Iron Maiden

Five Artists With Their Own Brand of Booze

It's 2:45 in the morning and you're stumbling to the bar. You've had a few to drink, and you just got your face rocked off by your favorite rock band in the universe. It's time to have one for the road and then get on home (responsibly, in a cab or on a bus, of course). You look up to order and thi ... More >>

Five Educational Songs That Don't Suck

Remember being in school and having to listen to all those awful educational songs? Our teachers would do anything to teach us, but most often they really have no idea what will appeal to anyone under the age of 40, so it gets hairy when something perceived as cool, like "that rapping stuff," gets i ... More >>

Saturday Night: Coheed and Cambria at Bayou Music Center

Coheed and Cambria, Between the Buried and Me, Russian Circles Bayou Music Center March 2, 2013 The last time Coheed and Cambria came through town, they were opening for Iron Maiden at the Woodlands. I'd never really considered Coheed to inhabit the same universe as those heavy-metal gods; their mu ... More >>

Five Art Masterworks That Should Be Metal Album Covers

It's not often that you get the opportunity to combine masterpieces of painting and metal. It's not completely unfounded, considering Guns N' Roses copped from Raphael's School of Athens for the cover of their Use Your Illusion set. But it's rare, like mixing pro wrestling and classical literature. ... More >>

The Rocks Off 100: Alexis Hollada, Doomistress of Project Armageddon

Who? Better known as Doomistress Alexis, Hollada plays bass and sings in the excellent doom-metal act Project Armageddon. Tides of Doom was a stripped-down, droning masterpiece that was capable of scorched-Earthing the soul of a listener into a personal wasteland. Though her voice is unforgettable, ... More >>

The 25 Creepiest Heavy Metal Album Covers

BY JEFF ROCHE, LA WEEKLY Halloween is the time where it's acceptable to wallow in the creepy, the crawly, the dark, and the macabre. Sounds like the themes of heavy metal, year-round! Here then, are those most spine-tingliest metal album covers, for your All Hallow's Eve viewing pleasure. Step insi ... More >>

The 5 Stupidest Things Musicians Want You to Have In the Kitchen

Earlier this week, we talked about all the stupid cookbooks that are out there either written or endorsed by celebrity musicians. For the most part, they were just endorsed because, and this gets down to the heart of the problem, musicians are musicians, not chefs. They don't know anything about coo ... More >>

Living on the Edge: 10 More Onstage Oopsies

Rock stars are just like the rest of us. They eat, love, poop, age, and sometimes they just embarrassingly go ass over tea kettle. Rewind: When Gravity Attacks: 13 Memorable Onstage Stumbles The difference between them and us, besides, you know, money, fame, security, and the like, is that when w ... More >>

Saturday Night: Iron Maiden at The Woodlands

Iron Maiden, Coheed and Cambria Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion August 18, 2012 Rewind: Iron Maiden Gets Superfan Treatment in New Coffee-Table Book 10 Iron Maiden T-Shirts Sure to Prove Your Metal Cred With 15 studio albums and at least as many world tours now under its belt, Iron Maiden is not ... More >>

10 Iron Maiden T-Shirts Sure to Prove Your Metal Cred

According to the unwritten laws of concert etiquette, it's generally unacceptable to wear a band's T-shirt to their performances. It just makes you look as if you're trying a tad too hard. A notable exception to this rule, however, is the legendary Iron Maiden, who just so happen to be taking over t ... More >>

Iron Maiden Gets Superfan Treatment In New Coffee-Table Book

Rewind: 10 Iron Maiden T-Shirts Sure to Prove Your Metal Cred Maiden Nation is counting the hours before Saturday night's gig up north at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, but any self-respecting Iron Maiden fan should have been cuddled stoically studying Neil Daniels' new tome Iron Maiden: The ... More >>

Iron Maiden

The 20 Best YouTube Rock Docs You Can Watch Free (For Now)

**The 31 Best Music Documentaries of All Time So you don't have NetFlix, you hate the video stores (if you can even find one), you don't like going to the little red box next to the liquor store, but you do have an Internet connection, plenty of time on your hands, and an insatiable thirst for rock ... More >>

10 Heavy Metal Double Albums That Make Us Want to Buy a Turntable

This week, one of our most highly anticipated albums of the summer was released: Baroness' Yellow & Green. We were already looking forward to hearing whatever came next from the Georgia rockers after the success of their epic Blue Record in 2009, but we got especially excited when we found out that ... More >>

Curated Festivals and the Changing Face of Summer Entertainment

While most Texans are spending their Friday counting down to ACL or speculating about the Fun Fun Fun Fest line up, I find myself thinking about a festival north of our fair state. We're halfway through June and that means that the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial should be dropping any da ... More >>

Up The Irons!: Iron Maiden's The Number Of The Beast Turns 30

Woe to you, oh earth and sea For the Devil sends the beast with wrath Because he knows the time is short Let him who hath understanding Reckon the number of the beast For it is a human number Its number is six-hundred and sixty-six This spring, Iron Maiden's third album, 1982's The Number of ... More >>

Children of Bodom

Iron Maiden Returning To Houston August 18

Photo By GroovehouseMaiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson holding court at the Woodlands in June 2010​Up the Irons, y'all: Iron Maiden is returning to Houston on August 18, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. This will be the iconic metal group's first appearance here since their June 2010 da ... More >>

Gothic Council Considers Proper Seduction of Metal Heads

Pretend you're a drug dealer, or if it's more appropriate pretend you're still a drug dealer. If our memory of the D.A.R.E program serves us well then the key to successful drug dealing in the acquisition of new clientele through free distribution of choice merchandise. Once they're hooked, then the ... More >>

Travelin' Band: What Do The Features Listen To On The Road?

