Jim Morrison

Happy Birthday Kurt Cobain: Where Would He Be Today?

Last year on this date in honor of what would have been late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday, I wrote a blog supposing where the grunge icon would have been in 2012. It got a lot of traction and people loved and hated it. Imagining him as a dubstep DJ was really for grins and shock valu ... More >>

5 Badass Custom Guitars (That Can Be Used For Murder)

You would think that guitar players could be content shredding awesome solos while holding one of the most worshipped musical instruments on the planet. Jim Morrison certainly didn't give head to Ray Manzarek's organ on stage. No sir, he went down on the all time greatest phallic symbol this side of ... More >>

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 >>

Corporate Rock Still Sucks

Rock of Ages posits Tom Cruise as a hair-metal god and hair metal as something un-awful.

Sproing! 10 Musicians Who Should Have Their Own Comic Books

Ahhh, comic books! A place where you can escape into another realm. Most artists have somewhat cartoonish onstage personalities, but some have so much that they deserve their own comic book or graphic novel. Like these.

The 4 Most Ridiculous Lies Rock Music Ever Told Me

I'm part of the MTV generation, which means from the moment I was born I not only heard rock and roll, I also saw it in all its glory. It was complete sensory inundation on multiple fronts, and with an attack that powerful there is just no defense against the tide of complete lies. Music is an esca ... More >>

Missed Opportunities: 10 Musicians Who Turned Down Big Hits

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought to yourself, "Why did I do that?" or "Why did I turn that down?" Those kinds of moments happen to all of us. It's part of life, unfortunately. This happens all the time in the movie world, but you never seem to hear about it in the music worl ... More >>

Coachella: The Black Lips' Cole Alexander Goes Full Monty, Plays Guitar With His Ding-Dong

Note: We're running reports from our sister blog in LA, West Coast Sound, on the Coachella Music Festival. The Black Lips started off Saturday at Coachella with a bang. The flower-punk band from Atlanta, Georgia decided to pull a Jim Morrison-esque maneuver during their 2:15 set at the Mojave tent. ... More >>

Ray Wylie Hubbard

Law and Order: Top 10 Best (Or Worst) Musicians' Arrests

Nobody is above the law - not even musicians even though some of them may think they are. However, some of their outrageous behavior has become legendary. Others have spawned rumors, killed their careers and/or made them the butt of many jokes. In fact, this makes me wonder why there is not a cele ... More >>

Joshua Tree: 7 Musicians Who Have Felt The High Desert's Pull

Twenty-five years ago today, U2 released their paramount record, The Joshua Tree. The record was intended to be a spiritual quest for Bono: A meditative dissection of the "spoiled child" he saw in American culture. Before Bono blessed the area with his humanitarian spirit, however, many other musici ... More >>

Kurt Cobain At 45: Where Would He Be In 2012?

​Had he not died in April 1994 by his own hand -- or sinister forces working for Courtney Love (insert maniacal laugh) -- Kurt Cobain would have turned 45 years old today. The rock icon killed himself at the age of 27, leaving behind not only a daughter to fend for herself against the wiles of ... More >>

Happy Gorilla Suit Day! 5 Music Videos for Celebrating.

Today is National Gorilla Suit Day. We're not explaining it for you because something so magical needs neither intellectual discourse, nor to be held up against the scrutiny of skeptics who are clearly dead inside. Just accept it. Today is National Gorilla Suit Day, and all are commended to observe. ... More >>

Show Me Your GIFs: Great Classic Rock 'N Roll GIFs Galore

It seems to me that musical history is made up of fragments of indelible images, good and bad, that inform each person's experience. Then there are the swatches of tunes that grab you by the heart strings or the throat, making you a fan for life. But it's those moving pictures that you first remembe ... More >>

Happy Birthday, Jim Morrison: Top 5 Songs About the Lizard King

​We've always felt a deep connection with Jim Morrison, so much so that we'd rather read No One Here gets Out Alive than listen to any one Doors song. The poet and legendary front man left us far too soon, and in his wake is a wealth of stories and music that continues to echo down and find an ... More >>

Ray Manzarek & Robby Krieger of The Doors

Top 10 Songs About Other Musicians

When you make music your life, it's only natural that you'd look at the people around you doing the same and find someone who just moistens the muse's panties. What we've tried to put together here is a list of those best efforts. Bear in mind, with one notable exception we've steered clear of fell ... More >>

Top 5 Musical Ed Sullivan Show Controversies

theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com"You want me to sing WHAT now?"​To the right-wing conservatives, religious groups, and self-proclaimed family organizations raising hell over Chaz Bono's "assault on family values" as the first transgender contestant on Dancing With the Stars, Rocks Off asks the q ... More >>

Las Puertas: 10 Things You May Not Know About The Doors

"Hey Robby, don't try to look too not-stoned in our press still. Thanks, buddy."​On this day in 1965, The Doors began recording demos together, laying down some songs set to Jim Morrison's freaky poems. Nearly 50 years later, the band is an exalted classic-rock group, firmly implanted in that ... More >>

This Ain't Rock and Roll, This Is Roky Moon & BOLT!

​In this week's issue of the Houston Press, you can find our in-depth interview with Roky Moon & BOLT! and the team behind their debut release for ZenHill, American Honey, which sees its debut tomorrow night at Fitzgerald's. The show promises to be a stunner with Tax The Wolf, Young Girls, sIn ... More >>

R.I.P.: Remembering The 27 Club - Jimi, Jim, Janis, Kurt...

