Dubai

Upcoming: Steely Dan, Selena Gomez, Alt-J, Adam Ant, LL Cool J, Metric, etc.

Adam Ant: Sat., July 27, 8 p.m., $28-$300. Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, Houston. Air Supply: Thu., May 9, 8:30 p.m., $158-$218. Dosey Doe, 25911 I-45 N., Spring. Alt-J: CHANGED With Lord Huron., Fri., Sept. 27, 8 p.m., $30/$35. Bayou Music Center, 520 Texas, Houston. The Appleseed Cast: With ... More >>

This Day In History: A Jack Ruby Playlist

On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot down by Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being driven through the streets of Dallas. Two days later, Oswald himself was killed at the hands of nightclub operator Jack Ruby as he was being transferred to a county jail. There have been dozens of reas ... More >>

DJ Sun's Guided Tour of One Hundred, Part 2

Wednesday DJ Sun, who has as good a claim as anybody we know on the title of Houston's Chillest Citizen, was kind enough to walk us through the first half of his brand-new (and first) full-length original album, One Hundred. Full-length is right, too: One Hundred stretches to 19 tracks, including a ... More >>

Returning War Contractors Face Second Battle, Against AIG

Whatever your role in the U.S. war effort, if you were injured overseas, at least you'd be covered back home, right?

The Rocks Off 100: Fiskadoro's Richard Kimball

Who: Richard Kimball plays guitar and sings in one of Houston's finest noise bands, Fiskadoro. Over the years they've released a series of free EPs that have only gotten better and better, including the very dance-worthy Dubai earlier this year. The album dealt with a dystopian future where oil comp ... More >>

Shriya Patel: Husband She Was Accused of Torching in April Has Died

Bimal Patel, the Austin man whose wife allegedly doused him in gasoline and set him on fire after promising him a romantic massage back in, has died. Ever since the April 17 incident, Patel, 29, had been in a burns unit at San Antonio Military Medical Center. Doctors there confirmed that he passed a ... More >>

Happy Meal: Sunday Ogbonu's Stomachful Of Heroin Weighs In At Two Pounds, Three Ounces

Ah, the glamorous life of a Customs and Border Protection agent: waiting around for someone to crap out the kilogram of heroin they've ingested in order to get the junk into the U.S. Most recently on the bowl was Nigerian citizen Sunday Okechukwu Ogbonu, 47, who arrived at Bush Intercontinental Air ... More >>

Bahram Arabpour: Austin-area Realtor Busted Here With Almost Two Pounds of Opium.

More evidence that Houston has arrived as a world-class city: it is now apparently the kind of town where you can get your hands on large quantities of opium. Yes, if Harris County Court records are to believed, Houston is now a market for the same "celestial drug" that in 1822 Thomas De Quincey rh ... More >>

Fantasy Land

A green amusement park was supposed to bring prosperity to New Caney, but so far, only a few have profited. And it still exists only on paper.

Fiskadoro: A Techno Adventure In Dubai

"When Jen and I moved to Texas multiple people told us not to do it 'because they killed Kennedy.' The JFK assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby etc. - it seems to be to be a metaphor for the start of all the madness around us." - Fiskadoro's Richard Kimball At our day job, we have a small s ... More >>

Local R&B Singer Talks Opening Whitney Houston's Final Tour

It's not every day that someone calls our office claiming to being the opening act for Whitney Houston's final tour. But it did Monday morning, when Azaryah Davidson, a Houston R&B singer who goes by Azaryah, rang up and said just that. He's legit; we checked. Azaryah, 36, is a smooth crooner simi ... More >>

Michael Brown Gets The Taiwanese-Video Treatment

Michael Brown: Animated (Dildos not included)​You might have thought the criminal trial of famed hand doctor/TV-ad star Michael Brown had everything: accusations that the supposedly dotng family man assaulted his wife, cameos by superstar athletes, big-name lawyers. But it needs something els ... More >>

Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship? Find Out Here.

