Keith Urban

The Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Josh Turner, K-Rino, Romeo Santos, etc.

Josh Turner Nutty Jerry's (Winnie), April 5 It's hard to keep up with every new country crooner that comes over the pop-twang airwaves, but thankfully Josh Turner's deeper-than-the-holler voice manages to stand out from the Keith Urban clones, sounding way more trad-country than those other guys at ... More >>

Red, White, and Rehab: Country Music's 10 Douchiest Moments

It might be hard to believe, but the same musicians responsible for singing lyrics about big green tractors and diggin' up bones are also responsible for a lot of my Internet entertainment. You see, when famous people do douchey things, it makes me giggle. When those acts are committed by people t ... More >>

The 5 Best Onstage Band Pranks

You might think that it's a little bit early for April Fool's, but pranks go on between musicians and bands year-round. Given that musicians are an immature, jocular sort, tied inherently to an adolescent dream of being a rock star, it should be no surprise that they get into all kinds of crazy insi ... More >>

5 Easy Ways to Spruce Up American Idol

You may not have noticed, but American Idol started a new season last week. If you're like most people, you apparently didn't watch because the ratings are way down. This could be for any number of reasons. Idol has been on the air for what feels like forever, with pretty much the same formula all ... More >>

American Idol Returns, Selling More Drama Than Music

If you can believe it, American Idol kicks off its twelfth season tonight on Fox. But not just on Fox. Here is how One India Entertainment, "India's No. 1 Language Portal," announced the news at 18:03 IST (India Standard Time) today: MUMBAI: After the successful run of The X Factor USA while cashin ... More >>

Turning 10, American Idol Struggles to Make New Stars -- But Mostly Misses

It's hard to imagine it now, just a shade less than a decade later, but at one time American Idol was able to crank out star after star in a succession of seasons. Most people couldn't name at least one of the last five winners of Fox's cash-cow pop show, even as ratings have remained healthy (if no ... More >>

Top 5 People Who Should Be Judging American Idol

Over the weekend American Idol, struggling to remain relevant in the face of the televised singing-competition series it spawned like The Voice and X Factor, announced its final judges' panel for the upcoming 12th season that begins in January. According to Entertainment Weekly, joining the previous ... More >>

Which Fake Randy Travis Should You Follow?

The passion of Randy Travis has been one of the saddest and most compelling musical dramas of the past year. One of Nashville's most beloved and seemingly mild-mannered singers (now a North Texan) has suddenly gone full-on Johnny Paycheck, brawling in church parking lots, popping out to buy smokes w ... More >>

Guess the Country Star by Only His Cowboy Hat

You'll ride a black tornado cross't the western skies Rope an ole blue norther, milk it till it's dry Bull dawg the Mississippi, pin it's ears down flat Long before you take this cowboy's hat. -- Chris Ledoux, "This Cowboy's Hat" A popular saying in Texas goes that a man who talks a good game but ... More >>

Welcome To My World: 10 Musicians Who Deserve Their Own Reality Show

Ever since The Real World hit the MTV airwaves in the early '90s, reality television has been all the rage. However, since The Osbournes debuted in 2002, some of that reality programming has catered to music fans. Even such music artists as country artist Tanya Tucker, rapper/minister Reverend Run ... More >>

Kenny Chesney & Tim McGraw Playing Reliant Stadium August 4

Rocks Off is used to seeing these kinds of announcements only around the Rodeo or at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. But two of country music's top alpha males, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, will bring their "Brothers of the Sun" tour to Reliant Stadium Saturday, August 4, promoter AEG announced today ... More >>

Golden Throats: Rock Star Health Care in 2012

Last June, current radio darling Adele was forced to cancel a large portion of her North American tour, disappointing scores of twenty-something year old easy-listeners in the process. The culprit? Laryngitis -- the age-old bugaboo of vocalists and recording artists. The diagnosis seemed relative ... More >>

Peter Cetera & Richard Marx

Why the Eff Are Ringtones So Effing Impossible To Get?

So elusive​It's safe to say I'm not the most tech-savvy guy around. A new iPhone coming out means as little to me as a new Keith Urban album. It's not a "get off my lawn" thing, it's just that tech stuff, to me, is too close to math. And I hate math. And if it's not too math-y, it's filled wi ... More >>

Music from Big Pink

The road goes on forever for Texas Music upstarts Rosehill.

25 Unfortunate '90s 1.5-Hit Wonders

The bearded Mark Oliver Everett and his fabulous eels...​Rocks Off loves the '90s more than we probably should, especially all the dumb little things about the pop music that clogged the radio and MTV. We could probably write a book about the songs that helped shape our formative musical knowl ... More >>

Intergalactic: A Playlist For The Space Shuttle's Last Flight Home

NASA/Hair BallsNo more cool pictures like this for a long time :(​If you're an astronaut, you recently might have awoken you from a sound night's rest on the space shuttle to the sounds of U2, Beyonce, Electric Light Orchestra, Aaron Copeland, or even some old Coldplay. On those more unlucky d ... More >>

Atlantis Wake-Up Music So Far: Ranking The Good, The Bad & The Ugly On The Last Shuttle Trip

What's with all the damn Coldplay?​NASA, always on the lookout for good publicity, has made a cottage industry out of the wake-up music it uses to rouse crews orbiting the earth. They recruit artists to record messages that are played after the song, because the first thing you want to hear ... More >>

Last Night: Keith Urban At RodeoHouston

Photos by Groovehouse​Keith Urban Reliant Stadium March 8, 2011 Aftermath was all set at 8 p.m. to go to the Rodeo and witness Australian country star Keith Urban perform miracles like the ones we'd been hearing about on the Internet for the past few days. We listened to some country love son ... More >>