So The Twilight Saga has exactly two things that keep the films from being absolute torture. The first is Ashley Greene in all her pixie-hotness, and the second is that there really are some excellent bands that end up on the soundtracks. Case in point, the Features were featured recently in Break ... More >>

Gothic Council Considers the Proper Seduction of Metal Heads

​Pretend you're a drug dealer, or if it's more appropriate pretend you're still a drug dealer. If our memory of the D.A.R.E program serves us well then the key to successful drug dealing in the acquisition of new clientele through free distribution of choice merchandise. Once they're hooked, t ... More >>

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Snubs Rush...Again

Photo by Jeff Balke​A couple years ago, I was sitting on the back porch at the Continental Club talking music with a fairly well known music writer who seemed to believe that anything with a big hook or the slightest inkling of musicianship beyond the garage band aesthetic was utter garbage. I ... More >>

Saxon: "Denim And Leather" Never Goes Out Of Style

While they did not achieve the level of success in America as Iron Maiden, Motörhead, or Judas Priest, Yorkshire-based Saxon was an early battalion on the front lines for the invasion of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (that's NWOBHM to music nerds) in the late '70s and early '80s. Often theme ... More >>

The First Ten Videos MTV Ever Aired

​Closing out this week of celebration, and a little mourning, on the occasion of MTV's 30th anniversary , we reached back into the YouTube vaults to present to you the first 10 videos Music Television ever aired. On August 1, 1981, The Buggles' awfully prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" b ... More >>

Before Harry Potter, There Was Dr. John Dee...

​History is full of mysterious magicians. The modern world gives us Anton LaVey, Gerald Gardner and Aleister Crowley. In the ancient world you had Edward Kelley, Nicolas Flamel, and the Count of St. Germain. Of all those illustrious names, however, the name of Dr. John Dee stands out from the ... More >>

1986: Best Musical Year Ever?

​For almost two weeks now, Rocks Off has been obsessed with the year exactly 25 flips of the calendar backward from this one. It started when Steve Earle did one of his "Time Machine" shows, where the singer-songwriter who plays House of Blues Wednesday spotlights a dozen or so of his favorite ... More >>

Today's High Schoolers Shrugging Off New Music

​During this part of the year, your humble narrator treks from school to schools selling contest music to bands and orchestras. It's a good gig, and it enables us to get a good gander at what the next generation of musicians look like. However, after several years of doing it, we started noti ... More >>

Iron Maiden Digs Back Somewhere In Time At the Woodlands

Photos by Groovehouse / Click here for a slideshow​If you were just a casual Iron Maiden fan, Friday night's gig out at the shed in the Woodlands would have confounded and maybe even angered you. If you own the band's entire catalog on tape, vinyl, and disc, and maybe had their ghoulish mascot ... More >>

Iron Maiden

Give Me No Man's Land: 5 Songs For The Fallen

​Today is Memorial Day, and Rocks Off would like to honor our brave and beloved dead as we honor everything - through music. At no time in American history have there not been men and women in life-threatening danger trying to protect us, whether it was a declared war or not. This is a sacrifice w ... More >>

Summer Tours We'd Like To See: Bring Back Texxas Jam!

Reminder: Tickets for Lady Gaga's Toyota Center show next year go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m.​ Summer concert season doesn't last as long as hurricane season, and leaves somewhat less damage in its aftermath, but at least it gives us something to look forward to during those long, hot months. This ... More >>

Answers To Our "Metal Or Hymn?" Quiz

au_tiger01 via flickr.com​ A little harder than you thought, wasn't it? If Sunday-morning hymns belong to the King of Kings, and heavy metal is the Prince of Darkness' domain, they sure seem to copy each other's notes a lot. If you haven't seen our little sacred-vs.-profane brain-teaser yet, go ah ... More >>

Fast As You: Rocks Off's Playlist for Sunday's Houston Marathon

anythingaboutcars.comThe 1968 Plymouth Roadrunner. Please keep your drooling to a minimum.​ The drinking stops tonight. Rocks Off is joining 30,000 other crazy, hardy souls to run the Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Half Marathon this Sunday. (We're running the half - it's only our second race ... More >>

Graveside Songs for Edgar Allan Poe's Long-Overdue Funeral

​Kicking the bucket at the age of 40 is bad enough, especially when, to this day, nobody's really sure how you died (everything from syphillis to rabies to political "cooping" has been thrown out there as a possible cause). But getting buried in an unmarked grave after a three minute "service" is ... More >>

Metalocalypse: Baroness and the Southern Metal Renaissance

Baroness, "Wanderlust," 2007 In the same way that Houston rarely inspires photos of snow flurries, people tend not to associate heavy metal with the South. But, if you look hard enough, you'll find a rich history of hard music with roots planted firmly in Southern soil. In the '80s and early '9 ... More >>

The Sword, with Torche and Stinking Lizaveta

Iron Maiden

Know Your Idols

The Black Dahlia Murder, 3 Inches of Blood

Invincible Czars

Flipping the Script

Who's partying like rock stars? Rappers!

About a Beast

Ruminations on irony, Maidenhood and fraternity

Number of the Beeyotch

The Iron Maidens encourage you to bring your daughter to the slaughter

Stapp Infection

Sanctimonious hypocrites need love, too

Wielding a Sword

Heady Metal

In 2005, longhairs got more progressive than ever

For Those About to Rock

Guitar Hero cranks rhythm-gaming up to 11

Machine Head, with Devil Driver and It Dies Today

Sunday, May 29, at the Engine Room, 1515 Pease, 713-654-7846.

Iron Men

Recent releases document the Maiden voyage

Ironing Out the Kinks

Infernal Bridegroom Productions resurrects Ray Davies' A Soap Opera after 27 years in rock limbo