Consumer Cyclicals

Sheriff's Office Makes Busts at Two Game Rooms

Harris County Sheriff's investigators seized cash, drugs, weapons, and gambling devices from two allegedly illegal game rooms in southwest Harris County Thursday, according to a press release. Acting on a tip, members of the HCSO's Game Room Task Force (a whole task force, yo!) seized the loot -- w ... More >>

Your 2013 Houston Record Store Day Rundown

Your financial situation be damned, Record Store Day 2013 is coming this Saturday, April 20, to drain your wallet of life and those little green pieces of paper. This Saturday your dance card should be full with all the major indie record stores in Houston and the surrounding areas offering up giv ... More >>

Exploring Sweet Spot Audio And Records In Webster

A few weeks back, our own Marc Brubaker detailed ten of the best record stores in the Houston area. This past weekend I finally visited another one to add to your list of must-visit shops in Houston, and it is worthy of the drive if you live inside the Inner Loop. Sweet Spot Audio and Records is l ... More >>

Promoter Sues Owners of Club Where Jay-Z, Beyonce, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade Celebrated All-Star Weekend

A group called All Pro Management is suing the owners of Rich's, where Jay-Z (aka Mr. Beyonce Knowles) hosted an NBA All-Star par-tay, accusing them of cheating All Pro out of proceeds from liquor sales. The promoters claimed to have paid $25,000 to host the event, according to the Courthouse News ... More >>

Only Want Local Channels, but Want a DVR Too? Aereo is Coming to Houston

As television begins the slow but inevitable conversion from traditional airtime to digital, on-demand services through devices like Apple TV and Roku, the one issue it faces is how to deliver things like local news or live on-air programming like sporting events. For now, if you don't have cable an ... More >>

2013: First Year of the Post-CD Era?

Things haven't been looking good for CDs for years now. Ever since the introduction of Napster and the first portable MP3 players, the format has pretty much felt doomed. Since the turn of the century, the CD has hung on valiantly, but its disappearance has remained a question of when, not if. 20 ... More >>

Louis Vuitton Obsession: Domain Seizure Reminds Us of Five Things You Shouldn't Buy Online from Random Websites

As part of the continued crackdown on counterfeit merchandise websites, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations announced in a release that it seized 89 Internet domain names last week. Of those 89, a whopping 78 were related to Louis Vuitton, the high-end handbag ... More >>

Robertson Stadium Goes Boom as UH Releases Renderings for New Football Stadium

After 70 years, this is what has come of fabled Robertson Stadium. The photo above was taken on Wednesday as crews demolished the University of Houston campus football venue to make way for a brand new stadium in its place that will look something like this: The new facility is scheduled to be read ... More >>

Is It Time to Ditch Cable for Streaming Digital Video? Six Questions to Help You Decide

Lately, a number of my friends have asked the question: should I get rid of cable? Ten years ago, the answer would be yes only if you didn't watch any cable network television shows, at which point you could simply go back to an antennae. With the advent of digital television, that has become a more ... More >>

Bruce Kessler's Incredible Houston Concert Photo Archive

White Linen Fight

As event grew, so did promises, expectations and disappointments.

Cover Story: White Linen Fight In The Heights

Let's get this straight right out of the gate: White Linen Night is fun, White Linen Night is great, White Linen Night is one of those rare times when the surprisingly stuffy Heights lets its hair down. And nobody wants the event to wither and die. This year's dialed-back affair was less raucous th ... More >>

UH Hires Developers for New $105 Million Football Stadium

Look at the University of Houston, acting all grown up and everything. They are so cute at that age. UH, long suffering in grand old Robertson Stadium, particularly in recent years when the football team has been, you know, actually good, finally is moving forward on a much ballyhooed stadium plan ... More >>

Brave, A Rare Family Film

A movie about courage that actually has some.

30th Annual Houston Auto Show

Long-Time Car Salesman Rocky McCullough: Dealership Fired Me Because I Have Cancer

You might recognize Rocky McCullough from his Goodson Honda TV spots, where he guaranteed low prices while standing next to a buxom model or two. But now McCullough is playing a different role: the plaintiff in an employment discrimination lawsuit against Southern Ford in Pearland. McCullough claim ... More >>

2012 Summer Guide: Summer Movie Preview

Pink Slipped: The 7 Best Artists To Be Dropped From Their Label

Once upon a time, record labels were the most important thing to an artist who chose to work within the music industry. They could make or break anyone and even world renowned artists knelt at the feet of their masters. Getting dropped from a label was, at one time, a death sentence. Even today man ... More >>

Record Store Day: 8 Ways To Annoy A Record-Store Worker

Tomorrow is Record Store Day, which is a little bit like the Super Bowl of music shopping: People who have no interest in the sport the rest of the year will be front and center. Rocks Off would never, ever tell anyone not to go to a record store, but people not already planning to make a beeline fo ... More >>

Vinyl Gets Another Spin

Showing it has more lives than a cockroach, vinyl has been reborn, resulting in some beautiful music. But sometimes production values in records and turntables are lacking.

