Kenny Chesney

Friday Night: Blake Shelton at Reliant Stadium

Blake Shelton Reliant Stadium March 15, 2013 I want to like Blake Shelton. I really do. But damned if he doesn't make it nearly impossible. Shelton might make a decent country singer if he didn't look so pleased with himself, and if his music pushed the needle on the give-a-damn ometer even into t ... More >>

Saturday Night: Luke Bryan at Reliant Stadium

Luke Bryan Reliant Stadium March 16, 2013 Sorry, Kenny Chesney, but we're through. I've found myself another cowboy, and this one's a little dirtier and a little more ass-shaky. In other words, he's a man after my own heart. Luke Bryan closed out the rodeo portion of RodeoHouston Saturday night, r ... More >>

Last Night: Zac Brown Band at Reliant Stadium

Zac Brown Band Reliant Stadium February 28, 2013 I knew I was going to be a fan of the Zac Brown Band back in May 2012, when just hours after the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch succumbed to cancer, the group came onstage at New Orleans' Jazz Fest to the strains of a Beasties song. It was that simple to ... More >>

Top 10 Educated Guesses for Free Press Summer Fest

Tomorrow, we will know who will be playing the fifth annual Free Press Summer Fest June 1 and 2 in Eleanor Tinsley Park. We know this because Monday, our rivals over at the Houston Chronicle revealed that they will have an exclusive announcement of the FPSF lineup sometime Thursday, thanks to what w ... More >>

Eli Young Band: "We Like to Stay Busy"

Now more than a decade old, the Eli Young Band is the rare Texas country act whose lyrics are not dominated by their home state and its musical heroes. Their music is largely fiddle-free, rather cut from the same cloth as pop-rockers like Tom Petty, Matchbox 20 and the Wallflowers, and if someone in ... More >>

Fair Play

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo wii do whatever it takes to keep its revolving stage from going dark.

Rodeo Touches Every Corner of Pop Universe, Almost Misses Texas

I live too far away from the coasts to care about Coachella all that much, and have done far too much time in both the ACL and SXSW trenches to get too excited about anything that happens in far west Houston anymore. So instead, I have started looking forward to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo's ... More >>

5 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: December 21-23

Dwight Yoakam, Mike Stinson Arena Theatre, December 21 Hard to believe it's been more than a quarter-century since Dwight Yoakam turned Nashville on its ear with the hard-charging Hillbilly Deluxe. You have to hand it to him: He's not one to rush things. It had been seven years since 2005's Blame t ... More >>

Bon Iver, Hipster Doofus

The Cowboy Prepares to Ride Away: George Strait Announces His Touring Retirement

Today country legend George Strait -- King George around these parts -- announced during a live YouTube broadcast from Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame that he is hanging up his touring boots and saddle after decades on the road. Strait is still slated to close out RodeoHouston's 2013 seaso ... More >>

Eric Church: Meet the New Boss

Country's reigning bad boy is now a star thanks to "Springsteen."

10 More Black Stars Who Should Try Country

Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city's favorite musical genre: Mainstream country. BY MIKE SEELY With the nation's major-party political conventions drawing to a close last week with a rousing reelection appeal from the nation's first bl ... More >>

CMA Nominations Don't Forget Texans Miranda Lambert, Eli Young Band

Nothing says country music like Times Square. Or is that the other way around? Regardless, the 2012 nominees for the Country Music Association were announced by stars (and nominees) Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean earlier this morning. It helps that Times Square is the home of Good Morning America's st ... More >>

Jimmy Buffett Chilling At The Woodlands June 2

Jimmy Buffett: Come for the bottomless margaritas, stay for the beach-country classics that make Kenny Chesney sound like Bob Dylan. Or something like that. Live Nation announced Thursday morning that the Parrothead In Chief, leader of one of the most bizarre (but laid-back and benign) cults of per ... More >>

Houston Scores Big-Time In Latest Encyclopedia Of Country Music

With 53 related entries, Houston fared well in the second edition of The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Oxford University Press, $65), released last month, the first revision of the 600-page volume since its initial printing in 1998. Michael McCall, Country Music Hall of Fame archivist and one of t ... More >>

Lamar's Head Basketball Coach Pat Knight Rants Maniacally (w/ VIDEO)

Yep, that apple fell right by the tree.​It's not easy being the son of a legend, and then trying to follow in said legend's footsteps into the exact same vocation of choice. Pat Knight knows this. His father, Bobby Knight, garnered 902 career wins as a head coach. He also had dozens of epic ... More >>

We Tell You Who Will Win Grammys So You Don't Have To Watch Them

SPOILER ALERT​The best thing about the annual Grammy nominations and awards shows is the clamor of anger that rises up when the mere mention of the event even comes up. Immediately people begin calling it a travesty, trotting out all the people who have been snubbed -- Jethro Tull beats Metall ... More >>

Forlorn Hope: "Blink" & You Won't Miss Modern-Rock T-Storm

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. Forlorn Hope on Facebook​ ... More >>

