Ed Sullivan

Billy Joel: Still Kicking Ass (First Leg)

One Sunday morning a few weeks ago, my wife and I watched the Billy Joel concert documentary The Last Play at Shea. When my daughter stumbled into the den to ask about breakfast, we were soiling Kleenexes and wiping tears from our eyes. "Did you take your meds this morning, Dad?" she asked. I trie ... More >>

Friday Night: Rain, Beatles Tribute Band, at Bayou Music Center

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles Bayou Music Center April 12, 2013 Apparently the Beatles began when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 -- four fully formed lads from Liverpool in moptops and nifty dark suits. That is the premise behind Rain, whose five-man touring company reache ... More >>

I Tried to Explain CDs to My Three-Year-Old Daughter

I was strapping my daughter into her carseat when she said, "Daddy, I want my favorite book." She was pointing at the floorboards in the back, where a stratified layer of various toys, books and random objects she has demanded to entertain her during car rides and abandoned after 15 minutes contin ... More >>

Nixon Meets the King: The White House Tapes Revealed

Forty-two years ago today, one of the trippier meetings in the annals of U.S. music and politics went down when Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll and a global icon of the youth movement, paid a friendly White House visit to President Richard Nixon, that same movement's sworn enemy. Put blun ... More >>

Here Are 10 Free Beatles & Paul McCartney Flicks to Watch On YouTube

The day is finally here. The stage is set inside Minute Maid Park. The ticket scalpers are getting ready. The oldsters are reminiscing. The youngsters are getting excited. The critics, bloggers, and nerds are brushing up on their Beatlease, and crossing their fingers for their faves. That's rig ... More >>

Ringo Starr: A Few Words In Favor of the Other Surviving Beatle

Both the Rocks Off team in particular and (I guess) Houston in general have had Paul McCartney mania for days. You can feel the anticipation for tonight's show building like the bridge in "I Saw Her Standing There." But before the show tonight, I wanted to put in a quick word for the other survivin ... More >>

MTV's Best Year: The Top 5 Videos of 1992

In 1992, the recording industry was riding high. The compact disc had become a major success, with music lovers purchasing new albums and old releases in astonishing numbers despite the format's comparatively steep price tags. And the music-video juggernaut known as MTV was helping major labels to b ... More >>

Top 10 Musical Moments on The Arsenio Hall Show

One of the greatest late-night talk show hosts of all time was Arsenio Hall. He was the quintessential Ed Sullivan for the '80s and early '90s. He featured all kinds of musical artists, but most importantly, he helped introduce rap music into the mainstream. Hall, who won Donald Trump's most recent ... More >>

Still Treating Em Right

After 50 years as one of Texas's top powerhouse entertainers, Roy Head calls son Sundance the real star in the family.

RIP, Davy Jones: 5 Odd Facts About Him

Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, died today at 66. He never outgrew the manufactured pop-band thing, but he made a nice living out of it and came to grips with his career. A career which had some oddities, such as: 5. He got started on the British equivalent of Broadway Jones wasn't the re ... More >>

Who Is Paul McCartney?!: Rocks Off Tells You

So, it's the day after the Grammys, and you may still be wondering who that "hella old" man with the droopy eyes playing the weird left-handed bass was on the telecast last night. You know, the guy next to the guy from Foo Fighters and that one other ancient-looking man in the tight jeans who looks ... More >>

Introducing...The Beatles: Celebrating Their First Ed Sullivan Performance

Lonesome, Onry and Mean didn't get in much trouble in school. So his parents were a little disturbed to find the eighth grader in the principal's office on the afternoon of February 10, 1964. He and his best friends, Mike Clowdus, Brad Rutledge, and Larry "Suitcase" Simpson, had been written up and ... More >>

Enjoy Your Lunar New Year With Some Of Music's Greatest Butts

According to Chinese reckoning, today marks the lunar new year. It's the Year of the Dragon. Specifically, the Year of the Water Dragon, which I'm told will bestow a peaceful energy on the coming year, favoring the ideals of negotiation and forward thinking. I know, right? BOOORING. We Americans kn ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Elvis' Christmas Album

