Johnny Rotten

Boogie Nights: How Surviving Disco Helped Me Understand EDM

Some kid I know asked me if I ever plan to write an article about electronic dance music. I told him yeah, probably I would. I guess that seemed too cavalier an answer. He wanted to know if I had something against EDM. Naw, it's all right, I told him. What was I, he wanted to know, some kind of ... More >>

It Came From the Bowery: Punk Magazine Returns

The Best of Punk Magazine Edited by John Holstrom It Books. 372 pp., $30. While the thought of a hardcover, slick-papered, coffee-table book anthologizing the decidedly low-rent, ragtag Punk magazine might seem the antithesis of punk, even a curmudgeon like Johnny Rotten would have to spit a gob in ... More >>

Neo-Riot Grrrls: Today's Top 5 Female Punk Rockers

There have been punk-rock chicks as long as there has been punk rock. That much is true, but what is also unfortunately true is that the genre can all too often be a boys' club. Consider that emo, an entire genre based around angsty young men bemoaning their troubles with women, spawned from punk. T ... More >>

Friday Night: Public Image Ltd. at Scout Bar

Public Image Ltd. Scout Bar November 2, 2012 Not many shows remind you that sound has actual, physical mass, but Public Image Ltd. sure did Friday. Mass, as in something tangible and discernible, with density and volume. Especially volume. But don't count out density. Yes, I'm talking about some ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Saturday In Review: Kreayshawn, Refused, Girl Talk & More

Saturday's FFFF was a dusty affair, with merch tables making money off bandannas and other face coverings hand over fist. Where did that phrase come from, by the way? What do hands and fists have to do with making money, aside from petty crime? SLIDESHOW: PiL, Refused, A$AP Rocky: Fun Fun Fun Fest ... More >>

10 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: November 2-4

UPDATED (9:30 a.m.): Per @FitzLiveMusic, Rakim has canceled due to Sandy-related travel difficulties. :( Indian Jewelry Walters, November 2 Houston is a better place for Indian Jewelry still being here. They could have moved somewhere hipper long ago and been welcomed with open arms, but Tex Kersc ... More >>

Public Image Ltd.

Top 5 Bands Influenced by Public Image Ltd.

Public Image Ltd will be performing in the Greater Houston area on Friday, tomorrow, and as previously mentioned here, their choice of Scout Bar out in Clear Lake is a little unexpected. Rewind: Talking Politics, and Almost No Music, With Punk Legend John Lydon For those who haven't heard of PiL, ... More >>

Talking Politics, and Almost No Music, With Punk Legend John Lydon

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of speaking with John Lydon, iconic lead singer of the Sex Pistols, currently touring and recording with Public Image Ltd. That group has been Lydon's main squeeze since the Pistols' 1978 implosion, and released their First Issue later that year. REWIND: John Ly ... More >>

John Lydon: "You Can't Hold Prejudices To Brick And Mortar"

On Wednesday morning I had the pleasure of speaking with one John Lydon, the founding member of Public Image Ltd and the lead screamer of punk legends the Sex Pistols. PiL -- that's what he calls it, never the full name -- released a new album This Is PiL earlier this summer. It's been getting gre ... More >>

Yes, Public Image Ltd Is Playing Scout Bar

The runoff attached to Fun Fun Fun Fest during the first weekend in November has paid off for Houston, which will see dates from Baroness -- fingers crossed, Tomahawk, Converge, Red Fang, Valient Thorr, and now Public Image Ltd. The post-Sex Pistols John Lydon project will play Clear Lake's Scout ... More >>

5 Artists Whose Second Acts Surpassed Their First

Rocks Off has always had a soft spot for Rick Nelson. Although our oldest memory of him is probably hearing about the plane crash outside Texarkana that killed him, his band and his fiancee on New Year's Eve 1985, we're also old enough to remember actually his songs like "Hello, Mary Lou," "Lonesome ... More >>

Father Figures: 100 Famous Musicians' Paternal Professions

If you're a Texan of a certain age, this week you've probably spent some time mourning the death of Jerry Haynes, the children's TV host better known as Mr. Peppermint. Haynes' show on WFAA-TV in Dallas, Peppermint Place, ran from the '60s to the '90s and was widely syndicated across the state, incl ... More >>

Punk Rock's 10 Most Potent Women

David EnsmingerExene Cervenka at Cactus Music​Women are the resilient backbone of punk, providing creative DNA for the movement since the "zero hour," including Houston's own MyDolls and members of AK-47 and Bevatron, among others. Up 'n' comers like Vivian Pikkles keep the faith as Zipperneck ... More >>

Pop Rocks: How To Profit Off The Royal Wedding

$100 gets you $10000 if V blows up Parliament​The big day is finally almost upon us. After months of sweaty anticipation by domestic news agencies, Prince William of Wales will marry Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey "on the morrow," as they say (probably) over there. That is, unless one of ... More >>

R.I.P Joey Ramone: Top 10 Ramones Songs...

