John Denver

O Christmas Song, O Christmas Song

I am a Pedestrian Report: Bellaire

SXSW: Carbon/Silicon, Ting Tings, Santogold, MGMT, The Cribs, White Rabbits, Supersuckers and Robyn

Mp3: Nosaprise's "Grown Folks Music"

Songs Not To Play At Intercontinental Airport's New Karaoke Booth

So now there's a karaoke booth at Intercontinental Airport. According to the Houston Chronicle, travelers can choose from "hundreds of titles."We got to wondering this morning about what's in their song selections there and more to the point -- what isn't.We imagine that the management of IAH's kara ... More >>

Five ( 3) Spot: Christmas With Weezer!

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every week, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Because God loves us: Weezer, one of our all-time favorite bands, has recorded six Christmas covers, the greatest ... More >>

Static

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every week, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Because God loves us: Weezer, one of our all-time favorite bands, has recorded six Christmas covers, the greatest ... More >>

Nosaprise

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every week, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Because God loves us: Weezer, one of our all-time favorite bands, has recorded six Christmas covers, the greatest ... More >>

A New Official State Song for Texas?

A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song

Get Inside. It's Summertime!

Your guide to the season's hottest films (and the other ones, too)

2006 Houston Press Music Awards Supplement

Your guide to the season's hottest films (and the other ones, too)

Vagina Music Roundup

A scintillating survey

Whitney's Dookie Bubble

Being Bobby Brown is not all fun and games

When Wild Musicians Attack!

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

Play It Pretty for Cabaret Voltaire

A Rice grad stakes his claim as the inventor of the ironic "Freebird" request; also: there's a Lanky new kid on H-town's burgeoning pop-rock scene

Call Him Al

An epic story turns human -- and fallible -- in Oliver Stone's Alexander

Trading Groceries for Guns

Matt Brownlie talks about his band's new name and a very strange year

The Dirty Thirty

The worst songs of all time from Texas

Dead Again

There's fresh meat for the reaper in Final Destination 2

Bah, Humbug!

The glut of holiday CDs kills the Christmas spirit

Shotgun Wedding

With Planner, rookie filmmakers force their characters into some compromising situations

MVPs

At SRO, some of the best players are on stage, not on screen

That Wascally Fate

Final Destination looks at irreversible destiny through the eyes of Wile E. Coyote

This Week In Deliciousness

Katharine Shilcutt ate all this chicken and did not save any for you.Welcome back to the weekly Eating Our Words round-up, where the food is well-prepared, plentiful and, more often than not, weird as all hell. To start with, Robb Walsh introduced us to the concept of a Wal-Mart supermercado, ... More >>

Social Distortion: The Little Election That Could

Note:  Feel free to sing along with John Denver at any time.  This is wholesome social media activism the whole family can enjoy! There was a land of Persians with loads and loads of hope,All gearing up to elect a new President that was not a dope,And as the polling stations began to chug ... More >>

HPMA Aftermath: Glenna Bell, Beetle, Fat Tony, Free Radicals and Plump

Photos by Brandon K. Hernsberger​ A good way to kick off the HPMAs is to see a musician who makes you daydream about cheese grits on a holiday, preferably one that takes place in wintertime. Or reminds you of riding a horse at sunrise alongside your best friend John Denver. Glenna Bell, you made i ... More >>

"It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long" and Other Funny Country Titles We Found

​Rocks Off has been a fan of Robert Earl Keen since we heard 1994's Gringo Honeymoon, and we've really been a fan since we heard his previous album, A Bigger Piece of Sky, shortly thereafter. We got Keen's latest album, The Rose Hotel (Lost Highway), in the mail this week, and after a few listens, ... 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 >>

He Said She Said: Songs That Remind Us of Our Exes

​One thing that struck He Said while we were making this list was the lack of metal and/or punk rock associated with the women in our past. It's kind of odd that someone so dirty and haggard never dated anyone with a Crass patch on her denim jacket or Misfits tramp stamp. By looking at us, you wou ... More >>

Noel Contendre: 11 Musical Christmas Crimes and Misdemeanors

flickr.com/photos/st3f4an​ It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas - everywhere we go - and most people probably assume it's all glad tidings of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. Not Rocks Off. We did a little digging, polled our writers and the Houston Press editorial staff, and came ... More >>

Beetle's Paul Beebe and Other Local Musicians Remember John Lennon

Today is one of the most dubious anniversaries in all of rock and roll. Twenty-nine years ago this evening, Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon on the front steps of Lennon's apartment building on the Upper West Side of New York City, the Dakota. For Baby Boomers and even their older kid ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: "Nowhere Man" and Houstonian-Turned-Superproducer Frank Liddell's Other Early Favorites

