Courtney Love

Happy Birthday Kurt Cobain: Where Would He Be Today?

Last year on this date in honor of what would have been late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday, I wrote a blog supposing where the grunge icon would have been in 2012. It got a lot of traction and people loved and hated it. Imagining him as a dubstep DJ was really for grins and shock valu ... More >>

9 Rock Stars & Their Favorite Books

Musicians like to read as much as the next person and being a creative lot they tend to draw inspiration from their favorite books. Which pieces of literature have struck a chord in the hearts of our favorite rock stars? 9. Billie Joe Armstrong, Catcher in the Rye: This probably isn't a surprise si ... More >>

10 Things That Have Happened To Rock Stars' Ashes

Recently, I explored some of the strange things that musicians have been buried with. In the course of researching that article, I came across a lot of tales about the cremated remains of rock stars. Some very odd things have occurred with famous ashes, so being the resident morbid person on staff, ... More >>

Sticky Fingers: 10 Musicians Who Deserve Their Own Ice Cream

Ice cream is good -- especially in the summer and of course today. With the advent of the deliciously yummy Ben and Jerry's ice cream, among others, ice-cream companies have been naming their flavors after artists for years. Ben and Jerry's especially has been at the forefront of naming their ice ... More >>

Knights of the Fire Kingdom: "I Dunno Why Fire Is Awesome"

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers. I was sitting in my office about to begin the night's drinking when Roky Moon and BOLT's Aaron Echegaray came in without knocking. He looked fair ... More >>

For Mother's Day: Five Very, Very Bad Candidates for Mom of the Year

For at least some part of our lives, all of us have had a mother. Some are great, some are terrible, but most are in-between. But even if your mother was closer to Courtney Love than to Clair Huxtable, you should count yourself lucky you are not the offspring of any of the women in this round-up of ... More >>

Law and Order: Top 10 Best (Or Worst) Musicians' Arrests

Nobody is above the law - not even musicians even though some of them may think they are. However, some of their outrageous behavior has become legendary. Others have spawned rumors, killed their careers and/or made them the butt of many jokes. In fact, this makes me wonder why there is not a cele ... More >>

Kurt Cobain At 45: Where Would He Be In 2012?

​Had he not died in April 1994 by his own hand -- or sinister forces working for Courtney Love (insert maniacal laugh) -- Kurt Cobain would have turned 45 years old today. The rock icon killed himself at the age of 27, leaving behind not only a daughter to fend for herself against the wiles of ... More >>

Top 10 Carole King Songs Written for Other Artists

Carole King is a woman who has played a major part in creating numerous classic hit songs. She has helped to shape popular music since she and then-husband Gerry Goffin (they divorced in 1968) wrote "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in 1961. Her songs have been covered by such diverse artists as Smokey Ro ... More >>

Four Epic Twitter Rants in Honor of Kanye West

Photo by Marco Torres​When Kanye West tweets, magical things happen. West's high powered account lay dormant for quite sometime after his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album but last night, the floodgates were opened from West's creative mind. What emerged was a sprawling 85 tweet rant tha ... More >>

Father Figures: 100 Famous Musicians' Paternal Professions

If you're a Texan of a certain age, this week you've probably spent some time mourning the death of Jerry Haynes, the children's TV host better known as Mr. Peppermint. Haynes' show on WFAA-TV in Dallas, Peppermint Place, ran from the '60s to the '90s and was widely syndicated across the state, incl ... More >>

Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Almost Almost Famous

​Neil Strauss Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness ItBooks, 554 pp., $16.99 While most music-journo compendiums usually collect a sonic scribe's most famous interview pieces into one book, Strauss - one of the finest currently practicing the trade - takes a whol ... More >>

Narduwar The Human Serviette's 11 Best Interviews

exclaim.caNarduwar (left) and the patron saint of 4/20​Nardwuar The Human Serviette from "Vancouver BC Canada" knows all of your favorite bands, artists, and rappers better than you, and better than they know themselves. At first glance, he kind of resembles a Canadian Matthew Lesko (the free- ... More >>

The Pretty Reckless

Slutwave: Pop Phenomenon Or Feminist Scourge?

