Subject: George Jones

• Give Us a Hand

  October 9, 2007

• Bartender, Pour the Wine: Ten Great Country Breakup Songs

  February 14, 2008

• A Stopover in Strait Country

  April 9, 2008

• Hellish Houston

  A summer selection of the Bayou City's most miserable music and depressing songs

  July 14, 2005

• Sole of Houston: Airport Drive, The Finale (Including Unwanted Puke)

  And here is the final installment of David Beebe and John Lomax's 20-plus mile hike from Intercontinental Airport to Spanish Flowers restaurant. Part one is here and part two is here.David Beebe's accounts of the same hike are here and here.Airline's furthest reaches are lined by sprawling and run-down '70s apartment complexes. And yet there's a weirdly rural feel in patches. The 281 area code hangs on for a longer time than you would expect, and there are plenty of fireworks stands, as a swath

  January 15, 2009

• Critic's Choice

  December 7, 1995

• Rotation

  June 5, 1997

• Utmost Blue

  October 16, 1997

• Canadian Born, but Texas Proud

  December 25, 1997

• Rotation

  March 26, 1998

• Rotation

  May 28, 1998

• Real Deal

  June 18, 1998

• Rotation

  November 26, 1998

• Tonight: Blacktop Gypsy at the Firehouse Saloon

  Not many acts on MySpace list as their influences Merle Haggard and Fleetwood Mac. Or George Jones and Sheryl Crow. But Dallas outfit Blacktop Gypsy does, and it doesn't take many listens to their music to get the connections. Certainly the template is country but with three women in the mix there's lots of room to paint outside the lines of traditional country. And while there's no testosterone, that doesn't mean there's no muscle.

  March 20, 2009

• Justin Townes Earle

  December 11, 2008

• Me and Mr. Jones

  November 20, 2008

• Byron Dean's Matagorda Island Discs

  (In which locals sound off on the ten records they would take to Matagorda Island, the nearest major unpopulated sandbar to Houston.)

  April 17, 2008

• Big Country

  Buddy and Julie Miller --

  April 27, 2000

• Kevin Fowler, Bring It On

  www.kevinfowler.com

  October 11, 2007

• Charlie Louvin

  October 11, 2007

• Don't Take Your Guns to Town

  Country Music Pistol Packers Hall of Fame

  April 19, 2007

• Dead Rock West

  Honey and Salt

  March 15, 2007

• Freakwater

  Thinking of You...

  October 20, 2005

• David Allan Coe

  Friday, September 2, at Texas Tumbleweeds, 13101 Kuykendahl, 281-872-7829.

  September 1, 2005

• When Wild Musicians Attack!

  Ryan Adams is headed this way. Where does he fit in among the great meltdown artists of yore?

  June 9, 2005

• Shooter Jennings

  Put the O Back in Country

  April 14, 2005

• He's Gone Country

  The Nightfly tries out as the next Bocephus at Sam Houston Race Park

  February 17, 2005

• Boxing the Rock

  Six of the year's best multi-disc sets (and one of the worst)

  November 25, 2004

• Defending the Dirty Thirty

  And coping with Yankee slander

  May 6, 2004

• When Harry Met Santa

  Christmas comes early courtesy of Harry Connick Jr.

  November 6, 2003

• Club Directory

  April 10, 2003

• Musical Chairs

  It's never the same show with the Good Luck Band

  January 17, 2002

• Playbill

  George Jones

  October 25, 2001

• Minibill

  Albert & Gage

  October 18, 2001

• Bright Lights, Bridge City

  The PC Cowboys, the world's only politically correct country band, speak in a Press exclusive

  May 3, 2001

• Sound Check

  January 26, 1995

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: A Twofer from the Ol' Possum

  Since we've been debating the good, bad and ugly of honky-tonk in these (Web) pages lately, this marks a good point to announce the new American Beat/Sony reissue of two George Jones classics, 1972's A Picture of Me (Without You) and the next year's Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half As Bad As Losing You). Combined onto one disc, the albums represent the epitome of Billy Sherrill's countrypolitan sound and are a long way from anything that can be described as traditional honky tonk. Even though the lyr

  May 13, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: R.I.P. Vern Gosdin

  Foreground: Faron Young (leaning on piano), Tammy Wynette (at piano). Back row (l-r): Unidentified man, Hank Thompson, George Jones, Vern Gosdin, Marty Robbins "Don't you think you should've called To tell me you were coming down Oh, you look so out of place On this troubled side of town" - Vern Gosdin, "Do You Believe Me Now" Lonesome Onry and Mean has been lax in his duties, not reporting that one of the greatest country singers of all time passed away April 28. The fact that Vern Gosdin was