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​In 1957 at the near peak of his early success, Elvis Presley did what many artists did: He made a Christmas record. The result was what would become one of the best s ... More >>

Five Cool Songs Carmine Appice Drummed In Honor of His 65th Birthday

​Carmine Appice (pronounced "uh-pees" despite his brother Vinny claiming it is "a-puh-see" -- weird) is one of rock music's most recognized (and not just for the Fu Manchu 'stache) and longest tenured rock drummers. He also happens to be a somewhat polarizing figure. Despite being a contempora ... More >>

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles

The Rolling Stones On Ed Sullivan Collected In New DVD Package

"Show me your teeth!": Jagger On Ed Sullivan​The Rolling Stones are literally our favorite band of all-time. Yeah, the title of this here music blog should have already given that away, but watching a decade or so of vital Stones history fly by over six episodes on the new The Ed Sullivan Show ... More >>

Top 5 Musical Ed Sullivan Show Controversies

theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com"You want me to sing WHAT now?"​To the right-wing conservatives, religious groups, and self-proclaimed family organizations raising hell over Chaz Bono's "assault on family values" as the first transgender contestant on Dancing With the Stars, Rocks Off asks the q ... More >>

Las Puertas: 10 Things You May Not Know About The Doors

"Hey Robby, don't try to look too not-stoned in our press still. Thanks, buddy."​On this day in 1965, The Doors began recording demos together, laying down some songs set to Jim Morrison's freaky poems. Nearly 50 years later, the band is an exalted classic-rock group, firmly implanted in that ... More >>

10 Beatles Urban Legends: True Or False?

​When you're a band like the Beatles - who first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964, 47 years ago today - tall tales and urban legends spring up all around... mostly because when a band is a worldwide cultural phenomenon, anything can seem possible or even plausible. Some of th ... More >>

Elvis: 30 Famous Quotes About The King

​Rocks Off is celebrating Elvis week this week - the King would be 76 years old on Saturday. (Or hell, maybe he will be 76 years old on Saturday.) That's more than three-quarters of a century, but it just doesn't seem like a very long time. Maybe that's because whether or not he actually died ... More >>

Will Buzzfest Leave Us "Cryin' Like A Bitch"?

Marc BrubakerSaturday's Buzzfest has a lot to live up to...​First of all, we sort of enjoyed ourselves at the last Buzzfest in May. Fred Durst told us he liked our Black Flag tattoo, and we finally got to hear "Nookie" live. We aren't going to say it was like being in the audience during a Bea ... More >>

Going Platinum: Artists We'd Pay $10,000 To See - And When

​It started one night on the patio of Big Star Bar in the Heights; over Lone Star and cigarettes, a handful of Houston music wags debated the shows they would pay top dollar to see from lartists, iving or dead. We argued the aspects of an At the Drive-In reformation, seeing Sam Cooke in 1963, ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Clancy Brothers, or the Pogues of the '60s

Wonder what the Pogues show Thursday is going to look like? Here's our guess... "I had the good fortune to meet Liam Clancy of the Clancy Brothers once and while talking with him over a cup of tea I mentioned my affection for the Pogues to which he replied, 'The Pogues are a cross between the Clanc ... More >>

Girl Star, Grown Up

Still proud of her family band, Susan Cowsill does her own thing now.

Nerd Alert: Trailer for "The Beatles: Rock Band" Debuts

After almost two years of programming and tinkering, the developers of the Beatles edition of the "Rock Band" videogame have released a trailer for the game in advance of its release in the fall. The visuals in the trailer are faithful to the boys from Liverpool, down to every detail. We were as ... More >>

It Was 45 Years Ago Today...

If you're more than about 50 years old, today is most likely the anniversary of one of your most powerful memories. In the early evening hours of February 9, 1964, more than 73 million people sat glued to their televisions as the course of American pop culture was altered forever. It a ... More >>

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Modern dance master Paul Taylor brings a program of classics old and new to Jones Hall

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No pillow talk, no scoop

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In two decades, Wally Swett's sanctuary has become a place of peace for primates - it's the humans that have him going bananas

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