2 Become 1: Musical Match-Ups We'd Like To See

​Kanye "Hitler" West and Jay-Z released their (overused music writer word alert) epic Watch the Throne album this week, to mostly great reviews. This fall the first fruits from the recently announced Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration should be on the store shelves, which still sorta weirds us o ... More >>

Extreme Heat Unlikely To Affect Future Concert Seasons

Marc BrubakerArcade Fire in the glorious days of May, when temperatures only reached the low 90s.​Is the heat getting to you yet? Rocks Off is not going to say this week or two of consecutive 100-plus-degree days is affecting our judgment, but earlier today we approved one of our writers' pitc ... More >>

Final Four Visitors: Ten Alternative Places to Visit in Houston

You can skip the Beer Can House​So, you've made it to town for the Final Four and you are shocked to find out there are no tumbleweeds, we all aren't walking around in 10-gallon hats and the area surrounding downtown and the medical center is not filled with strip malls and urban decay. Welcom ... More >>

Plus-Size Songs For Those Post-Holiday Pounds

​One of the reasons Lonesome Onry and Mean's local waterhole is our local waterhole is its excellent, eclectic, even exotic jukebox. There's truly something for everyone. For the novices and/or narrow-minded, there are easy defaults like Willie Nelson & Family's Live, the Stones' Exile on Mai ... More >>

In Case You Missed It...

Marco TorresIt's a bird... it's a plane... it's... Usher!​Rocks Off knows you have had a busy week. So have we. But, we figured, what with Thanksgiving and Black Friday and traveling to and from your various other holiday ports of call, you may not have had as much time in front a computer as ... More >>

Blanco's Honky-Tonk Hot Streak Finally Runs Out

Stephanie Meza​Lonesome Onry and Mean recently opined that one of the reasons honky-tonk bands are back in vogue in Houston is that some of the better musicians in town have gravitated to honky-tonk bands in the last couple of years. It had been a long stretch since we had seen a country band ... More >>

Hands Up Post: Honky-Tonk Houston's Done Got Out Of Hand

​A recent thread on the Hands Up Houston message board found poster "honky honk" complaining (and mangling the English language): Dear Houston. Why are you excepting [sic] this right wing, overtly white genre of music known as honky tonk or country? Why do we have to travel that far back ... More >>

Wrong Number

Houston's Miss Leslie dials up more honky-tonk homilies on her new CD.

Aftermath: Darius Rucker's Forever Road To Purple Rain, Via David Allan Coe And Hank Jr. At RodeoHouston

Photos courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™​Took us long enough, but Aftermath finally understands the rodeo. After one performer who left us cold, and another who turned Reliant Stadium into the world's biggest gospel/R&B revival, Darius Rucker's set Tuesday was the definition of " ... More >>

Oh, Great: Nashville Songwriters Name Redneck Doofus Toby Keith Artist of the Decade

We beg to differ, jerkwad...​Sadly, it's official: Toby Keith, that big redneck doofus who is always threatening to put his boots up somebody's ass or feuding with the Dixie Chicks, has been declared by Nashville Songwriters Association International the top songwriter/artist OF THE DECADE. Man, ... More >>

Hello, Houston!

Noise breaks down the months of live music ahead

Aftermath: Nickelback at Toyota Center

Photos by Craig HlavatyAftermath is of the mind that the best way to tackle something that is reviled or feared is to confront it head on. Like global terrorism, street gangs, or gingivitis, you must take it on at its source, even if doing so makes you feel insecure, vulnerable or wholly fooli ... More >>

Fish Out of (Frozen) Water in New in Town

Renee Zellweger as the anti-Norma Rae

The Top 10 Reissues of 2008

[Note: This is the first in a series of articles that constitute Village Voice Media's year-end music package. The others - pop, indie-rock, dance mixes, Latin, country, alt-country/Americana, metal, rap/hip-hop and special graphics breaking down the year in charts and 2008's worst lyrics - will be ... More >>

Texans Score 30 Grammy Nominations

Allison Krauss, Robert Plant and T-Bone Burnett (far right) Texas artists landed 30 nominations in 20 categories when the contenders for the 51st annual Grammy Awards were announced today, including all five nominees for Best Tejano Album and four of the five Best Norteno Album contenders. All of ... More >>

Lonesome, Onry and Mean: Pat Green's Instant Karma

StubHub: Houston is America's 17th "Most Rockin' City"

Sizing up the summer's classic-rock scorecard

Season in the Sun

Willie Nelson: A Moment of Forever

Marilyn Manson's celebrity dating club

Mechanical Animals

Making Scents of the Stars

A buyer's guide to celebrity fragrances

Letters to the Editor

Pandora's Boss

Meet the guy behind the Web site that could be the MySpace.com of music

Never Go to a Party in Friendswood

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

Base Raps

Paul Wall and Chamillionaire each release Astros tributes, while rock radio churns out the cheesy montages

Playbill

Crapped Out

After his latest CD, few of Pat Green's fans are feeling like Lucky Ones

Americana Pie

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

Playbill

Bash-ing the Bigwigs

Come Super Bowl week, you can still party downtown, even if you're not very important

F.Co

The King of Texas (F.Co Music Management)

Pure Spunk

Del Rio-bred Radney Foster is a cowpunk both on stage and off