Cincinnati

UPDATED: If Lightnin' Hopkins Can't Save the Texans, No One Can

The Houston Texans are hosting a playoff game tomorrow, but only after a spectacular late-season collapse that cost them the AFC's top seed and invoked every Oileresque axiom about Houston sports being flat-out cursed. Since about the time the Texans' offense was unable to convert on third down agai ... More >>

It's National Chili Week: Top 5 Unusual Chili Ingredients

Every region has its own rendition of chili. New Mexico has green chili (interesting), Cincinnati has spaghetti with chili (still don't understand) and Texas puts meat in its chili (definitely the best). I always love classic chili with beef or sirloin (I'm a Texas girl, what can I say?), but somet ... More >>

All-star Sweet & Savory Fundraiser Raises $19,100 for Lucky Dog Rescue

Pastry chef, Top Chef Just Desserts contestant, and hometown girl Rebecca Masson loves dogs. "If I could save them all myself, I would," she said as she thanked all those who had generously donated time and funds for the Lucky Dog Rescue charity. This past Sunday, her Sweet and Savory fundraiser a ... More >>

Heartless Bastards

Surviving A Nightclub Fire: 7 Tips On How To Get Out Alive

On Feb. 20, 2003 - nine years ago today - Great White performed at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. During opener "Desert Moon," spray-style pyrotechnic gerbs (a kind of firework that shoots a stream of sparks) went off. Couple that with highly flammable low-density polyurethane foam tha ... More >>

Show Me Your GIFs: Great Classic Rock 'N Roll GIFs Galore

It seems to me that musical history is made up of fragments of indelible images, good and bad, that inform each person's experience. Then there are the swatches of tunes that grab you by the heart strings or the throat, making you a fan for life. But it's those moving pictures that you first remembe ... More >>

Texans 20, Bengals 19: Historic Season Doesn't Have To Stop With Division Title

Photo by Marco TorresSign of the times​The popular opinion of the 2011 Houston Texans has been that while they were an inspiring story, injuries would prevent them from being a true Super Bowl contender. After Sunday, consider the latest in a long line of Texan myths officially debunked. Whe ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

Another Wine Blog: Love born in the blogosphere. It's a beautiful thing. A few weeks ago, when I shared a glass of stinky, delicious Cortese (from Piedmont) with tandem wine bloggers Amy and Joe Power, authors of Another Wine Blog, they told me the story of how they met in the "pre-blog" era, in a ... More >>

How Bootsy Collins Became A Bass Player

​Recently Rocks Off had the great pleasure of speaking with one William Collins, known around the world by his platform-heeled nickname, Bootsy. The man with the mellow voice and star glasses is on any short list of best bass players in the world, thanks to his long years with James Brown, as ... More >>

Heartless Bastards, Bright Light Social Hour, The Wheeler Brothers

Bedbugs in Houston: Hey, We Ain't Too Bad

Probably from Dallas.​Anytime there's a list involving annoying bugs or pests, you expect Houston to be making a bold bid for the title. But exterminator giant Terminix has just released its list of the worst bedbug-infested cities in America, and Houston isn't on it. We don't make the top 1 ... More >>

For The Final Four: 9 Musicians Who Love College Sports

​After weeks of anticipation and preemptory hand-wringing over where we're going to park on Washington Ave. this weekend, the Final Four is Finally here. As with any other time a marquee sporting event comes to Houston, you can count on some familiar themes in media coverage: Where to party, w ... More >>

“WYSIWYG, a site specific community interactive installation by Wendy DesChene”

What a Crock: No Beans About It Chili

​After reading this piece from Nicholas L. Hall and taking a gander at the comments section, I quickly realized what a volatile subject chili is for some people. Take, for example, the comment from Fatty FatBastard: "If you think beans add anything but texture and filler, you're an idiot." ... More >>

Top Eight Notorious Concert Disasters

Daniel R. Davidson via WikipediaThe Station fire in West Warwick, R.I., 40 seconds in​Recently, indie-rock juggernauts Arcade Fire were prevented from playing a gig in Portugal by NATO, which is having a summit on the same date. Arcade Fire offered to play a day ahead of time, but NATO decided ... More >>

Friday Night: The National At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​The National House of Blues October 8, 2010 Houston crowds like to party. The National does not. These two seemingly indisputable musical facts led Aftermath to imagine all sorts of nightmare scenarios for the Brooklyn band's visit to House of Blues Friday night, from t ... More >>

Healthiest (And Also Worst) Prospective Vending Machine Foods Ever

​Schools in Cincinnati and Syracuse are the guinea pigs in an experiment to get kids to eat healthier. They're doing this by providing vending machines filled with carrots. Ah, but not just carrots: three-ounce bags of baby carrots dolled up to look like more familiar snack foods. Ingenious! W ... More >>

Scott Weiland At The Woodlands, In His Own Slurred Words

The comments are already racking up on our review of Sunday night's Stone Temple Pilots show at the Woodlands, with readers firing disappointment at the band for their late start and shortened set. Rocks Off enjoyed the show, but was still miffed that we lost five songs on the usual playlist due t ... More >>

