Jethro Tull

Texans-Titans: The Best Rapper Tweets

The Top 10 Weirdest U.S. No. 1 Hits

It's not often that the pop charts will surprise you. After all, the average consumer in most countries doesn't have time to delve too deep into an artist's catalogue. They don't often pick up on songs that will stand the test of time. They like the ephemera record labels tell them is hot right now. ... More >>

Saturday Night: Florence The Machine at The Woodlands

Florence and the Machine Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 29, 2012 Was it really a mere five months ago that local girl Florence Welch and her band were playing the (then) Verizon Wireless Center? Life moves pretty fast, as Ferris Bueller once said, and F tM's rise has been meteoric indeed ... More >>

Yes and Zeppelin? 5 True All-Star Near-Collaborations

Quick, what's your dream supergroup, living or dead? When I was a big prog nerd, mine was Peter Gabriel on vocals and lyrics, David Gilmour and Robert Fripp on guitar, Geddy Lee on bass, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Levin on Chapman stick, and Rick Wakeman on keys. Come to think of it, that still sou ... 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 >>

Crucifying America on a Playlist of Gold

In addition to the short list of people that we've elected president is an even shorter list of people that by all rights should have been at some point. I'm not talking about Ron Paul or Ralph Nader or Ross Perot but huge figures of statesmanship like Colin Powell or Daniel Webster who seem like th ... More >>

When Car Commercials And Rock And Roll Collide

This weekend is the big Houston Art Car Parade, where children and adults of all ages can gander at their fellow Houstonians' labors of car love. Each car is a marvel to the ingenuity and the insanity of this race known as the modern Texan. The Art Car festivities have cars on our brains. Rock a ... More >>

Barbecue and Big Books of Modernist Cuisine on Top Chef: Texas

We've had a week off, and in that time frame the Top Chef: Texas contestants have moved on from Dallas to Austin. My drug of choice this week is cough syrup, which I've been drinking all day long. I feel like a gangster. (More on this later today.) Nathan Myhrvold is the guest judge this week, and ... 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 >>

The 15 Best Bill Graham Presents Posters And Artwork

Photo By Tony MorelliBill Graham in 1974​Twenty years ago this week, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham went to the big backstage party in the sky after the helicopter he was riding in flew into a high-voltage tower in Vallejo, Calif. Also killed in the crash was Graham's girlfriend, Melis ... More >>

Lordy Lordy, T. Rex's Electric Warrior Is 40

​A few months back, we had this to say about T. Rex on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of their single "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" reaching the top of the UK charts. This Saturday, parent album, Electric Warrior, turns 40 years old. It bears repeating, not because we are too lazy to com ... More >>

Last Night: Panic! At The Disco At House Of Blues

Photos by Jessica Perry​Panic! At The Disco House of Blues June 15, 2011 Panic! At The Disco lead singer and main archtiect Brendan Urie comes from the ADHD generation, the one that got meds shoved down their throats. The strange byproduct of that generation, late Generation Yers, is that the ... More >>

Jethro Tull in Space: No Aqualung, Though

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic spaceflight, current space station astronaut and noted flute player Cady Coleman joined in an earth-orbit duet with Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson.

Astronaut Plays Jethro Tull Flute In Space

Rocks Off has been trying to come up with a "space rock" joke all day, but we can't, so we'll just say this is pretty cool. Today we got an email from Austin nonprofit Dart Music International with a link to the above video, which premiered during SXSW. It's astronaut (and musician) Cady Coleman ... More >>

Astronaut Catherine Coleman: New Video of Jamming in Space

Our sister blog Rocks Off was sent the above video, which premiered at SXSW, and we're happy to pass it along in case you missed it over there. Astronaut Catherine Coleman is a flute player; as has been reported, she has flutes from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson and two of the Chieftains with her at t ... More >>

Apathy For The Devil: Adrift In The Snowblind '70s

​Apathy for the Devil: A 70s Memoir By Nick Kent Da Capo Press, 416 pp., $17.95. While Cameron Crowe's wonderful but fictional Almost Famous told a sanitized story of music-journalist-meets-bands in the '70s, Former New Musical Express writer Nick Kent's memoir is a warts/coke spoons/social d ... More >>

The Houston Culinary Awards Get a Facelift

Photo courtesy of My TableThe steel awards themselves (no more glass!) weren't the only new things this year.​"You can't help but feel great when you're honored and respected by your peers and Houston diners," said Sean Beck today, after bringing home a stunning two awards at the annual My Tab ... More >>

Remember Coast's Thinking Out Loud Vol. 2?