Friday Night: Bomb The Music Industry! At Walter's

Bomb the Music Industry!, Laura Stevenson and The Cans, LIMB, Lisa's Sons Walter's March 30, 2012 New York natives Bomb the Music Industry! is a project spawned from Jeff Rosenstock of Arrogant Sons of Bitches after they broke up. Bomb the Music Industry! provides anthems for taking life with a gra ... More >>

Bill & Ted's Alex Winter Examines Napster's Fall In SXSW Doc Downloaded

Alex Winter (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Idiot Box) has spent the last decade trying to make a movie about Napster, the revolutionary peer-to-peer filesharing site that changed the music industry forever. Winter met Napster founder Shawn Fanning in 2002 and was instantly energized by the p ... More >>

8 Things We Learned from the IFPI's 2012 Report

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released its 2012 report this week, confirming that the music industry may finally have a reason to be cautiously optimistic about its future. The industry saw its first year-over-year growth since 2004, piracy notwithstanding. The IF ... More >>

App of the Week: Pandora vs. iHeartRadio

If you haven't been paying attention, a very tiny little war has been brewing over access to the ears of people who like to listen to radio online or on their smart phones. I say it's a tiny war because, at the moment, it is. While many of us who love music and like to listen to it a lot will do wha ... More >>

Swizz Beatz is the CEO of Shuttered Megaupload...Wait, What?

We've all failed as music journalists. Swizz Beatz is the CEO of Megaupload.com and no one seemed to notice? No one, except Wikipedia (yes, that bastion of factual information on the web), which lists Swizzy's government handle, Kaseem Dean, as the head honcho of Megaupload. Megaupload's "About Us" ... More >>

Last Minute Shopping: The 10 Best Online Retailers (Not Named Amazon.com)

​For a decade now, online retailers have increasingly grown their sales to the point they now rival traditional brick and mortar establishments. Let's face it, it's just easier to shop online if you have a computer, an internet connection and a desire to avoid crowds. You can sit there with a ... More >>

A Roundup of the 2011 Music Industry Based Strictly on Band Names

XL/Columbia​Theologians love saying things like "Man is created superior to animals" and "Animals can't be equal with humans." And then we go scouring philosophy books to see if animals have immortal spirits and if this means we'll someday meet our pets in heaven. That's a bunch of horse dung. ... More >>

Spinning the Black Circle

Is the music industry stabilizing?

Material World: Music to Rock Your Cyber Monday with Video

In the late '70s, there was a movie spoof on Friday the 13th called Saturday the 14th. It was about as dumb as you imagine it would be. Well, insert punchline here because Black Friday is over, but we are still smack dab in the middle of Cyber Monday, where instead of being stampeded by rampaging sh ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Cyber Monday Is Better Than Black Friday

To bastardize a line from Groundhog Day, "Well, it's Black Friday...again." It's that oh-so-magical time of year when the strong walk away from predawn shopping trips with armfuls of electronic goodies while the weak get treated by EMS for boot marks left by shoppers stampeding into Best Buy. Since ... More >>

5 Reasons You Should Skip Black Friday for Cyber Monday

Well, it's Black Friday again. I sincerely hope you and your loved ones remain un-trampled and filled with holiday spirit or, if retailers got their wish, with carloads of merchandise. Since 2005, the nerdy cousin to Black Friday has been Cyber Monday. Traditionally, and I hesitate to even use that ... More >>

Musicians Can Wait: Black Friday More About Flat Screens Than Instruments

Back in college -- yes, in the stone age -- I worked for a musical instrument store on the north side of Houston. Over the years, there were busy days where I just stood behind the counter while a line of people handed me guitars to buy without the hint of a sales push and there were days we sat in ... More >>

Record Store Day Contest Coming This Afternoon

​When so many Americans will be camping out at Best Buys and fighting over big screen televisions at Walmart, music fans will be sleeping soundly in anticipation of Record Store Day's Black Friday events. The now annual day celebrating the stores that once carried the weight of music sales is ... More >>

Do Hit Singles Still Help Sell An Album?