​As a student of rock music since he was born and sat in front of MTV and VH1, Craig's Hlist has grown up hearing constant aching throb of the number 27, the end-marker for a collection of rockers who died at that hallowed age, due mostly to their own chemical and/or personal misadventures. ... More >>

10 Albums We're Not Supposed To Like But Do

​In everyone's record collection there are junk-food albums, the ones that you feel bad for consuming but coat your ears with happy, because you have been conditioned by everyone else to either hate them or disown them. But when push comes to shove on that media player or stereo, the junk-food ... More >>

European Travel Tips For First-Time Bands

​Local favorites the Wild Moccasins embark on a six-week European tour this weekend. Rocks Off knows how daunting international travel can be, especially when you're on a multi-country blitzkrieg that exposes you to numerous languages and many differing cultural mores in a relatively short per ... More >>

"Come On Buick, Light My Fire."

Not official Nike footwear.​Like most of Western society, I'd figured I was pretty much numb to the use of popular songs in commercials. I don't know how far back the practice dates, exactly, but I remember the anecdote from No One Here Gets Out Alive about Jim Morrison shooting down the sugge ... More >>

Why I Wrote A Book About The Bottom Of The Music Biz

​Let's drop the royal we for a second, okay? This is Jef, and I'm here to shamelessly plug my book signing at Cactus Music from 12-3 p.m. tomorrow (beverages provided by St. Arnolds; music by Giant Princess). I also want to explain why the book exists at all. I'm prone to hyperbole, I admit, ... More >>

Last Night: The Black Angels And Black Mountain At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marc BrubakerSee more photos from Wednesday's fever dream in our slideshow.​The Black Angels, Black Mountain Warehouse Live November 17, 2010 Some music is so evocative and overwhelming it can cause you to flash back to before you were even born. Not all of it - when a Mozart sympho ... More >>

Five Great Moments In Indecent Exposure

​Recently, Florida's lame-duck governor Charlie Crist has said he's considering pardoning Jim Morrison for his 1969 indecent exposure charge, stemming from The Doors' notorious Miami concert in which a drunken Lizard King swore numerous times and proceeded to whip it out onstage. Of course, Mo ... More >>

Seven Musical Marriages Sullied By Proposition 8's Repeal

​Just in case you're one of the very few people who hasn't yet been seized by government shock troops and forced to marry someone of the same sex, a California Supreme Court judge ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional Wednesday. This would be the proposition which officially defines marriage as ... More >>

Godsmacked: 27 Years Of Mouthwash Buzz And Birthday Shame

​This coming Monday, Craig's Hlist enters his 27th year of decadence and shame. One year closer to 30, with no signs of getting wiser or smarter. This year we have no clue as to what to do or where to go, other than see live music and drink too much. But that's a typical weekend anyway and will mo ... More >>

Ask a Mexican: "Cheddar" and the Doors

What's In a Name? Psychobilly Undertakers 13 Black Coffins

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. ​ Psychobilly is a genre whose entire purpose, in our opinion, is to achieve maximum delinquency, like a grindho ... More >>

The Top Rock-Star Death Conspiracies: Elvis, Michael, Kurt, Tupac and More

It seems that the stranger and weirder our world gets by the day, humanity struggles to find reasons behind all this calamity and tragedy. We try our best to find conclusions to why bad things happen, and when we can't fully fathom that the awful truth is just that, instead try to blame the influen ... More >>

"My Son Is the Lizard King, and I'm an Admiral": Successful Rock-Star Parents

​Late Thursday, word came across the ticker that legendary comedian and TV star Soupy Sales had passed away at age 83. After a stint in the military and on radio, Sales went on to be one of the major pioneers of televised sketch and children's comedy. In 1965, he pulled a stunt where he asked his ... More >>

Maybe Miley Would Be Better Off Dead Like Selena, Kurt and These Others...

In case you missed it - and if you value your immortal soul, we're sure you did - Hannah Montana star/future tell-all memoir author Miley Cyrus unveiled a newer, more "mature" look last weekend at the only venue appropriate for such things: the Teen Choice Awards. Nothing says "successful transitio ... More >>

Mogwai

Heroes Hip Hip Hurray: Was Tina Turner Right?

Heroes Hip Hip Hurray, Heroes Hip Hip Hurray www.heroeshiphiphooray.com In rock and roll, the concept of a "hero" has always been lyrical fodder. John Lennon and David Bowie both voiced our yearnings for fearless ones who fight injustice in the open or just suffered quietly in their own futile wa ... More >>

“Day of the Dead Rock Stars”

See Bob Marley, Bo Diddley and others given the DOD treatment by artist Carlos Hernandez

Music to Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil

Be of Good (Blue) Cheer

ASK A MEXICAN

Otep, Hellyeah

The Cult

Drenched In Blog: Heartblog Hotel

Number of the Beeyotch

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

Seat Belts and Eye Shadow

If the Lost Boys can't get young Hispanic males to buckle up, nobody can!

When Wild Musicians Attack!

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

Crimson Tide

Straight from the vein of avant-hardcore, the Blood Brothers gush up a big mess

Help Wanted

Get those suggestions in now for the Press Music Awards

Wayne's World 2