Besides "I Wanna Be Sedated" And "Blitzkrieg Bop" Dawkeye via Wikipedia​It was ten years ago today that the world lost their first Ramone, when Joey Ramone succumbed to lymphoma in New York City at the age of 49, one month shy of turning 50. The iconic punk frontman would lead the Ramones in ... More >>

SXSW: Bob Geldof, Master Of The F-Bomb

Photos by Chris Gray​Leave it to Sir Bob Geldof to turn the SXSW keynote address into a 45-plus minute combination elaborate cultural history of the past 60 years with rock and roll at the center, personal narrative of how rock and roll ("pop with a hard-on") shook loose his inner social activ ... More >>

Musicians Will Shill Literally Anything For A Buck

gossip-juice.com​This Sunday, the Super (Marketing) Bowl will enlist the help of the Prince of Darkness to target a new demographic: The Glee-ber market. With Glee's season premiere directly following the game, advertisers hope to seduce younger spectators into watching through bait like Justi ... More >>

John Lydon's 10 Best Non-Sex Pistols Songs

​John Lydon turns 55 today, and the former (current? sometime?) Sex Pistols/Public Image Ltd. frontman is as pugnacious as when we first met him in 1975 as Pistols mouthpiece Johnny Rotten, creating the modern archetype of the punk-rock loudmouth. With PiL, he fused punk with droning dub to ma ... More >>

The Worst Concert Rip-Offs We've Ever Seen

jackslackofrestraint.blogspot.com​On this day in 1978, the rapidly disintegrating Sex Pistols finally fell apart for good. Conveniently enough, they did it onstage at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, on the final night of the ill-fated U.S. tour that also lurched its way through San Antoni ... More >>

The 31 Best Music Documentaries Of All Time

​Hands down, above all of these following music documentaries, Craig's Hlist's two favorite of all-time are The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years, and The Beatles Anthology. We can watch both on repeat for days and not complain. That will probably all change once we see ... More >>

Tear Me Down: Five Songs About The Berlin Wall

​Today is World Freedom Day! The holiday was declared in 2001 by George W. Bush to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall and just how awesome he felt Ronald Reagan was. It was 21 years ago today that East and West Berlin were reunited, and the Berlin Wall remains a source of musical inspiratio ... More >>

Top 5 WTF Music Award Acceptance Speeches

Dana DonovanLittle Joe Washington and a pair of enthusiastic fans at the 2007 HPMA ceremony​As we may have mentioned once or twice, tonight Rocks Off and the Houston Press reveal the winners of this year's 2010 Houston Press Music Awards over at Warehouse Live. It's a free show, with performan ... More >>

FAIL: Prince, Johnny Rotten, Too Short, Auto-Tune

Photos by John Seaborn Gray​Internet Not As "Over" As Prince Had Hoped: Remember last week when Prince said the Internet was "over," and that was why he's now giving copies of his new CD away for free whenever you buy a copy of that thriving and relevant medium, a British newspaper? Well, ent ... More >>

Five Memorable Artist-Audience Altercations

Chris GrayWilco's Jeff Tweedy in a much better mood, March 2008There may be a very good reason Van Morrison said practically nothing from the stage Saturday night at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Judging from the plentiful comments here, here and over at the Chronicle's review, it would have ... More >>

The Pogues

Industrial Icon Martin Atkins Knows From Touring

Road Warrior

Election Eve With Fred

Last Night: The Slits and Friends at Numbers

The Slits

Culturcide: Year One

Last Night: Nightfly Goes to the Music Awards

The Briefs, with Rancid

Tuesday, July 11, at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-629-3700

It's "Anarchy" at the Meridian

The Briefs

Friday, November 25, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington Avenue, 713-864-2727.

Green Day

Friday, August 19, at Toyota Center, 1510 Polk, 1-866-4HOUTIX.

Pattern Recognition

Can defunct German bands become the sheezy in '05? Ja, they Can. We explore these and other of this year's trends.

Rogue Bosoms, Bouncing Booties and Pac-Man Raps

Looking back on the '04

Gabba Gabba Henh

The Ramones bopped toward history and an unhappy end

Country Teasers, with NTX+ Electric Deth

Friday, January 23

2 Filthy, 2 Furious

The Sex Pistols have re-formed (again), and Johnny Rotten is spewing pure vitriol (still)

Cry Uncle

For Uncle Tupelo fans, there's No Depression in reissue heaven

Crimson Tide

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

The Hives

Veni Vidi Vicious (Epitaph/Burning Heart)

Playbill

The Cult

Punk Put-On

Hard Core Logo takes a mock-documentary lookat musicians lost

Funk Flashback

Static

Rotation