Casio Inc.

Special Year-End Edition: How Can I Get My Mexican Neighbor to Turn His Music Down?

And a special gracias from your favorite Mexican!

The 10 Worst Holiday Cover Songs Ever

It's the thought that counts, right? Because they had the common decency to make original garbage, this list pardons holiday atrocities like New Kids on the Block's "Funky Funky Christmas" and "Last Christmas" by Wham! The ten "artists" on this list couldn't even be bothered to wrap their own turds ... 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 >>

The Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp From Hell

Rocks Off recently got invited to cover something known as Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp, which works a lot like baseball fantasy camp, except none of the participants can field a line-drive grounder. Among the idols rock campers will meet include 3 Doors Down, Mark Farner, the drummer from the Hooters a ... More >>

It's Christmastime Already? Pass The Ammo, Please

This is how we feel about Christmas NOW... don't even try to talk to us after Thanksgiving.​Rocks Off is not trying to interrupt your Halloween plan-making - getting a little late in the game, isn't it though? - but you might as well forget about it anyway. We feel it's our civic duty to infor ... More >>

The Five Worst Musical NFL Players

myspace.com/freereignFree Reign, or "God's Revenge"​Professional football players dabbling in music? What could possibly go wrong? Glad you asked. You did ask, right? 5. Ben Utecht, Cincinnati Bengals Ben Utecht suffered a concussion while working out with the Cincinnati Bengals and decide ... More >>

MC Chris

iFest Aftermath: A Whirlwind Afternoon With Zydepunks, Some Cha-Chas, Taj Weekes And Dave Alvin's Guilty Women

Jason WolterZydepunks​ There was a moment as Aftermath was walking through the Caribbean Market section of iFest Saturday when we had the most visceral of flashbacks -- stepping off a Carnival cruise boat at the rip old age of 14 in Nassau, Bahamas, and being inundated by tourist-baiting marketeer ... More >>

A Brief Guide To Super Happy Fun Land's SXSW Overflow Fest

www.myspace.com/jodyseabodyandthewhirlsHouston psych-rockers and Overflow artist Jody Seabody & the Whirls​Thursday marks the beginning of Super Happy Fun Land's SXSW Overflow Fest, two weeks of performers stopping by the East End art space/music venue/sock-monkey emporium on their way to and ... More >>

The Final Fantasy: An Inside Look at Anime and Cosplay Conventions

Photos by Jeff BalkeWe don't know who this character is supposed to be, but she was killing some Japanese opera.​The costumes are expected. The fanciful, the extraordinary, the bizarre, the obscurely referenced, the painstakingly planned and the larger than life weren't surprising -- after all ... More >>

An Exercise In Pain: Six Songs of Radio Phil Collins

John Seaborn Gray​ Inspired by Seanbaby's wonderful article using Pandora via Phil Collins as musical gaydar, Rocks Off logged on to our Last.fm account to see where a similar journey with the Genesis drummer and noted Texas history buff might take us. After all, it's not really scientific unless ... More >>

The Best Wrestler Theme Songs of All Time

With Wrestlemania in town for its 25th anniversary, Rocks Off thought we could take a little stroll down memory lane and relive some of the WWE's best wrestling theme songs. Nowadays, the WWE can afford to purchase the rights to slick, well-produced songs by popular music acts such as Saliva, O ... More >>

Spring Cleaning

Five Spot: "Thriller" Goes Global

[Ed. note: Five Spot got bumped by the Latin Grammys Friday, so better late than never...] Welcome back to Five Spot. Every week, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Because it makes per ... More >>

A Classic-Rock-Free Morning

No More Heroes is hip, bloody and indispensable

Hearts of Animals

The Rough Guide to the Music of Vietnam; The Rough Guide to Latino Nuevo; The Rough Guide to Salsa ; Bokoor Beats; Bonde de Rolê, With Lasers; Kenge Kenge, Introducing Kenge Kenge; The Budos Band, II

Notable recent releases from beyond borders

Lord Have Mercy

Jesus Camp pitches its tent in the other America

Rock over Houston

The Daddy of Rock N' Roll will whip your ass

Pop Rocks

Ten albums that'll snap and fizz in your ear buds all winter long

Will the Real Blue October Please Stand Up?

Local band suffers identity crisis

Den of Iniquity

A gay "bear" learns to parent his nephew in a delightful Spanish drama

Divide and Convolute

The Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat has indie rockers confused: Are the brother and sister hacks, geniuses or somehow both?

Big Deal

A good idea grows up into a missed opportunity

Kelis

Tasty (StarTrak/Arista)

Rock Death in 2003

Exhuming and scoring last year's pop-music demises

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

Wednesday, December 17

Little Joe Washington

Every Wednesday

Erasure

Other People's Songs (Mute)

Bah, Humbug!

The glut of holiday CDs kills the Christmas spirit

Man, Oh Man! Another Tie?

Men's gifts

Houston Press Music Awards 2000

Your guide to the Music Awards Showcase

Where Will They Be?

A look at the rock scene in 2020

Do Not Go Gentle

Former Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby fights on for better, more diverse education in Texas

Rotation

Rotation

Pillow Talk

Cornershop's East/West diplomacy is as soothing as it is sophisticated

Deifying Dah-veed

David Garza worships at the altar of rock and roll

Spunk Rock

The Muffs' Kim Shattuck can't understand why everyone else doesn't write like her

Rotation

Hickman's Science Project

Plus: Houston musicians ask that eternal question -- Why doesn't anybody love us?