  May 22, 2009

• Aftermath: David Allan Coe at House of Blues

  Chris Gray David Allan Coe will hang around as long as you will let him. And he wrote "Take This Job and Shove It." Although it was a little hard to get past the sheer sight of him - the grizzly offspring of Gregg Allman and one of Dr. Teeth's band from The Muppet Show, maybe - he wasn't getting paid to look pretty at House of Blues Thursday night. He rushed "You Never Even Called Me by My Name" about halfway through well over an hour of his songs ("Willie, Waylon and Me," "If That Ain't Country

  July 17, 2009

• A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: Houston and "Brazoria"

  The final installment of our Five States of Texas project brings it all back home, to the new state of Brazoria, encompassing all of Southeast Texas from the Brazos Valley to Sabine Pass. ​Patron Saint: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. A master of rock and roll, country, Cajun/Creole, blues and jazz, no one area musician sounded more like Southeast Texas. That he spent his life moving all over the area, on both sides of the Sabine, only serves as evidence in favor of one of our geographical hypothe

  August 18, 2009

• Bayou Beat: A 15-Foot Sculpture of George Jones' Head, $10 House of Blues Tickets, Free Tontons Show, etc.

  ​Heavy metal comedy troupe Steel Panther has cancelled tonight's Warehouse Live show. What's on VH-1 Classic? Tennessee-born artist Wayne White is crafting a 15-foot puppet head in the likeness of Saratoga-born honky-tonk legend George Jones. Entitled "Big Lectric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep" - a reference to Jones' song "Ragged but Right" - and appropriately positioned on its side, asleep, the outsized bust is patterned after the flat-topped Possum circa 1950. The installation opens Thu

  August 26, 2009

• Big Lectric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep

  September 10, 2009

• 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 believe he is now simply taunting us. We taxed our brains to their very limits, and we were able to think of ten (as-yet) fictional songs that would be only slightly less appropriate. Have a look - you

  September 15, 2009

• Capsule Art Reviews: "BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP", "Carlos Cruz-Diez: Crosswalk", "Carlos Runcie-Tanaka: Fragmento", "Second Seating"

  October 8, 2009

• Capsule Art Reviews: "BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP", "Katy Heinlein: Project Space, " "Sasha Pierce: New Paintings" and "John Sparagana: The Crisis Professionals", "Carlos Runcie-Tanaka: Fragmento"

  October 15, 2009

• Listology: Honky-Tonk Man Mike Stinson Chooses His Favorite Drinking Songs

  Markus Cuff​Honky-tonk man and recent Houston transplant Mike Stinson knows a thing or two about a bottle. Lonesome Onry and Mean asked him to list his all-time favorite drinking songs, many of which you will no doubt hear this evening at Under the Volcano. "So many classic drinking songs, I could put together a box set in a hurry," Stinson says, "but here are a few of my faves." 1. Webb Pierce, "There Stands The Glass" "The first song I sang at my very first show. So grateful that no tape exi

  October 14, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: Our Pal Arty Hill Picks His Favorite Songs About Drunk Women

  Arty Hill is a Baltimore, Md., honky-tonker who has been playing regularly in Austin the past couple of years. He also reads Lonesome Onry and Mean's blog religiously and has already penned a couple of new songs based on the goings-on in these pages. He recently contacted LOM about Mike Stinson's list of great honky-tonk drinking songs, noting that none of Stinson's featured women in the central roles. Hill writes to LOM: "I really liked Mike's list of his favorite drinking songs. Then I starte

  October 21, 2009

• Taking That La-Z-Boy Out for a Drunken Spin? Don't Forget the Tunes!

  Where are the cup holders?​As part of our court-appointed public service, we at Rocks Off don't condone driving while intoxicated. But if you must get behind the wheel after having a few, there are far worse things to be driving than a La-Z-Boy. From Yahoo! news this morning: "A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on h

  October 23, 2009

• Drive-By Truckers

  October 29, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: Drive-By Truckers or the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe?

  ​Lonesome Onry and Mean is torn as to his whereabouts this evening. Drive-by Truckers will be knocking down walls and eardrums at House of Blues, and that's where we'll probably end up. But if Galveston was 70 miles closer - it's not the drive down, it's the drive back! - we would certainly be headed for Wrecks Bell's Old Quarter Acoustic Café tonight for a singularly fine songwriters show with the elusive Richard Dobson, David Olney and Sergio Webb. The Truckers are touring behind their fina

  October 30, 2009