Houston native Frank Liddell, whose Nashville production credits include roots-rocker Chris Knight, Texas music phenom Jack Ingram, budding megastar Miranda Lambert, and his wife Lee Ann Womack, has a surprising set of early music impressions. "I can't remember the first one but there were a lot of ... More >>

Rocks Off's Rodeo Concert Guide: Brad "Not Jake Gyllenhaal" Paisley

Date: March 11 Name: Brad Paisley AKA: "Isn't That Jake Gyllenhaal?" Genre: Freemason country Best Known Song(s): "Alcohol," "She's Everything," "Ticks," "Ow, My Back" Key Demographic: Confused Brokeback Mountain fans, people who only eat the vanilla section of Neapolitan ice cream Previous HLSR A ... More >>

Toots & the Maytals

Date: March 11 Name: Brad Paisley AKA: "Isn't That Jake Gyllenhaal?" Genre: Freemason country Best Known Song(s): "Alcohol," "She's Everything," "Ticks," "Ow, My Back" Key Demographic: Confused Brokeback Mountain fans, people who only eat the vanilla section of Neapolitan ice cream Previous HLSR A ... More >>

Toots & The Maytals Boogie On At House Of Blues

Photos by Jason Wolter​ For more photos from the show, see our slideshow here. Almost 50 years on from his earliest historic recordings, Toots Hibbert and the Maytals have the reggae thing down to a massively fun science. And in spite of his age (about 67, although Hibbert doesn't tell), the first ... More >>

25 Weird And/Or Hilarious Soccer Chants

​Rocks Off spent June 2006 in Salamanca, Spain during the World Cup, and we can tell you it's difficult to exaggerate what an event this is to pretty much every country in the world but America. (Although the U.S. is reportedly gaining.) While watching the games, we would leave the window open ... More >>

FAIL: Morrissey, Scott Weiland, Whitesnake, Conspiracy Theorists

​Morrissey Loves Animals So Much It Makes Him Racist: Morrissey has been one of the biggest ambiguously snarky pussies in all of rock music for some years now, popular among 15-year-old bisexuals of all races and creeds. Sometimes, however, the former Smiths frontman likes to make a straightf ... More >>

Last Night: Carrie Underwood At Toyota Center

Photos by Marco Torres​Carrie Underwood Toyota Center October 6, 2010 Carrie Underwood is perfect for Vegas. That's not a knock - mostly. Underwood is wholesome, engaging and dynamic. She's no Tina Turner, but she can strut onstage. Her voice is excellent - good range and control, on key and ... More >>

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Plane Crashes And The Fall Of Icarus

The quicker us pick Icarus to be a stinker of a pilot, but anyone that near the sun ain't no shrinking violet. - Richard O'Brien, Ain't That to Die For ​ Lynyrd Skynyrd, "What's Your Name" Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the plane crash that killed Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant ... More >>

Ten Bizarro Christmas-Carol Covers

​Thanks to holiday-themed compilations like A Very Special Christmas and Little Steven's Christmas A Go-Go, we often hear our favorite modern artists putting their spin on holiday classics. But for those who are tired of forcing Mariah Carey's eight-octave "All I Want For Christmas" on their f ... More >>

10 Uncool Artists Primed For Hipster Rediscovery

Tumblr"Aw, dammit, I grabbed Dad's iPod by mistake. Paul Simon... is that one guy, or two Beatles?" ​Remember emo kids? Only a few short years ago, the nation's venues of the nation were filled with kids in all black, wearing ultra-skinny jeans, eyeliner, white belts, and identical chopped-mea ... More >>

It Had To Happen: Lady Gaga Goes Country

PopJustice/billboard.com​Lady Gaga's impending appearance at Toyota Center - two weeks, y'all - has been on the calendar for so long, and sold out for so long, Rocks Off Sr. has practically forgotten about it. We have let most of the Lady's pop tornado whoosh right by us to the willing Rocks O ... More >>

Rocks Off Wishes Wyoming A Happy Birthday

​If you're anything like Rocks Off, you've been marking off the days on your calendar until you could let loose and celebrate Wyoming Statehood Day this coming Sunday. OK, so that's a lie, but here at Rocks Off we do enjoy the lesser known-holidays and putting together playlists to honor them ... More >>

The Five Astronaut Autobiographies Everyone Should Read

Riding Rockets: Raunchy, raucous and funny.​Astronaut autobiographies can be a very mixed bag. On the one hand, that should be surprising given the harrowing, thrilling life-and-death stories which are inherent; on the other hand, the authors are generally not very good writers. And even if t ... More >>

Prediction Mania! -- Weekends Best Bets and 2 Bonus Season Bets

Yes, big things are predicted (again) for ND​I've never been one to just dip my toe in the water on anything. If there is a job to do, a party to attend, or a giant calzone to eat, you can count on me to go "all in" on whatever the task may be. So when we have our first full weekend of colleg ... More >>