Buddy Holly

Coming Next Week: The Texas 30

One day this summer, it must have been, a certain Mr. Craig Hlavaty brought a book he had found at a Houston-area thrift shop called (the) Genuine Texas Handbook into the office. This book is about everything you ever loved about Texas in the early '80s condensed into 200-something pages -- big hair ... More >>

Freddie Steady 5

The Flatlanders

Marshall Lytle Rocks This Joint

Rockabilly pioneer headlines the Continenal's three-day Rock Baby Rock It festival.

Frog Eyes! The 10 Greatest Glasses-Wearing Musicians

If you were like me growing up, you had glasses. You got ridiculed for it with names like "frog eyes," "nerd" (sadly children didn't equate that with smart, just weird), "ugly" and "geek." Even worse was the fact that, as a result of my wearing glasses, I couldn't wear sunglasses because the good o ... More >>

Gemma Ray

Black Keys Driving Their El Camino To Houston On April 24

Photos By Craig HlavatyThe Black Keys ​The Black Keys, who are currently riding a wave of adulation in the wake of this month's brand new release El Camino, are set to hit Houston on April 24. This Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion date will be the group's second at the venue, the first being an ... More >>

Top 5 Musical Ed Sullivan Show Controversies

theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com"You want me to sing WHAT now?"​To the right-wing conservatives, religious groups, and self-proclaimed family organizations raising hell over Chaz Bono's "assault on family values" as the first transgender contestant on Dancing With the Stars, Rocks Off asks the q ... More >>

ACL: Adele & Mumford & Sons - Not Here, But Here

Photos by Marco TorresTrain a-Comin': The Secret Sisters​3:30 p.m. Still they file in. Watching the crowds trudge along Barton Springs Road, their eyes fixed on the pavement about five yards in front of them (not their phones), always reminds Rocks Off of a pilgrimage. And each festival has i ... More >>

The Best Songs From 1958

​This Saturday is Craig's Hlist's father's birthday, and the man turns 53. Sorry to out your age, Dad, but it's for science. This week while doing other research, we found that most people whose art we enjoy were actually born in 1958. People like Alec Baldwin, Prince, Jello Biafra, Jools Holl ... More >>

Out Today: Other Things Besides Born This Way... Seriously

​This past weekend was magical, what with Rocks Off finally getting to see Foo Fighters play songs from Wasting Light and all. You may remember that we have been wanking over Light since it came out in April, but it's really good. Best rock album of the year? Maybe, unless Jack White or Josh H ... More >>

Friday Night: The Wagoneers At The Continental Club

Photos by Jason Wolter​The Wagoneers Continental Club April 15, 2011 Alt-country pioneers the Wagoneers laid down a crisp, essentially flawless 90-minute set Friday night at the Continental Club. They must've used cases of WD-40, but they showed no rust at all despite a 20-plus-year layoff. A ... More >>

SXSW: The 10 Best Of The Fest This Year

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​

"Day of the Dead Rock Stars"

Carlos Hernandez adds a few new twists to his annual Dia de los Muertos exhibit

Sole of Houston: Bicycles Enable Lomax And Beebe To Cover 30-Plus Miles Of Hood

Murder, tacos and Perpetual Help​Man, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since David Beebe and I last undertook a Sole of Houston stroll in December of 2008.For my part, there was a divorce, massive weight loss, and the ditching of pretty much all my vices. As for Beebe, the supe ... More >>

Jungle Rockers

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 >>

The Great Green Room In the Sky: The Grim Reaper's 2009 Musical Roll Call

​Thankfully, 2009 was a sorry year for the Greil Marcus Rock Death Meter. Aside from the not terribly unexpected (but still weird) demise of the King of Pop, few bona fide legends went on to the Great Green Room Beyond the Sky. The Rock Death Meter rates rock deaths on a ten-point scale in three c ... More >>

American Central Dust: The Americana Class of 2009, Part 1

​We spent 2009 sorting through piles of folk and Americana releases, revising this list in our heads till the bitter end and failing repeatedly to understand the hype behind the Avett Brothers in the process. While a year of listening brought no shortage of pleasant surprises, our hands-down favor ... More >>

The Top Rock-Star Death Conspiracies: Elvis, Michael, Kurt, Tupac and More

It seems that the stranger and weirder our world gets by the day, humanity struggles to find reasons behind all this calamity and tragedy. We try our best to find conclusions to why bad things happen, and when we can't fully fathom that the awful truth is just that, instead try to blame the influen ... More >>

Tonight: Rocks Off Presents Stand By Me at the Mink - Free Hot Dogs!

Tonight at the Mink, Rocks Off presents Rob Reiner's 1986 coming-of-age classic Stand By Me, complete with free hot dogs from hot indie restaurant darlings Ray's Franks.​Adapted from Stephen King's Different Seasons novella "The Body," the film traces the journey of four friends searching for the ... More >>

No Exit

Blondie casts a wide net indeed on the band's Last.fm station.

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: "Palo Duro"

View Five States of Texas in a larger map As any proud Texan can tell you, the Lone Star State is entitled constitutionally to split into five states if it so wishes. The scenario has rarely been more in the news than it has relatively recently, when Gov. Rick Perry played to the wingnut gallery in ... More >>

Aftermath: Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood at Toyota Center

Photos by Daniel Kramer Two words came into Aftermath's head shortly into the show uniting these former Blind Faith bandmates and arguably two of classic rock's biggest stars: peerless musicianship. They stayed with us for the rest of the concert. While we can appreciate the bombast and big show of ... More >>

Slideshow on Demand: You Make the Call

chemistryland.comRocks Off loves to put together musical slideshows, and if the response to a few of our recent ones is any indication (hi, Digg!), you like them too. Album covers are an almost inexhaustible resource that are always fun to look at and can be grouped together any number of ways. So l ... More >>

Election Eve With Fred

Roy Orbison: The Soul of Rock and Roll

The Best of ACL Fest

Who Stole the Roll?

Q&A: Little Steven Van Zandt

Retro Active: A Nuclear Era, But I Have No Fear

Unknown Legend

Roots renegade Joe Ely never achieved pop stardom, but that's all right by him...sorta

Exhumin' to the Oldies

Los Lonely Boys

Thursday, November 3, at Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas, 713-225-8551.

Christmas in July

Six dozen of Houston's finest bands for a mere $7

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

New Angels in Rock Heaven

Scoring the grim reaper's 2004 harvest

Best New Bar

Tough and Well Preserved

Joan Jett and Pat Benatar team up for a tour

Kenny G.'s Revenge

Smooth-jazz fans blast Racket

Ultimate Fakebook

Friday, March 29

Racket

The Last Concert Cafe has glimpses from its unique history

Dune, TX

Rocking out with the bare essentials

Free Radical

The Sound of Money

Clubland

Great Dwight Hope

Mum's the word in the Yoakam camp, but the music speaks for itself

Same Old Waylon

The most rebellious thing Waylon Jennings has done is not change

Sound Check

New Blues

Alternative rock robs pop's cradle