Houston's history is dotted with albums that, fairly or not, have been swept aside. We'll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. Coast Thinking Out Loud Vol. 2 (Epsom Ent./Street Science, 2008) ​Whether you want to call him ... More >>

The Shameless Chef: A Raviolier Ravioli

Pictured: NUTRITION​Have you ever slouched out of bed around 1:30 in the afternoon, grunting and snorting, and staggered to the kitchen, opened up a can of ravioli for breakfast, and tossed it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, only to realize "Damn. This ravioli just isn't ravioli-y en ... More >>

Edge Of Twilight: The Secret History Of Forgotten UK Proggers Gentle Giant

​ Who Dat? Ah yes, the '70s, fertile ground for prog-rockers of mostly English descent like Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. But a cult has grown around the (many would say) even more complex and experimental Gentle Giant - a quintet that, among them, could pla ... More >>

Million-Dollar Mud

The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival became a quagmire everywhere but onstage.

ACL Aftermath, Part 2: Now That That "Dillo Dirt" Unpleasantness Is Out of the Way, How About Some Music?

Mark C. AustinSeems like we recognize this guy from somewhere...​ More and more, Aftermath uses ACL more than SXSW to see which recent buzz bands are worth their salt, and of course to check on how some old favorites are doing. This year, tops on our new-to-us list were Blitzen Trapper, who manage ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: The Decemberists, Dapper and a Little Dangerous

Photo by Mark C. Austin​If there's one band Rocks Off didn't envy during Saturday's ACL downpour - seriously, Zilker Park smells like a stable today, moreso because the staff just finished seeding the mud-splattered grounds with hay - it was the Decemberists. The Portland collective closed out Sat ... More >>

Artist of the Week: 10th Grade Cutie

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com.Courtesy 10th Grade CutieSm ... More >>

Eyeballin': The Moody Blues at the Isle of Wight Festival

Held each year between 1968 and 1970, England's Isle of Wight Festival was the premier outdoor rock party for the British counterculture. The last edition (before its recent revival) proved the largest-attended (600,000!) and best, with a lineup that included Jimi Hendrix in his last major performan ... More >>

Going Viral

The infestation of classic-rock threatens the cultural legacy of an entire generation and must be stopped.

Lost Tuneage: Uriah Heep

www.uriah-heep.com Who 'Dat? The English-bred Uriah Heep sprung from the axis of Mick Box (guitar) and David Byron (vocals). The pair had worked together in both the Stalkers and Spice before hooking up with manager/molder Gerry Bron. A big Vanilla Fudge fan, Box wanted the band to have a prominent ... More >>

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' ... More >>

Aftermath: Darius Rucker at RodeoHouston

Photos by Craig HlavatyAftermath always wondered what it was like to not be known to the public by your birth name, but by the name of your band. In the beginning, some club owners thought that David Lee Roth's name was Van Halen. I'm sure somewhere along the line Ian Anderson was called Jethr ... More >>

Moments the Grammy Awards Would Rather Forget

Soy Bombed

Remembering Houston's '60s Psych Clubs

Sizing up the summer's classic-rock scorecard

Season in the Sun

Lelia Rodgers's Matagorda Island Discs

Drenched in Blog: The Song Remains Lame

Rotation: Ringo Starr, Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo

18th Houston Press Music Awards Marked by Politeness, Bleeding

Mail Call

Special Clay Aiken Edition

Hawg Stop Blues Fest

Sunday, September 3, 11335 Sheldon, 281-456-7867

Billy Joel and Goldfish Sandwiches

Four artists share their guilty, and not-so-guilty, pleasures

Companions Unobtrusive

Rush -- quite possibly the whitest band on earth -- has a surprising number of black fans

Playbill

Time Warp

Four bands bring the '70s back to town

Iron Men

Recent releases document the Maiden voyage

Xmas Marks the Spot

A guide to new holiday discs, from surprise presents to Tannen-bombs

Mount Coy

South Park Mexican carves out his place in history with the 2001 Music Awards

Racket

Not all pirates are bad

Blues Brothers

The Kinsey Report and its familial blues-funk

Rotation

Unpromised Land

Jolene strives to make sense of life's punches -- and make a living

Critic's Choice

Appalachia Calling