Dave Mustaine

Hell Freezes Over: The Ends of Five Great Musical Feuds

Last month marked the end of one of the great musical feuds of the 1990s. Any Britpop fan knows you can either be a fan of Oasis or of Blur, but not a fan of both. The two bands hated each other's guts and were in constant competition throughout the decade. So all of us in the press were shocked wh ... More >>

Def Leppard's Rick Allen and 10 More Miraculous Rock Recoveries

Twenty-eight years ago this week (New Year's Eve), Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen became famous. Well, he was already famous, we guess, for being the drummer for one of the finest pop-metal bands of all time. But on December 31, 1984, Allen became even more famous for being pretty much the only pop- ... More >>

Music's Biggest Douchebags: 2012 Edition

The music world is bound to have a lot of douchebags. It's just an inevitability, considering that it's essentially a profession for man-children. Peter Pan syndrome? No problem in the music business. That's why you see so many rock stars going through growing pains sometime in their mid-forties. Re ... More >>

When the Voice Goes: 5 Rock Singers Who Have Lost It Live

Last week, this video of Guns n' Roses playing at the Bridge School Benefit in California surfaced on YouTube, raising a lot of eyebrows among music fans. It was an acoustic performance of "Welcome to the Jungle" which might sound like a confusing prospect in and of itself, but what has everyone tal ... More >>

Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?: The Four Saddest Fallen Idols of Our Generation

When we're kids, we'll look anywhere for idols and role models. Most often, we look to pop culture and we find our heroes there by way of idolizing whoever's work we enjoy the most. We copy them in the worst ways. We adopt their style of dress, their opinions on music, their viewpoints on the world ... More >>

Yes and Zeppelin? 5 True All-Star Near-Collaborations

Quick, what's your dream supergroup, living or dead? When I was a big prog nerd, mine was Peter Gabriel on vocals and lyrics, David Gilmour and Robert Fripp on guitar, Geddy Lee on bass, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Levin on Chapman stick, and Rick Wakeman on keys. Come to think of it, that still sou ... More >>

Drawn by Drunken Seven-Year-Olds: The 10 Ugliest Beer Labels in Texas

I can admit it: I am a packaging whore to some extent. A nice label is bound to catch my eye, be it laundry detergent, gin, beer, heroin... By the same token, bad marketing can turn me off of what may very well be a great product. Beer is a notorious offender in the bad-packaging arena. Across the ... More >>

13 Wacky Texas History Facts That Texas School Kids Need To Be Taught

This week Mother Jones uncovered a handful of spurious, less-than-scientific facts that Louisiana grade-schoolers will be learning while attending the state's new voucher schools. Obviously, people aren't happy. A new voucher program under the watch of Governor Bobby Jindal will allot money for st ... More >>

Friday Night: Megadeth At Verizon Wireless Theater

Gigantour: Megadeth, Volbeat, Lacuna Coil Verizon Wireless Theater March 2, 2012 Check out our slideshow of the Gigatour. No, Motorhead didn't play in Houston Friday night at Verizon Wireless Theater, but the rest of the 2012 Gigantour bill of Megadeth, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil made it to the Bayou ... More >>

Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia Talks Gigantour, Dark Adrenaline

Conventional wisdom used to be that the hyper-masculine world of heavy metal would never fully embrace a female superstar, but that was before Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia hit the scene. Armed with a soaring contralto and a humble attitude that belies her striking beauty, Scabbia has converted mor ... More >>

Gone But Never Forgotten: Happy 50th Birthday Cliff Burton

​Today would have marked the 50th birthday of a bass guitarist named Clifford Lee Burton who played for a band called Metallica. You may have heard of them. Unfortunately, Cliff passed away in 1986 in a bus crash shortly before he would have turned 25. Of course, if you've ever had even a pass ... More >>

The Value Of Being Important: How Much Would You Pay for VIP Tickets?

Photo By Daniel KramerHow much would you pay to be in front of all of those hands in the air?​Very. Important. Person. For music fans those three words conjure up images of skipping out on standing in line, being at the side of the stage while the show takes place, and partying with the band ... More >>

Temptations Musical Heralds End Of The World

Mason Lankford said, "There will come a day when we forget the Rapture ever even happened," but Rocks Off is keeping an eye out for signs of our impending Armageddon. We were wrong last time, but we're totally right this time! Zoran Veselinovic​ The Temptations have been in the music business ... More >>

Last Night: Slayer, Megadeth And Anthrax At Verizon

Photos by GroovehouseSouth of Heaven: Slayer's Tom Araya​Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax Verizon Wireless Theater September 26, 2010 With the end of this concert, Aftermath was sort of sad. Not only did it mark the end of a marathon music week in Houston and for Rocks Off, it also signaled that we ... More >>

Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax

Music's Top 10 Biggest Post-Drug Comebacks

​The list of drug casualties in rock and roll is a long and sad one. All the suicides, car crashes and the stray gang-related murder are outweighed by the amount of people who just can't stop putting junk into their system, or at least moderate it to a point where they aren't lying cold on a h ... More >>

"Metal, Dude!": Ten Juicy Quotes From The Ultimate Metal Movie

​With hair-metal legends(?) Ratt playing Warehouse Live this evening, Rocks Off decided we'd take a look back at the definitive document of that era of metal in Los Angeles: Penelope Spheeris' rockumentary The Decline Of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. Ratt isn't featured in the fi ... More >>

Metallica Likes Death... A LOT

​This video (watch it after the jump) claims to collect every single time that Metallica has mentioned death or dying in the band's music, which tallies up to 81 instances. Somehow that seems awfully low to us, being almost life-long Metallica rats, and fans of, well, death. According to the v ... More >>

Aftermath: Megadeth And Testament Power-Metal Through Irritating Fans

Photos by Groovehouse / Click here for a slideshow​Why would you want to piss off Dave Mustaine? The Megadeth front man doesn't seem like the proverbial shrinking violet. He's a pissed-off and generally irritable redhead who sings about crushing people's heads and not taking prisoners. So wh ... More >>

Megadeth

Dave Mustaine, Johnny Ramone, ZZ Top And A Few Other Right-Wing Rockers

​ Most people wouldn't associate right-wing conservative politics with dirty rock and rollers, but you would be surprised. Not all rock cats are card-carrying communists and lily-livered liberals trying to save the sacred animal of the week and converting their buses to biodiesel. In fact, many ol ... More >>

Monoliths & Dimensions: The Best Metal Records of 2009, Part 1

​This year was such a good one for heavy music, I wound up having to cheat when putting this list together. I just couldn't settle on ten albums that kicked my ass the hardest in 2009; there were dozens of candidates. The best I could do was fourteen, so each of my top four slots are ties. 10. Meg ... More >>

For Rosh Hashanah: Musical Mystery Jews

There are sure to be many Rosh Hashanah celebrations this weekend, but here at Rocks Off, we'd like to suggest you "think outside the box," as the kids say, and shake up your holiday musical selection by considering a few acts that you might not have realized were composed (in some part, anywway) of ... More >>

Heady Metal

In 2005, longhairs got more progressive than ever

Up from the Underworld

This year, blood-soaked extreme metal took its rightful place in the world of heavy music

Up from the Underworld

This year, blood-soaked extreme metal took its rightful place in the world of heavy music

Head Trip

Between hard rock and a safe place, Metallica finds itself

The Hunger

Friday, May 23

Appetite for Reconstruction

After hitting the top and then bottoming out, the Hunger refuses to go gently to the graveyard of bands

Rusty

Remember when Megadeth used to be the fastest, most talented metal band around?

Hard to Kill

MegaStoopid