Subject: John Lennon

• Get Lit: Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones, by Robert Greenfield

  August 28, 2007

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

  August 31, 2007

• Get Lit: A Turtle’s Life

  September 13, 2007

• Drenched In Blog: Sir Mick's Greatest "Hits"

  October 4, 2007

• Phil Spector Sentenced To 19 Years In Prison

  Phil Spector, preeminent music producer and architect of the famed "Wall of Sound" made popular by such artists as The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers and John Lennon, was sentenced to 19 years in a California jail this past Friday for his alleged part in the death of ladyfriend Lana Clarkson in early 2003. It's been a long and strange road to jail for Spector. Since his 2003 arrest for the murder, he has fired numerous high-profile defense attorneys, including former O.J. Simpson defender Ro

  June 2, 2009

• Get Lit: Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon, by May Pang

  March 29, 2008

• The Most Demanding Songs in Rock History

  May 20, 2008

• Get Lit: Beatles for Sale by John Blaney

  Another Beatles book? Doesn't the world already know everything it possibly can about the Fab Four, from the nickname of their favorite Hamburg pill dealer to the mustache style of the cab driver who took George through the streets of Rishikesh? Well... no. And as long as interest in the band continues to flower - and pass along to new generations - Ye Olde Beatles Bookshelf will continue to groan under the accumulated weight of its tomes. Beatles for Sale, though, is the first one to make

  December 2, 2008

• 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 way. KISS lamented "A World Without Heroes" on its Music From The Elder concept LP. Jim Morrison once told an interviewer, "A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts of existence

  December 3, 2008

• Remembering John Lennon

  On December 8, 1980 - 28 years to the day - John Lennon was shot and killed on the steps of the Dakota Apartments on New York City's Upper West Side by professed fan Mark David Chapman. It was a Monday just like today, and millions of people found out when ABC Sports' Howard Cosell broke the news near the end of the New England Patriots-Miami Dolphins Monday Night Football Game. Lennon's Double Fantasy album had just come out, and " (Just Like) Starting Over" was already in the Top 5. Roc

  December 8, 2008

• First They Came For The Trans-Fats...

  El Paso Senator Eliot Shapleigh is worried about the country's obesity epidemic. He has seen the horrid results of unchecked waistlines - diabetes, heart disease, guest spots on Jerry Springer. So he recently authored a bill that would ban trans-fats in Texas restaurants starting in 2010. Shapleigh points out that California and New York City have passed similar measures with great results.Hair Balls is a proponent of this bill, because if there's one thing that defines "democracy," it's telling

  December 10, 2008

• First They Came for the Trans-Fats...

  El Paso Senator Eliot Shapleigh is worried about the country's obesity epidemic. He has seen the horrid results of unchecked waistlines - diabetes, heart disease, guest spots on Jerry Springer. So he recently authored a bill that would ban trans-fats in Texas restaurants starting in 2010. Shapleigh points out that California and New York City have passed similar measures with great results.We're a proponent of this bill, because if there's one thing that defines "democracy," it's telling pe

  December 11, 2008

• Eyeballin': A Technicolor Dream

  This documentary, originally broadcast on BBC television, traces the coalition of the "underground" movement in swinging '60s London. Beginning with a groundbreaking 1965 gathering/reading of the Beat poets at the Royal Albert Hall and following with the opening of the Indica bookstore and gallery, the London Free School, the revival of the Notting Hill Carnival, and publication of the first issues of the newspaper International Times, it all culminated in "The 14-hour Technicolor Dream." The

  December 18, 2008

• Post-1990 Holiday Songs That Don't Blow

  This list was damn near impossible to compile. The criteria: original holiday songs recorded after 1990. There aren't many tunes that qualify, and of the ones that do, few of them are worth listening to. Like fake marshmallow froth atop a cup of instant cocoa, here's the crème de la crème of the less-than-lame holiday songs. 5. Savatage, "Dead Winter Dead": Hails from the 1995 metal album of the same name, which also spawned the overplayed hit "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)." The latter i

  December 25, 2008

• Once More, The Vision Thing

  March 31, 1994

• Press Picks

  November 3, 1994

• Same Old Waylon

  June 20, 1996

• O No, Mr. Lennon

  February 20, 1997

• Static

  October 30, 1997

• "The Sounds I See: Photographs of Musicians"

  September 25, 2008

• Here's the soundtrack to your future unemployment!

  Worked Up

  June 5, 2008

• The U.S. vs. John Lennon

  David Leaf’s documentary shows the giant steps the feds took against a cultural icon

  March 13, 2008

• Arthur Alexander

  Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter

  September 6, 2007

• Aimee Bobruk, Hilary York

  concert preview

  August 30, 2007

• New Heights

  January 12, 2006

• Revolution in Chrome

  In the '70s, Jim Harithas's radical chic collided with the CAM. Twenty-five years later, he's back, gunning his engines at the Art Car Museum.

  July 6, 2000

• Rock and Roll Autobiographies

  Stars' tell-all stories

  May 31, 2007

• Scott Faingold Listens to Everything

  And comes up with a random smattering of tortured musings

  June 15, 2006

• Never Go to a Party in Friendswood

  Where does your town rank in the Houston-area good-taste stakes?

  February 2, 2006

• That's the Way They Get By

  Spoon's Britt Daniel turns his camera on

  February 2, 2006

• Meet the Beatle

  John Lennon's other art takes center stage in "When I'm Sixty Four"

  July 21, 2005

• Robyn Hitchcock

  Spooked

  April 14, 2005

• Manning the Booths

  Why is the DJ scene almost completely devoid of women?