KISS, Kid Rock, Janet Jackson Head 2011 Rodeo Lineup

​KISS, Janet Jackson and Kid Rock head the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo's 2011 concert schedule, which the rodeo announced earlier Monday morning. Among the other 13 entertainers rounding out this year's lineup are recent rodeo stalwarts Alan Jackson, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw and Lady Antebe ... More >>

Rocks Off's Rodeo Concert Guide: Larry Harry Barry Terry Gary Allan

Date: March 17 Name: Gary Allan AKA: "The Media Assassin"...sorry, that's Harry Allen Genre: Latter Day country Best Known Song(s): "Man to Man," "Nothing On But the Radio," "If You Don't Know Me By Now" Key Demographic: Dallas Cowboys fans (sorry, that's

Aftermath: Keith Urban, Peculiar Superstar And Musician's Musician

Photos by Dave Rosales​ Keith Urban is a peculiar superstar. Take away the rugged good looks, and you'd still be left with a talented guitarist who, Tuesday night, gave every impression he'd be just as content jamming in the studio as headlining the rodeo before almost 60,000 adoring, possibly hyp ... More >>

Rocks Off's Rodeo Concert Guide: Keith "That's Not A Knife" Urban

Date: March 16 Name: Keith Urban AKA: "The Betty Ford Center Presents..." Genre: Aussie country Best Known Song(s): "Somebody Like You," "You'll Think of Me," "No Really, I Loved Days of Thunder" Key Demographic: Women looking for concrete proof that they can change their man, people who mistakenl ... More >>

Idol Beat: Big Mike the Guy To Beat?

Last night's American Idol, in which the top eight guys performed, felt a lot like the girls' episode from Tuesday in the way it clearly defined who should stay and who should go, with one singer standing above the rest as the one to beat. Just as Crystal Bowersox is the best and most interesting ... More >>

American Idol: Big Mike the Guy To Beat?

Last night's American Idol, in which the top eight guys performed, felt a lot like the girls' episode from Tuesday in the way it clearly defined who should stay and who should go, with one singer standing above the rest as the one to beat. Just as Crystal Bowersox is the best and most interesting ... More >>

Idol Beat: Houston, We Have a Contestant

Houston's Paige Miles made it to the top 24.​Last night's American Idol was rote even by Idol standards, and it's because the hour really should have been folded into Tuesday's episode. Trimming the 46 contestants 24 would have made a solid two-hour ep, but stretched to three it wound up feeli ... More >>

Most Downloaded "Hope For Haiti" Texan? Although She Killed, Not Beyonce

Between fighting crime, reducing global warming, mending our socks and, you know, everything else Rocks Off does when we're away from the office, we caught a good bit of Friday evening's "Hope for Haiti" telethon. We didn't have much choice, because the George Clooney-organized, celebrity-packed fu ... More >>

RodeoHouston 2010 Entertainer Lineup Includes Mary J. Blige, Black Eyed Peas, Justin Bieber and Some Country Folks You Can Probably Guess

​Monday morning, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo announced the remainder of its Reliant Stadium entertainment calendar for this year's rodeo, which begins March 2. Debuting on Reliant's revolving stage this year are Jason Aldean (March 6) and Texans the Eli Young Band (March 19). Returning fr ... More >>

Hell on Earth

Long Island hardcore quartet This Is Hell thrashes till the sun goes down.

Idol Beat: The One

Mea culpa: Yi. I typed this entire post - then accidentally closed the Mozilla Firefox window and lost everything. Let this be a lesson to every blogger out there: compose in Word. For real.Photos by Ray Mickshaw/ FoxAmerican Idol winner Kris Allen practices his "Who, me?" showbiz face. Let's not be ... More >>

Creep Show

O Pioneers!!! turns growing up into unrelenting punk rock.

Aftermath: Fleetwood Mac at Toyota Center

Photos by Jay Lee Every night the band goes onstage, Fleetwood Mac faces a concert onus only a handful of other groups need worry about: Are its songs too iconic? Is the rush of watching Stevie Nicks twirl out "Landslide" or "Rhiannon" live any match for the lifetime (or decades, anyway) of memories ... More >>

Zac Brown Band

Zac Brown Band

Split Lip Rayfield

Don't Ever Count Britney Out — Just Like These Others.

Back in Black

Aftermath: Darius Rucker at RodeoHouston

Photos by Craig HlavatyAftermath always wondered what it was like to not be known to the public by your birth name, but by the name of your band. In the beginning, some club owners thought that David Lee Roth's name was Van Halen. I'm sure somewhere along the line Ian Anderson was called Jethr ... More >>

Could Alternative Country Work at the Rodeo?

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. in Song

In the Name of Love

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Jon Byrd Tunes Up Country

A Review of Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music by Dana Jennings

Urban Discontent

If It's Not Scottish, It's Crap!

Wack puts this whole Franz Ferdinand thing into context

Our top DVD picks for the week of September 27

David Allan Coe

Friday, September 2, at Texas Tumbleweeds, 13101 Kuykendahl, 281-872-7829.

Last Night at the Alamo

A Grammy party at a local theater turns into quiz night down at the local pub

She's Gone (Away from) Country

But Tift Merritt's latest release, Tambourine, is up for Best Country Album

Americana Pie

Grab a slice of 2004's best roots music while it's still hot

Americana Pie

Grab a slice of 2004's best roots music while it's still hot

Simon Bruce

Friday, February 28