J: Cole: Zero hit singles, 218K first-week sales.​​The music industry has been reeling from a host of ailments, none more severe than crippling record sales. Fortunately, 2011 has been a strong year so far, with CD sales on the rise. Spearheaded by the likes of Adele, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayn ... More >>

Rice Researchers: Lack of Copy Protection Decreases Music Piracy

A joint study between marketing professors from Rice University and Duke University has revealed that music industry efforts to reduce piracy through placing copy restrictions -- referred to as Digital Rights Management or DRM -- may actually serve to increase the very theft they wish to prevent. S ... More >>

Is Commercial Radio Fading Into Oblivion?

​How many times has this happened to you: You're driving home from work. A song comes on. Drums. Guitar strums. A wimpy voice: "Say, oh, got this feeling that you can't fight..." You've heard this same song three times in 30 minutes, and it bores you to tears. Unlike the imaginary audience th ... More >>

What's The Leading Cause Of Poor Record Sales?

​Last week, the music world laughed up a hiccup as Lil Wayne pranced around the VMA stage in nut-suffocating, Le Tigre-inspired jeggings. While that performance affirmed that Wayne is no fashion guru, his chart performance a week later reminded us that he's very good at something else-selling ... More >>

Invasion of Piracy

Illegal downloading costs the film industry billions of dollars per year. But does the legal strategy designed to recoup this lost bounty amount to extortion?

Bayport Cruise Terminal: Still Empty and Unused, Except for Wayne Dolcefino

We noted last month the interesting sidelight to the big Disney announcement that they'd be sailing a cruise ship out of Galveston -- that sidelight being that Disney was flipping the bird to the Port of Houston's boondoggle of a cruise terminal. KTRK's ever-intrepid Wayne Dolcefino has now taken a ... More >>

Andy Surface: Alvin's Conde Nast Scammer Graciously Agrees Not to Keep the $8 Million He Got

Andy Surface no longer wants Conde Nast's money.​Andy Surface, the Alvin man who scammed the powerful Condé Nast publishing company of $8 million simply by sending a single bogus e-mail invoice, has formally renounced any claim to his ill-gotten gains. Forbes, which first broke the story, re ... More >>

Eminem's Victory Over Label Could Have Far-Reaching Effects

Now a Recovery in more ways than one.​Eminem quietly scored a major victory in a case involving download royalties this week. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out an appeal filed by Universal Music Group, the world's largest music empire, against Eminem's former production company F.B.T. Productio ... More >>

The Pomplamoose Revolution

How a band with no CDs or record deal is changing the music industry

Tequila Coleman: Loves Fancy SUVs, Hates Paying For Them

Land Rover: Get one by any means necessary​Apparently, Tequila Antwannette Coleman really, really, really digs luxury SUVs. They are the salt and lime in her life; without them, she is just not complete. The trouble is, she seems to have trouble paying for them, and now the 31-year-old Houst ... More >>

Top Six Artist Vs. Record Label Feuds

​Pink Floyd has finally settled its lengthy dispute with their longtime record label EMI. The band, which signed to the label over 40 years ago, first took EMI to court last spring in an effort to clarify their existing contract. Floyd sought to prevent EMI from "unbundling" their albums by se ... More >>

Music Sales Down 2.5 Percent In 2010

​Nielsen SoundScan released its annual report on music sales Monday, and the results were less than surprising. Physical sales continued to decline, digital sales continued to rise, and crap pop continues to reign supreme both at the cash register and on the airwaves. During the period of Jan ... More >>

Bye-Bye, Books-A-Million

BAM!! It's gone!!​We always thought a major bookstore downtown was a bit of a longshot, but Books-A-Million thought otherwise. Until now, that is. Swamplot reports that the store in the new-ish Houston Pavilions will soon be shuttered. Books-A-Million is kind of a southeastern Borders, with ... More >>

Whitney Harper: Song Downloader's Appeal Slapped Down By U.S. Supreme Court

Faith Hill shall not be denied​Five record labels that sued a 16-year-old San Antonio girl six years ago for illegally downloading a bunch of shitty music the labels vomited upon the listening public can finally exhale: the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear the girl's ... More >>

H-Town Is Now Hamburger Town

Robb Walsh​Houston is Bayou City, Clutch City, Space City, and now....Hamburger City. Travel and Leisure magazine recently released its 2010 Best Of list, naming Houston the no. 1 metropolis in America for hamburgers. The poll was administered to visitors and residents alike, and in both categ ... More >>

Cheech and Chong: Get It Legal Tour

What Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know About Door-to-Door Magazine Sales

That kid at your door with a magazine order form will tell you a story -- part sad, part hopeful. The truth will be infinitely worse than you can imagine.