  March 24, 2005

• The Cruel and Unusual, with Poor Dumb Bastards, Hobble, Dick Delicious and Southern Riot

  Friday, June 20

  June 19, 2003

• This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

  June 19, 2003

• Playbill

  Cowboy Mouth

  January 18, 2001

• Metal Help

  The late William "Tray" Folliard, the Hard Rock, and stories from 'round town

  June 1, 2000

• Night & Day

  March 25 - 31, 1999

  March 25, 1999

• Mama Tried: A Mother's Day Playlist

  Where would we be without our mothers? Ummm... nowhere. So even though mothers come in all forms, from the highest quality (such as the kind the Gray boys are blessed with) to the absentee variety to the just plain crazy, you've got to at least remember that they're the reason you even exist at all. Here are some selected songs to get you in a proper Mother's Day state of mind, hopefully get those creative juices flowing to make this Sunday as special as you can for the first lady in your life,

  May 8, 2009

• Remembering 1969, Part 3: The Beginning of the End for the Beatles

  Note: see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. For most of 1969, the Beatles were pretty much comatose - after the disastrous Get Back sessions (which would later spawn the Phil Spector-produced Let It Be), they reconvened to the studio that spring to record the music for what would become their final recorded opus, Abbey Road. But the soon-to-be former members of the band were not in any way inactive. On September 13, John Lennon and Yoko Ono assembled a pick-up band formed by Eric Clapton, Klaus Voor

  June 15, 2009

• Eyeballin': John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band Live in Toronto '69

  It's a story well-told in Beatles lore. Reeling from the Fab Four's unraveling, a bored John Lennon accepted an invitation to perform at the Toronto Rock 'n Roll Revival show in September 1969. He quickly formed an ad hoc group of friends (wife Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, and Alan White on drums), dubbed them the Plastic Ono Band, and two days later the ensemble was learning songs in the cramped airplane quarters on the way to the show. Nervous after a three-year abs

  June 17, 2009

• Burnin' for You

  June 25, 2009

• Slide Show: Day of the Duos

  Today marks the anniversary of the day in 1957 that John Lennon met Paul McCartney, when Paul happened to take in John's pre-Beatles band, the Quarrymen, at a Liverpool church picnic. Exactly seven years later came the London premiere of A Hard Day's Night, the manic movie whose soundtrack cemented Lennon & McCartney as one of the greatest songwriting duos of all time. Here's a look at some other great songwriting duos who got by with a little help from... each other, we suppose.

  July 6, 2009

• Domy Movie Nights: Holy Mountain

  July 9, 2009

• Slide Show: Albums That Went Darker

  ​ For most rock acts, the traditional way to deal with success is to rework their lyrics, image and sound to become palatable to a larger audience. Usually this means brightening the subject matter, cleaning up the bad words, softening the sharp edges on those power chords and getting haircuts that cost more than the previous album. This is a process commonly known as "selling out"; however, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the artist in question becomes angrier

  August 5, 2009

• Five Direct Beatles Connections to Texas

  Four postcards included in the limited edition of The Beatles: Rock Band​ Looks like Beatlemania 2.0 is in full swing. Rocks Off may have mentioned how excited we are to play The Beatles: Rock Band at Coffee Groundz tonight, with prizes, drink specials and much laughter as we try to gnash our way through "I Saw Her Standing There." Shortly after noon, we called over to Cactus Music to see how the freshly released remastered Beatles catalog was selling. The complete box set sold out in pre-sale

  September 9, 2009

• 9/9/09: Songs With a Certain Number in the Title

  ​As Hair Balls pointed out, we've only got three more of these weird number/same number/same number days left this century after today. Such chronological repetition appeals to the hidden obsessive-compulsive in all of us, so join us as we wash our hands nine times, lock the door nine times, and listen to nine great songs featuring the number nine. The Clovers - Love Potion No. 9: The titular love potion that turns this song's protagonist into a maniac who starts "kissin' everything in sight"

  September 9, 2009

• "Imagine" This: What If John Lennon Were Still With Us?

  Today marks what would have been John Lennon's 69th birthday. Just let that sink in for a moment. He was only 40 when he passed away, but in those four decades he did enough to change the world and its inhabitants for pretty much the rest of natural human history - not just in music but also in forward progressive thinking. Rocks Off mourns Lennon anytime he hears a Beatles song on the radio or whenever he throws John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band on his turntable. There's really no way to adequately

  October 9, 2009

• Twelve Musical Fuck Yous Better Than Gov. Ah-nuld's Coded Message

  ​Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​We admit, we never thought he had it in him, but apparently the Governator is capable of human cleverness - just like all non-cybernetic organisms. That is, if we accept that the acrostic in this veto message here isn't just a coincidence (read the first letter of each line in the second and third paragraphs). That's a good one, but this being Rocks Off, we would've preferred Schwarzenegger put his F-U into song form, like these folks.

  October 29, 2009

• Westheimer Block Party Listology: Fiskadoro Chooses Artists They'd Bring Back to Life

  All this week, Rocks Off is previewing Saturday and Sunday's Westheimer Block Party by asking WBP performers to fill out a list from Lisa Nola's Music Listography book we're so fond of. It's not too late for your band to be up here; just email chris.gray@houstonpress.com by noon Thursday if you want to play. First up are Lake Jackson post-punk art-rockers Fiskadoro. Rich Kimball, guitar Robert Rental: This guy is criminally obscure. I think he played with Daniel Miller's band The Normal for awh

  November 10, 2009