"Every generation needs a new revolution." - Thomas Jefferson Marc BrubakerKe(Dollar Sign)ha at House of Blues, July 2010​As one of the few women on the Rocks Off writing team, we were fervently proud to take an introspective stab at the new, curiously named micro-genre that 2010 bestowed upo ... More >>

1991: Best Music Year Ever?

Rocks Off Sr.'s choice for 1991's best album.​1991 was one of the biggest years in modern music. It was when metal went pop, radio country ruled, grunge went mainstream, and rap began its climb to chart dominance, even if it was spearheaded by a white candy rapper from Dallas. There were man ... More >>

Top 10 Musician Movie Cameos

Rocks Off has no idea why Mick Jagger might prefer Performance to Ned Kelly.​Over recent years, Rocks Off has been repeatedly surprised by the quality performances of musicians in films. Naturally, there are some duds in the mix; even Mick Jagger himself, who starred in 1970's Ned Kelly, disow ... More >>

The 31 Best Music Documentaries Of All Time

​Hands down, above all of these following music documentaries, Craig's Hlist's two favorite of all-time are The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years, and The Beatles Anthology. We can watch both on repeat for days and not complain. That will probably all change once we see ... More >>

The Year In Skank: 2010's Top 7 Skankiest Celebrities

​Plenty of famous women exude a healthy, feminine charm, a reserved beauty and refined grace that keeps them respectable even while they titillate. Plenty of celebrity men have a classy demeanor, yet just enough of a rakish-scoundrel glint in their eyes to turn them into the mysterious strange ... More >>

Nine More Washed-Up Musicians On Reality Shows

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Everybody's favorite lovelorn rock has-been Vince Neil has signed on to Skating With the Stars, an upcoming reality show sure to feature an exact recreation of the photo illustration above. Times, it seems, are tough all over, and Neil can't be the only ... More >>

Five 2010 Albums That Should Be Recalled

Congratulations, MGMT. Now go make a better album.​Like many other foods you thought you knew, eggs will now kill you. A salmonella contamination has caused a massive egg recall across the country, and it just seems to be getting worse. But, you know something, it's for our own good. If only ... More >>

FAIL: Courtney Love, Joe Jackson, Gravity

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Courtney Love Is Not Having an Easy Time of It: First, the lawsuit involving Courtney's share of Nirvana's musical rights was settled, most likely for less than she wanted. We have a hard time mustering up any sympathy there, but even we get uncomfortab ... More >>

Seven Musical Marriages Sullied By Proposition 8's Repeal

​Just in case you're one of the very few people who hasn't yet been seized by government shock troops and forced to marry someone of the same sex, a California Supreme Court judge ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional Wednesday. This would be the proposition which officially defines marriage as ... More >>

White Widow

Is The Westheimer Block Party Done For?

Bun B For Lafayette - ATLiens Freestyle from Decatur Dan on Vimeo. • Dave Bry at the witty pop-culture blog The Awl writes about rap music's eternal embrace of consumerism, using Bun B's most recent release, a rap written in honor of Japanese clothing company Lafayette, as an example. It's a great ... More >>

Wham! Nu-Metal Band Gets What It Deserves

​ In 1992, Nirvana's bassist Krist Novoselic pulled one of the great rock and roll blunders ever at the MTV Music Video Awards when he brained himself with his bass. Novoselic was fond of tossing his bass high in the air and catching it, and only dropped it once... in front of the whole countr ... More >>

Pop Rocks: The Celebrity DUI Conundrum

​I've always preferred brunettes. Aside from making me not a gentleman, this simply meant I favored Jaclyn Smith over Farrah Fawcett, Lynda Carter (or JoAnna Cameron) to Deidre Hall, Yasmine Bleeth to Gena Lee Nolin, and Jane Seymour over, well...just about any of the other Bond Girls. Given ... More >>