A Few Possible Cures For Rocks Off's Acute "Can't Stay Home" Syndrome

Lev Kuperman/ myspace.com/viaaudio​ Monday night, an obviously delirious Rocks Off found ourselves upstairs at the Mink's Backroom instead of where we should have been, home in bed asleep. We enjoyed high-energy/lo-fi trio Vivian Girls, but at this point we are starting to realize we may have a pr ... More >>

Game Time: Texans' Playoff-Rooting Manifesto 2.0

​"So you're saying there's a chance..."  -- Lloyd ChristmasA couple weeks ago, when the Texans were sitting at 5-6, I spent the better part of about four hours constructing an easy-to-follow guide for Texans fans to know whom to root for in games throughout the balance of the season in order ... More >>

Wild Moccasins Play Live on Cincinnati's WOXY

Kim DouglassHey, it's been a couple of days since we used this photo... Like a mother sending her baby off to college, we here at Rocks Off are pretty proud of the Wild Moccasins for representing Houston's up-and-coming indie scene so well on the band's first extended tour this past month. So natura ... More >>

Jenny Lewis, Heartless Bastards

Friday Night Noise: John Wiese & C. Spencer Yeh, Yellow Swans, Headdress

John Wiese & C. Spencer Yeh, "Pink Pyramid" Noise dudes do love their collabos, huh? Sometimes, I love 'em, too. Often these meetings-of-the-messed-up-minds produce muddled junk. Laptop-power-electronics-psycho Weise and violinist-electronic-twiddler Yeh have crossed circuit boards more than a ... More >>

Graeter's Makes a Sweet Texas Debut

Graeter's ice cream -- the only delicious food to come out of Cincinnati (we're looking at you and your abominable bastardization of a perfectly good dish, Cincinnati "chili") -- has been a favorite among dessert fans since its creation in the 1920s. Spanning four generations, the ... More >>

Heartless Bastards: The Mountain

Album of the Week: Heartless Bastards' The Mountain

Heartless Bastards The Mountain www.heartlessbastards.com Gnarlier than a century-old Live Oak, Heartless Bastards' The Mountain plugs the Cincinnati-born trio's scorching postmodern blues - their debut, 2006's All This Time, could skin a cat - into the eerie backwoods folk of Greil Marcus' ... More >>

Mail Call: Heartless Bastards, Riverboat Gamblers, Steve Forbert, Thursday and More

Pick of the Litter Cambria HarkeyHeartless Bastards (Austin/Cincinnati), The Mountain (Fat Possum) PR Says: "The record delivers the swamped-up rock howl that fans have always loved - but also brings in this amazing expansion into their sound with pedal steel, mandolin, banjo and st ... More >>

Houston Dominates True Love, If Essence Magazine Is To Be Believed

Houston, we are kicking ass once again -- this time in the category of smooth, silky black romancing.Essence magazine, which is sorta like Cosmo for black women (we guess), conducted a nationwide search to find the five most romantic couples who want to get engaged. The winning couple will be reveal ... More >>

Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 2

Gram Rabbit, Super Happy Fun Land, January 31: "Gram Rabbit is the face of 21st century glam; denser than Scissor Sisters and more fun than Ladytron. If everyone who heard Roxy Music got these sorts of ideas, the world would be a vastly better place." (Chris Henderson) Over the Rhine, McGonigel' ... More >>

This Just In: The National at Rice University Tomorrow

Tonight: Heartless Bastards at Last Concert Cafe

Over the Weekend: Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Houston Astros

Spiritualized: Songs in A&E

Reverberations: Opening Up the Garage

Last Night: Over the Rhine at the Mucky Duck

Cyberonics Sells Patent Rights for Pacemaker-like Device, HouStoned Headline Writer Inexplicably Not in Mood to Make "Heart" Pun

The College Football Review, Week Seven: Plenty of Reasons to Get Upset

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Six: Forget Dog Fighting. Parity Is the League’s Biggest Problem.

Cover Story: The Heimlich Maneuver, Drowning and Potsie

Hentai Lacerator

Experimental thrashers sing odes to Slimer, porn and things that suck

Fighting for Air: Drowning and the Heimlich Maneuver

Most doctors say the Heimlich maneuver should not be used to save drowning victims. So why does UH professor John Hunsucker continue to teach it to lifeguards?

The College Football Preview, Week Six: The Red River Showdown, the Tears of Touchdown Jesus, the Glory of the Rice Owls

Pase Rock

Pase Rock performs at Rockbox, 10 p.m. Thursday, July 26, at Proletariat, 903 Richmond, 713-523-1199.

Graham Weber

Friday, March 24, Shoeshine Charlie's Big Top Lounge, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899

Heartless Bastards

Thursday, June 30, at Rudyard's, 2010 Waugh Drive, 713-521-0521.

Scoring the Super Bowl

NFL Films' music may be stirring, but these songs tell the real story of the big games

Duck and Cover

The Aeros look to skewer Cincinnati

Funk Historians

Soup Weather

What's Bootsy Doin'?

James Brown is the hardest working man in show business, but Bootsy's the busiest