Husker Du

The Rocks Off 100: Football, etc., Giving Emo Back Its Good Name

Welcome to the Rocks Off 100, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community -- a lot more than just musicians, but of course they're in there too. See the entire Rocks Off 100 at this link. Who? When modern indie-rock was being Big B ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Friday In Review: Bun B, Bob Mould, Against Me! & More

The first day of Fun Fun Fun Fest was marked by the oddball stylings of an in-character Val Kilmer terrorizing the stage with the Black Lips, and the triumphant return of rap legends Run-D.M.C. rocking the main stage to close out the night. In between there was Bob Mould, Converge, Houston's own Bun ... More >>

Rocks Off's Picks For This Weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest

First off, the entire Rocks Off team agrees unanimously that we are all excited to see Run-D.M.C. at this year's edition of Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, even though writer /photographer Marco Torres has already seen them this year at Jay-Z's Made In America Music Festival. REWIND: Fun Fun Fun Fest ... More >>

Dust Off Your Flannel

Does the looming '90s revival presage a Nirvana-style breakthrough?

Top 10 Greatest And Most Essential Music Lists Of All Time

​Any fan of music journalism, well hell any sort of journalism in the past five years has seen a massive amount of top 10, 20, or 31 lists all over the Internets. They help cull information into one meaty morsel for you to swallow without, you know, have to type shit. Pretty cool, huh? As a ... More >>

The Best LP Side Ones Ever

Spurred on by the realization that both David Bowie's commercial breakthrough Let's Dance and Queen's News of the World had solid, sturdy side ones on their vinyl releases, I then began the hunt for other great vinyl slabs with amazing side ones. Of course, the idea is that this could only include ... More >>

And, Uh, Um, OOPS: The Third Members Of Great Musical Trios You Probably Can't Name

​Last night we all watched as Governor Rick Perry blanked on the third department he would do away with if he was elected president. It was one of those moments - a la Scanners - when we all tensely waited for his head to explode, figuratively. Of course we love the guy and he's too precious t ... More >>

Your Favorite Bands: How To Correctly Pronounce Their Names

​Back in December 1998, when Eminem was just hitting MTV and rap radio, we remember people pronouncing his name as "Eee-mine-im," and not the candy-inflected way it actually was. We even made the mistake during our first viewing of "My Name Is" late at night on the video channel and calling a ... More >>

Stone Deaf Forever: Rockers With Hearing Loss

​The wages we pay to rock and roll aren't always of the sinful and hungover variety. Some of us pay, dearly, with our hearing, one of the best gifts that God has given humanity. Besides Kate Upton that is. Today is Pete Townshend's 66th birthday, and The Who guitarist is just one of countles ... More >>

Two Timing: The 11 Best Rock Duos

Todd Cole​Wednesday night, noisy indie duo No Age (above) pulls into Fitzgerald's. The two-piece of guitarist Randy Randall and drummer Dean Allen Spunt, starting making waves in 2007 with their debut Weirdo Rippers. 2008's Nouns brought them even more acclaim, and along the way they gained fo ... More >>

Everything in Between

No Age makes punk palatable.

Top 10 Double Albums That Should Have Stayed Single

​Not all double albums should have been double albums, just as some albums had to be double albums in order for their point to be made. Each case is different with each band or artist. The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia had to be double albums to tell their stories of teenage wastelands and po ... More >>

Does "Indie Rock" Mean Anything At All Anymore?

​Our colleague Shea Serrano has been doing brisk business with his Rap Round Table blogs, corralling local hip-hoppers into talking about events in their scene and in the world at large. No topics are off limits, and everyone is willing to talk. So Rocks Off decided it was time for Houston's ... More >>

Inanimate Objects

Music's 15 Gnarliest Moustaches

​Moustaches are all the rage these days. From shirts to snow globes, rides, wax and tattoos, everyone wants a moustache or at least to support the cause. Rocks Off even has a moustache. When it was longer we combed it while driving or lounging, much to the chagrin of the people around us. Ce ... More >>