FAIL - Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Justin Bieber, Celene Dion, Apple

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 >>

Pop Rocks: Hope Justin Bieber Dies Before He Gets Old

​Oh, calm down. This isn't a call for the murder of American's favorite prepubescent pop idol. Sure, the former YouTube sensation from Stratford, Ontario who dresses and talks (and Tweets) like a diminutive Tupac Shakur has made more money in the last two years than you or I will see in ten li ... More >>

SXSW Aftermath: Narduwar the Human Serviette's Bizarre Canadian Patriotism

Brittanie Shey​The girl next to Aftermath at Headhunters motions to her American husband, who is pogoing like a 10-year-old in desperate need of Ritalin. "He tells me I must be the only Canadian who has never heard of Nardwuar." Indeed, since Nardwuar the Human Serviette has made a name in Ca ... More >>

Five Best New Year's Eves In The Movies

The New Year's Eve countdown is only hours away. The built-in suspense of it all, along with the opportunity for pathos via a lonely celebrant, or a doomed couple exuding cheery optimism, has been catnip for moviemakers.There have been some great New Year's Eves in the movies. Here are five of the b ... More >>

For Black Friday, The Top 5 Videos Set In Shopping Malls

"Are you off your fucking meds or something?"​We at Rocks Off are a bit puzzled by the continued practice of cramming ourselves into local malls on "Black Friday," or whatever we're calling the day after Thanksgiving this year (we perfer to remember it as a Megadeth song). Wasn't online shoppi ... More >>

Aftermath: Peaches, Stripping the Onion (and Herself) at House of Blues

Photos by Jody Perry/ Click here for a slideshow​ It's been a long time since Aftermath has been to the kind of high-energy, high-theatrics rock and roll show that makes us totally forget ourselves, even if just for an hour. Monday night at House of Blues, Peaches gave us exactly that kind of show ... More >>

Halloween Countdown: How Best To Go For The `90s-Nostalgia Look

Halloween is coming, and that means many, many costuming mistakes will be made by normally sane adults. To help stop this scourge, each Thursday we will be offering tips and analysis of what to avoid, or possibly what to do. Check out past entries here and here. If VH1 has taught us nothing else, it ... More >>

Songs Slightly Less Inappropriate Than R. Kelly's Latest Single, "Number One"

So R. Kelly's newest single is called "Number One." Seriously? Okay, we know Kelly was found innocent of all child-related golden-shower charges by a jury of 12 idiots, but when the subject of Dave Chappelle's "(I Wanna) Piss On You" releases a single called "Number One"... sorry, but we have to be ... More >>

Twitter Ticker: Musicians Love to Overshare

It's amazing the things that people have to say in 140 characters or less. Some take forever to update their adoring public, about their lives while others tweet like it's about to go out of style. Do they not realize everyone can read these things? And that they are, more or less, setting themselve ... More >>

Exit the Matrix

The Matrix: Path of Neo is more chop suey than chopsocky

The Hipster's Guide to Rock and Roll Vendettas

And you thought rappers were the only ones who had beefs

Ashlee Simpson

Autobiography (Geffen)

Love the Big Bang

Sure, an LNG terminal is dangerous. Live with it.

GoGoGo Airheart

Monday, March 22

Not So Complic8ted

Our latest pop phenomenon, Avril Lavigne, deconstructed for your convenience

The Strokes

Thursday, January 24

Mondo Video

packrat

Rotation

This Year's Model

Dead Man Acting

Hollywood never realized that Tupac Shakur was always better than his movies

Porn Again

Larry Flynt the movie does something Larry Flynt the man wouldn't: It fails to go all the way

The Lame and the Great

Lists you've been waiting all year for, in no particular order

Letters