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying to find some meaning in the oddest monikers. Holly Gee​We've said before that New Orleans is providing some really quality acts these days like The Consortium of Genius and Alias: Orio ... More >>

Michael Brown: A Twist in the Hand Doctor's Dildo Case

MGM Grand gets involved​There's a new twist in what we like to call The Suitcase Full of Dildos Suit between lobbyist Stephen Payne and wife-beating former hand surgeon Michael Brown: the MGM Grand Hotel has filed as an intervenor in an attempt to collect a $120,000-plus judgment it won agains ... More >>

Seven Best Texas Sex Stories Of 2010

Feel free to mess with Texans, apparently​'Twas the night before Chritmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring...except for an ex-surgeon with a suitcase full of dildos.That's just one of the Christmas tales parents can tell their young'ns as the year winds down. We now present ... More >>

Dr. Brown's Dubai Detention

Sex toys get hand doc in trouble

Michael Brown: Sex Toys And Porn Bring Dubai Trouble For TV's Hand Doctor

Golfer Cristie Kerr knows how Michael Brown feels​We don't know how we missed this, but cocaine-using, wife-beating, medical-license-losing ex-hand surgeon Michael Brown was detained in Dubai earlier this year when authorities there confiscated "sexual paraphernalia, sex videos, and other objects" ... More >>

Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio

No Lady Gaga: Celebrities We Wish Had Sex Dolls Made Of Them

He's no Johnny Depp​Yesterday on the Rocks Off blog we unveiled the Lady Gaga sex doll, Lady Gag Gag. Comments were mixed on the doll, ranging from utter confusion and strange attraction from both sexes. One commenter claimed that the model on the box was even more attractive than the real G ... More >>

Inquiring Minds: "Sexyclectic" Philly DJ King Britt, at La Strada Tonight

​He's been around the world. He has played in locales as exotic as Paris, Rome, Berlin and Dubai. He has probably shagged women who would sooner cross the street than look at you. And yet, DJ/producer/remixer King Britt doesn't mind coming down to Houston and entertaining us mortal folk with his h ... More >>

Pretty Vacant: The Trouble With Houston's (Newly Award-Winning) Skyline

Photo courtesy GHCVB​Forbes Traveler has a new list up -- called alternately "the 13 greatest urban silhouettes" and "the world's most stunning city skylines."Here is what makes a skyline great, according to the article: It has to be more than merely memorable, it must have some exceptional chara ... More >>

Houston 101: Hail, Freedonia (Except For The Part About The Killings)

When you think alternative societies, you may imagine the New Mexican or Californian semi-wilderness in the late '60s, NYC squats in 1990s or the Montana backcountry, um, probably now. Try this one: The Galleria area, 1992. That's when then-high schooler John Kyle and friends began a "new nation ... More >>

Classic Rock Corner: Ian Gillan's Deeper Shade of Purple

www.gillan.comThough best known as the talented tonsils behind British hard-rock legends Deep Purple, Ian Gillan has also found the chance to log in some serious studio and road time both fronting his own bands and as a solo artist. Gillan's new CD, One Eye to Morocco (Eagle Records) finds th ... More >>

DJ Sun: Para EP

Cancer Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski Sees Himself as a Crusading Researcher, Not a Quack

He's treated thousands of people from all over the world, so why can't he get FDA approval?

Samantha Ronson

Jubilee of Dance

They can’t take ballet away from me

We Can Believe In Body of Lies

Ridley Scott's latest is the post-9/11, tech-savvy terror thriller we deserve

Houston Gets Some Respect....And It's From A Poet!

Don’t Go To Dubai With Doobie In Your Shoes: A Public Service Announcement From Houstoned Rocks

Karina Nistal and Rebel Crew Rap for the Troops

Circle in the sand

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?

Thanks to a Slick Move, Houston-based Weatherford Keeps Drilling in Sudan

So Many Bad Jokes, So Little Time

Future Shock

Michael Winterbottom paints a plausibly problematic tomorrow in Code 46

Ship Wrecked

A Houston firm certified the oil tanker Prestige as good to go. It broke apart in the Atlantic, causing the worst environmental disaster in Spanish history.