Church for Thugs

50 Cent decides to be a little more selfish on upcoming LP Black Magic.

Leatherface

SXSW Adds Wild Moccasins, Roky Moon & BOLT, White Stripes' Northern Lights Doc

This week Rocks Off is pleased to announce that Houston pop kids Wild Moccasins will be playing the Houston Press' SXSW showcase. So you guys can now mark the Moccs down as another local band set to bear down on Austin in March. We will have the names of the other performers coming by next week or ... More >>

I'm Bound To Pack It Up: A Playlist for Team Coco

​Former management at NBC was smart enough to stick with Conan O'Brien's Late Night franchise despite an unsteady beginning, and were rewarded when Coco went on to build one of the most reliably solid shows in late-night history. He was afforded no such wisdom from Jeff "Soul Suckin' Jerk" Zucker, ... More >>

Aftermath: Fun Fun Fun Fest In Austin Day 1 - Death, Young Widows, Melt Banana, The Sword, Jesus Lizard

Photos by Marc Brubaker/ Click here for a slideshowDeath, reborn​This year's Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin was the exact thing Aftermath needed in the midst of his fall concert schedule, even though the last day was marred by mud and constant rain. But after last month's dillo-dirtied Austin City Lim ... More >>

Google's New Music-Search Engine Will Be the Death of Us All

​ This past week, Internet search-engine giant Google introduced a new music-search tool that immediately opens a pop-up window for people searching for a song, where either the entire song or a snippet will play for them. It's still in the beginning stages, so not all songs are available. We star ... More >>

What's In a Name? Hey, Look, It's 10th Gräde Cütie Again!

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off, we're trying hard to decode Houston's oddest monikers in order to find a little meaning. We mean this with affection and sincerity: 10th Gräde Cütie destroys everything they touch and should be booked ... More >>

Want to Levitate the Pentagon? These Songs Might Help

​On this date in 1967, some 50,000 protesters marched on the Pentagon with the intention of levitating it and exorcising any "evil spirits" within. The effort was led by Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman, poet Allen Ginberg, and Ed Sanders and satirically-minded rockers the Fugs. As we all know, th ... More >>

Lost Tuneage: The Jayhawks

Who 'Dat?The Jayhawks circa 1992Emerging from "The City of Lakes" in 1985, the Jayhawks showed that Minneapolis could produce a band at the forefront of another genre besides pioneering alt-rock (The Replacements, Hüsker Dü) and funk (the Purple One); namely, the nascent alt-country/"No Depressio ... More >>

Flannel File: Quicksand

Speaking of the early days of the Warped Tour, let's talk about Quicksand. Along with Helmet, Quicksand developed and popularized a particular type of post-hardcore that took the metal-influenced hardcore punk of 1980s New York, cut the tempo in half and filled up the resulting space with melody and ... More >>

Texas Punk Music Is Gay

The smartest people in rock and roll are queer.

Totally Fucked Up

Perhaps the best-named band of all time

Parts & Labor: Receivers

The Hold Steady: Stay Positive

The BellRays and Architects, with Vice and Deadbird

Plastic Idols : Singles, Demos & Live: Houston Punk '78-'80

Che Arthur

Miss Pop Rocks: Pop Culture Dealbreakers

Retro Active: 1987, Here We Come

Another Look at a Legend

Young Gun

Collin Herring hits somewhere between Merle Haggard and Hüsker Dü -- and that's a good place to be

Bob Mould

Body of Song

Boxing the Rock

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

How to Dismantle an Atomic Mom

A critic debates the merits of U2's latest with his mother

Playbill

Feel This

Enema of the Mental State: Notes from the Battle on Irritable Blink-182 Syndrome

The Fire Next Time

Nobody knows what AFI's next album will sound like, least of all the band members

Cry Uncle

For Uncle Tupelo fans, there's No Depression in reissue heaven

The Gulf Between

When these soldiers became writers, the pen becomes very mighty indeed

All His Life

The Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl is always between rock and a hard place

Identity Crisis

Mary Cutrufello's leaving makes us wonder: Is your band a Krogers, Randalls or a Fiesta?

Mr. Loud and Sensitive

Bob Mould takes his act on the road one more time

Lesson in Survival

Seattle's Posies go their own soft way, no matter who likes it

Rotation

Grunge Puppy

Paw from Lawrence, Kansas: modest Midwest guitar desperation