Garth Brooks

Rocks Off's Rodeo Concert Guide for "Bros":
Alan Jackson

Date: February 27 Name: Alan Jackson A.K.A.: "As seen in Cracker Barrel."

George Ducas Itching to Get Back Out on the Blacktop

Before releasing his six-song EP, Volume Up, Windows Down, in 2010, Texas country singer/songwriter George Ducas had taken a break from performing and had mainly concentrated on writing hits for country artists such as Garth Brooks, George Jones, The Dixie Chicks, Gary Allan, Trisha Yearwood, Sara E ... More >>

Hearing Garth Brooks' No Fences for the Very First Time

Twenty-two years ago this week, Garth Brooks' second album, No Fences entered the charts and made itself comfortable. It was a titanic, monumental record for country music, eventually going platinum 17 times over on its way to becoming a global smash. No Fences is often credited with ushering in a ... More >>

Country Farewell Tours: How Well Do They Stick?

Wednesday's noontime announcement by Country Music Hall of Famer George Strait that he would retire from the road after his 2013-14 "The Cowboy Rides Away" farewell tour hit Rocks Off harder than it should have. True, he's 60, has a ranch and grandchildren, and has earned his golden years many, many ... More >>

The Cowboy Prepares to Ride Away: George Strait Announces His Touring Retirement

Today country legend George Strait -- King George around these parts -- announced during a live YouTube broadcast from Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame that he is hanging up his touring boots and saddle after decades on the road. Strait is still slated to close out RodeoHouston's 2013 seaso ... More >>

6 Famous Female Artists' Bizarre Early Album Covers

Marketing can be a funny thing in the music business. Look at Garth Brooks, who tried a dozen different gimmicks before becoming the world's most famous country singer. Even the Beatles were shaped and forged into the lads we know after an early career dressing like hooligans and nailing condoms to ... More >>

Death Be Not, Uh... True: The 8 Most Asinine Musician Death Hoaxes

Why do people perpetrate death hoaxes? Why would someone deliberately set out to spread rumors of a famous person's demise that they know simply aren't true? Is it some kind of Munchausen-By-Proxy thing, where they hope to absorb some of the residual sympathy and outpouring of goodwill? Is it a mad ... More >>

No Fences: Garth Brooks & the Fuzzy Math of 10 Mega-Concerts

Fifteen years ago this week, the greatest country music artist of all time, Garth Brooks, made history by playing a free concert to a massive crowd in New York's Central Park. Now, not just anybody gets to play Central Park, but Brooks had the megawatt stroke in the entertainment biz back then to ma ... More >>

Guess the Country Star by Only His Cowboy Hat

You'll ride a black tornado cross't the western skies Rope an ole blue norther, milk it till it's dry Bull dawg the Mississippi, pin it's ears down flat Long before you take this cowboy's hat. -- Chris Ledoux, "This Cowboy's Hat" A popular saying in Texas goes that a man who talks a good game but ... More >>

Braving the Boos: Bob Dylan and 10 More Artists Unafraid to Piss Off Their Fans

Forty-seven years ago this week (wow!), a '60s folk icon by the name of Bob Dylan made his third and final appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I. It was a highly anticipated set -- Dylan was the de facto leader of the American folk-music revival at the time, and his folkie flock ex ... More >>

Top 7 Promotional Music Gimmicks -- Both Used & Unused

One of the most interesting things in the music business is how managers and record companies promote and market their artists. Sometimes they do a great job, and other times they fail. When they do fail, their like that hickey you got three weeks ago -- still there. But, like a hickey, people even ... More >>

Top 10 Possible Future RodeoHouston Performers

The hardest thing about making a list of possible future RodeoHouston performers is making sure to color inside the lines, which means the things that I want probably wouldn't work. Sure, the Black Keys on opening night and the Rolling Stones doing an-all country set to close out the season would be ... More >>

Garth Brooks In Country Music Fall of Fame: Harbinger Of Doom

Even though Mason Lankford said, "There will come a day when we forget the Rapture ever even happened," 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! We'd more or less forgotten about Garth Brooks, who took country ... More >>

5 Musicians Who Changed Their Names to Inspire Jim Crane and the Astros

​This week, the new owner of the Houston Astros Jim Crane opened Pandora's Box of Hearty Suggestions For A Struggling Franchise and discussed changes to the team. Cheap beer (yay!), cheaper seats (double yay!) should be one of the first things but Crane suggested that the Astros do the unthink ... More >>

A Drunken Wade Boggs Channels Garth Brooks (w/ VIDEO)

We interrupt your Texans-versus-Ravens coverage for some drunken quasi-karaoke video! Let's face it, there's only so many different angles you can take with analysis of a football game over the course of seven days. I'm a little Texan-ed out at this point, and besides, I won't have anything more in ... More >>

Tori, Tool, TLC And The Other Musical Debuts Of 1992

1992 was a pretty heady year for music in general, with the masses gobbling up all the gangsta rap, grunge, and pop-country they could. That year would see the release of not only R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People, Peter Gabriel's Us, Pantera's Vulgar Display Of Power, but also what is arguably The ... More >>

The Dance

Hefley's Bar fits right in with the accessible part of Midtown.

