Recent Super Bowl Halftime Highlights and Lowlights

Backfield in Motion

U2 Lace Up Their Dirty "Boots"

Among, you know, a few other things, the past 24 hours have been the start of a very, very big year for the band Rocks Off affectionately refers to as the Best Band Ever. U2 appeared alongside Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, "One" pal Mary J. Blige and many more as Barack Obama's opening acts at ... More >>

Aftermath: The Magpies and Sideshow Tramps at the Continental Club

Photos by Chris Gray It didn't look good at the beginning. A few minutes after 9 p.m. Wednesday, the posted start time for visiting Cleveland roots-rockers the Magpies, the "count" at the Continental Club front door was all of 16 paying customers, and the band was nowhere in sight. Two chicken t ... More >>

Classic Rock Corner: In Memoriam 2008

You know, the Grim Reaper don't care if you're a multiplatinum music legend, a one-hit wonder or studio-only sideman - he's comin' for you someday! And in 2008, he seemed to like keyboardists and drummers most. A number of classic rockers left for "The Great Gig in the Sky," foremost of whom is the ... More >>

Songs Not To Play At Intercontinental Airport's New Karaoke Booth

So now there's a karaoke booth at Intercontinental Airport. According to the Houston Chronicle, travelers can choose from "hundreds of titles."We got to wondering this morning about what's in their song selections there and more to the point -- what isn't.We imagine that the management of IAH's kara ... More >>

Ten Performers Besides Bruce Springsteen Who Were Considered for the Super Bowl

So now there's a karaoke booth at Intercontinental Airport. According to the Houston Chronicle, travelers can choose from "hundreds of titles."We got to wondering this morning about what's in their song selections there and more to the point -- what isn't.We imagine that the management of IAH's kara ... More >>

Against Me! at ACL Fest

So now there's a karaoke booth at Intercontinental Airport. According to the Houston Chronicle, travelers can choose from "hundreds of titles."We got to wondering this morning about what's in their song selections there and more to the point -- what isn't.We imagine that the management of IAH's kara ... More >>

StubHub: Houston is America's 17th "Most Rockin' City"

So now there's a karaoke booth at Intercontinental Airport. According to the Houston Chronicle, travelers can choose from "hundreds of titles."We got to wondering this morning about what's in their song selections there and more to the point -- what isn't.We imagine that the management of IAH's kara ... More >>

A Super-Patriotic July 4 Playlist

Have You Forgotten?

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Steve Earle at Verizon

Have You Forgotten?

Local Motion

Have You Forgotten?

Confessions of a Classic Rock Whore, or One Man’s Journey

Have You Forgotten?

Protest Songs for George W.

That's my Bush!

Phat Promises for 2007

New Year's resolutions of the stars

Austin's Fave

New Year's resolutions of the stars