Joshua Tree

Rashard Lewis Won’t Be Singing That Ozzy Tune Anytime Soon

Fuck-off Friday: It’s Too Hot to Work Anyway

Drenched in Blog: Unknown Pleasures

Get Lit: Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David N. Meyer

Best Non-2007 Music of 2007

Last Night: Gram Rabbit at Super Happy Fun Land

Gazing Ahead into 2009, Part 2

[Note: see here for Rocks Off's previous prognostications.]   U2 (March) Best Case Scenario: Armed with the backing of Live Nation, they release their best album in over a decade and Bono shuts his face as they sell out Reliant Stadium in two minutes. Worst Case Scenario: The recession (fi ... More >>

Aftermath: The Killers at Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Torey Mundkowsky Next year this decade will be over, and very few new bands have distinguished themselves either at the turnstiles or the cash register. Even one of the main ones that has, the Killers, chose to hit the theater circuit this winter after releasing its th ... More >>

Rotation

Photos by Torey Mundkowsky Next year this decade will be over, and very few new bands have distinguished themselves either at the turnstiles or the cash register. Even one of the main ones that has, the Killers, chose to hit the theater circuit this winter after releasing its th ... More >>

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. in Song

In the Name of Love

Alone Together

For songwriters Victoria Williams and Mark Olson, the fast lane ends in Joshua Tree

Johnette Napolitano

The singer's post-Blonde ambition

Hope Springs Eternal

A northern suburb tops our third installment of rating greater Houston's taste in music

Murder Inc.

Not many musicians have health insurance, but Murder by Death does

Walk Away, Walk Away

And we will follow as local music figures recall tales of U2

Bono for Pontiff

The only problem: Who could possibly replace him in the arena-rock pantheon?

Heard It Through the Grapevine

Notes toward new and better criticism and marketing of wine and song

Invisible Man

Kenna doesn't care if you see him. He just wants you to hear him.

Desert Rose

Victoria Williams, a native of swampy Louisiana, finds her muse in the dry beauty of Southern California

Rotation

Victoria Williams, a native of swampy Louisiana, finds her muse in the dry beauty of Southern California

Aftermath: Fake Problems and Born Anchor at Walter's on Washington

Photos by Craig Hlavaty On a Monday night, all you can really look forward to is a decent evening of lackluster television and maybe some leftover barbecue from the weekend's flame-kissed debauchery. But last night at Walter's was the exact anecdote for a "case of da Mondays" in so many ways. In rec ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day One: Kings Of Leon Rage Against The Fame

Photos by Mark C. Austin​Funny thing happened last night. It was the same thing that happened to U2 in 1987 in the wake of The Joshua Tree, and the same thing that killed Kurt Cobain in 1994. Fame has finally overtaken Kings Of Leon, leaving their core boots 'n flannel crowd in the proverbial pop ... More >>

U2 and Muse Set Lists from Cowboys Stadium in Arlington Monday

Pete Freedman/ DC-9 at NightIndependence Day in Arlington? Nah, just U2's ginormous 360 "Claw" stage.​ It's a little less than 36 hours and counting until U2's 360 Tour stops at Reliant Stadium, and Rocks Off is starting to get excited. Really excited. Bono and the boys were in Arlington at Cowboy ... More >>

Five Great U2 Songs Even the Band Has Probably Forgotten About

Well, now you've seen the set list from Monday's U2 Dallas show, and it's pretty short on both pre-Joshua Tree songs and surprises in general. This will be Rocks Off's eighth U2 show since 1992, and we can't remember ever having seen the band do "The Unforgettable Fire" live, but besides the No Lin ... More >>

With or Without You: Memoirs of a U2 Adolescence and Young Adulthood

...I may regret this.​So there was a time, not long ago by geological reckoning, that I was a U2 fan. Growing up during the pre-Internet late 70s/early 80s in a town where the only place to buy music was a Camelot Music in the mall limited your options somewhat. Nevertheless, the Edge's loud, ring ... More >>

Gram Rabbit To Bring Psychedelic Disco To Last Concert Café

​Talk about great news, Lonesome, Onry and Mean's favorite California psychedelic disco glam rockers Gram Rabbit will play Last Concert Café August 14. According the band's management, this will be the anchor date for their Texas swing, but no other Texas dates have yet been announced. The ... More >>

Candy Flip

Gram Rabbit's psych-disco twang

Saturday Night: Gram Rabbit At Last Concert Cafe

Photos by Chris Gray​Gram Rabbit Last Concert Cafe August 14, 2010 Here at Aftermath, we're big fans of Houston - love our town - and of the local music scene. Based on what we saw at the recent Houston Press Awards showcases, we've raised some pretty good rock bands in Houston. We wish they ... More >>

Sorry, Pitchfork & Rolling Stone, Kanye's Fantasy Is Not Perfect

​Out since Monday, Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy finally hit stores to what is seeming to us like mass audience acclaim. It's hitting in the right spots, lyrically and musically, and now, one by one, the critics are weighing in. A week or so ago Rocks Off turned in our own ov ... More >>

Five Great 2010 Albums Lonesome Onry And Mean Forgot

​Other than it just being a form of lazy journalism, one reason LOM hates making best-of lists is that there are always items that we forgot about, or considered but felt like they just barely didn't make it somehow. Then we wish we had included them. Here are a few more obscure 2010 albums th ... More >>

The Best Fourth Songs On History's Greatest Albums

Sorry, Manowar, maybe next year...​As we come up on the July 4th weekend, Rocks Off considered a myriad of blog ideas to commemorate the holiday. Most patriotic songs, album covers, artists? Sorry, Lee Greenwood, Richard Pryor, and Ted Nugent, but it's all been covered. On this weekend of inde ... More >>

The X Factor: Boot Camp, Minus Sgt. Hartman

​The pace of the audition rounds was so fast, I didn't realize the judges put through 162 people in the first two weeks of The X Factor. When the field arrives in Los Angeles for "boot camp," they are informed that they will be shaved down to a field of 100, which will ultimately be reduced by ... More >>

Concrete Blonde

​The pace of the audition rounds was so fast, I didn't realize the judges put through 162 people in the first two weeks of The X Factor. When the field arrives in Los Angeles for "boot camp," they are informed that they will be shaved down to a field of 100, which will ultimately be reduced by ... More >>

Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano On Halloween & The Pressures Of Bloodletting

Photos by Amber Boggs​Concrete Blonde emerged from the crucible of 1980s post-punk L.A., fueled by Jim Mankey's signature guitar riffs and the introspective lyrics and distinctive wail of singer/bassist Johnette Napolitano. Their early history is well known, down to the oft-repeated story of h ... More >>

From The Sky Down: U2's "Bittersweet Song Of Disunity"

​What was the last great U2 album? Now, before you go and get your snotty Henry Rollins quotes lined up, recall that there was a period in the mid- to late 1980s when the Dublin foursome were both the biggest and most critically acclaimed band on the planet before veering off into sonic exper ... More >>