Happy Birthday Don Was: His Five Best Production Jobs

Vicky Sapp​Nerds like us - you have to be a music nerd if you're reading a blog on Don Was - have favorite producers, like some sports guys have favorite coaches. Sometimes we listen to an album just because someone we like produced it, or it somehow gives it us extra cred even if we may not l ... More >>

"Change Your Name To A Symbol" & Other Dumb Ways To Derail Your Music Career

brightestyoungthings.comThe sign officially known as "Love Symbol #2"​Sunday marked the 18th anniversary of the date Prince changed his name to that confounded "Love Symbol", and we can't help but wonder if he would have had more success had he waited a decade or two. Like it or not, in toda ... More >>

Rocks Off's Fantasy RodeoHouston Lineup

Photos courtesy of Houston Livestock Show & RodeoGeorge Strait in 1996​If you walk through Reliant Center, hanging from the ceiling are banners listing almost every musical performer RodeoHouston has hosted since the '60s. The names reflect the hallowed history of country and fleeting fancies ... 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 Eight Worst Musician Vanity Film Projects

​Rocks Off won't speak for everyone, but if we ever found ourselves a platinum-selling artist, we kinda doubt we'd press our luck by veering off into the world of acting. We mean, it hardly ever works from the opposite direction (right, Don Johnson?), so what good can possibly come from assumi ... More >>

Rolling Stone's 25 Worst Cover Misfires

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more. The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film H ... More >>

If Gary Kubiak Had Been Around In Key Historical Moments

Houston Texans' coach Gary Kubiak is the genius who piloted the team to a big win over the Indianapolis Colts early this year via a punishing running game. He's also the idiot, fans are saying, who piloted the team to a crushing loss against the Colts Monday by trying to throw the ball constantly. ... More >>

Clint Black

The Ten Bleakest Songs In Country Music History

decodedstuff.com​Country music isn't all high-tech rednecks and honky tonk badonkadonks. Country artists have a tendency to, every now and then, sing about some dark, disturbing stuff. Sometimes scary, sometimes violent, and sometimes just weird, here are some country songs that rival the blac ... More >>

Rocks Off's Top 10 Favorite Story-Songs

​The Internet wants to kill Gordon Lightfoot - back in February, someone started a rumor that the Canadian troubadour was dead. Of course it started on Twitter, of all places, where an offhand remark about a celebrity death will be held as fact. Hell, the other night we killed Tim Allen and To ... More >>

He Said She Said: The Sweet, Sweet Sounds of Revenge, Part 2

​For someone who wears motorcycle boots and carries a knife, the bald(ing) He Said rightfully looks like he should be one of the most vindictive cats in the world. But in reality, the only revenge we have ever taken has been of the emotional variety, and that's probably much worse than any windows ... More >>

Great Moments With Mr. Rockefeller: Billy Harper, Garth Brooks and Sonny Rollins

[Ed. Note: To help spread the word about next Friday's benefit for the Houston International Festival's education programs at Rockefeller Hall, featuring Texas Johnny Brown and Marcia Ball, Rocks Off asked iFest director of performing arts and former Houston Chronicle music critic Rick Mitchell to r ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Nashville Scene Critics' Poll Lauds Brad Paisley's So-Called Edginess

Lonesome Onry and Mean didn't vote in Houston Press ex-sister paper Nashville Scene's annual Best of Country Music poll, but that doesn't mean we won't comment on the results. This year's poll essentially boils down to the Big Four: Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson. Com ... More >>

Creepy, Inappropriate and Otherwise Weird Christmas Albums

​ Christmas is 22 days away, so you still have time to put in some online orders for delivery. And, coincidentally enough, we're going to bet that whatever holiday album you've been playing for the past few years is starting to get a little stale. You can only enjoy the velvet crooning of Bing Cro ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs That Remind Us of Our Grandfathers

​ She Said has something she wants to admit. Here goes nothing. We... like... country music. No big deal, right? You wouldn't think so, unless you grew up in a town filled with racist rednecks who thought the glitz of '90s Nashville qualifies for the only music worth listenin' to. She Said rebelle ... More >>

Rocks Off Exclusive: A Sneak Peek at Tom DeLay's Dancing With the Stars Dance Card

By now, the news about former Sugar Land Congressman Tom DeLay's impending appearance on ABC's Dancing with the Stars has had time to sink in, and the long-term ramifications of this colossal melding of two of our greatest loves (reality television and the suffering of others) are starting to becom ... More >>

George Strait

Travis Tritt

Thrift Store Cowboy: Garth Brooks, Sonic Youth and Yaz

Location: Salvation Army, 3620 Broadway, Pearland Thrift stores are a museum of random genius. Where else can one find a faded D.A.R.E. t-shirt and a pair of soiled leather pants? Each trip is a chance for magic. Rocks Off spent some time at the Salvation Army out in the badlands of Pearland last ... More >>

Tech? No!

An imaginary history of electronic music

Cam King

Friday, June 30, at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar, 1031 East 24th, 713-862-8707

Starlight Mints

Thursday, June 1, at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-225-LIVE

Cowboy Up

We just can't quit this countrified Karaoke

Buddy Mondlock

Friday, March 10, at Anderson Fair, 2007 Grant, 713-528-8576

Year of the Concept

Green Day opens the Idiot-ic floodgates

Don't Just Watch

Get involved at "Participate"

Computer Error

When it comes to local facts, don't rely on Allmusic.com

Bucking the Trend

Former Houstonian Chris Cagle hits the charts at a time when Nashville prefers not to see new faces

News Hostage

It Takes One

Lonestar returns to the Lone Star State in a blaze of glory

Another Time, Another Country

Press Picks

Grunge Puppy

Paw from Lawrence, Kansas: modest Midwest guitar desperation