Kings of Leon

10 Other Musicians Who Should Have Said "Blow Me"

The line between rock star and cranky toddler can be a fine one; deny them their candy and you've got tears welling up and naughty words being shrieked at ear-bursting decibels. Every once in a blue moon, though, a rational thought will pipe up from said rock star, and it deserves a little bit of no ... More >>

Slip Slidin' Away: My Life as a Rock Journalist With the Houston Press

I had a hernia operation in the early summer of 2006, and had nothing to do all day but hobble around with cool cane a borrowed from Grandpa Hlavaty and play on the Internets for two months or so. I had developed the injury while working at Domino's, but it was cool because their insurance helped ... More >>

Mississippi-Bred the Weeks Hope That You Know Bo

When the Beatles were signing acts to their Apple Records label, it proved to be both advantageous and not so much for Badfinger. For while that band got great exposure, they were also tagged as the "Baby Beatles" for their somewhat similar looks and musical styles. It's a situation that members of ... More >>

Sad You Aren't at SXSW? Here's What You Could Be Missing...

Awwwww, I know it is a shame you aren't here with us at SXSW in Austin. I can only imagine the aching and longing in your heart for walking aimlessly and standing in long lines for no reason, and sweating through your cardigan to see a band you heard on one of the Twilight soundtracks. You don't w ... More >>

The Departed

Bartender Chat: John Ng of T.K. Bitterman's

Last weekend marked the official start of baseball season, and if you're trying to avoid the crowds, there's no better place to catch a game than the cozy Montrose sports dive T.K. Bitterman's. Completely lacking in pretension and douchebaggery, it's got that comfortable, old-school vibe. It's obvio ... More >>

Top 10 Most Outrageous Onstage Incidents, Antics & Meltdowns

Everyone has their meltdown moments, no doubt about it. We make mistakes and, most of the time, we try to correct them. We have them because we are all human. Unfortunately, though, when you are in the spotlight, your hurts, tantrums, mistakes and meltdowns are all magnified for all the world to se ... More >>

Black Keys Driving Their El Camino To Houston On April 24

Photos By Craig HlavatyThe Black Keys ​The Black Keys, who are currently riding a wave of adulation in the wake of this month's brand new release El Camino, are set to hit Houston on April 24. This Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion date will be the group's second at the venue, the first being an ... More >>

Chicken Fried

The Zac Brown Band takes a laid-back, well-fed path to country stardom.

Bar Light, Bar Bright: Beer Signs & Songs That Light Them Up

Photos by Jason WolterChris Knight at the Firehouse Saloon, August 3​Rocks Off has a bad habit of what some people refer to as "honky-tonkin'." Single, childless and a lifelong Lone Star drinker, we have no reservations about staying out till all hours, even if sometimes it does make us feel l ... 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 >>

What "Exhaustion" & Other Cancellation Excuses REALLY Mean

zazzle.com​Shit happens. It's a fact of life. We're willing to bet that every single person reading this blog has at one time taken a sick day or left work unexpectedly due to an emergency of some kind. And while we may see them as rock gods, musicians are people too, susceptible to the same h ... More >>

Rock & Roll's Top 10 Brawlin' Brothers

Note: Not real brothers. We just liked the picture.​Brothers share a link that is unique and special. Same DNA, same familial backgrounds, quirks, talents, and sometimes musical taste. They can also argue, get physical, try to overpower one another, and hold grudges over years that are hard to ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

More Local Music News Than Fighting Navy SEALs

It's not every week that Arcade Fire returns to the suburbs whose ennui inspired a Grammy-winning album, but it is every week that we bring a brimming local music roundup for all of our Rocks Off readers. Without further ado, we present the latest installment of Magnolia City Mixtape. ​Hot of ... More >>

Kings Of Leon Return To Houston - Again - July 30

Groovehouse​The Followill boys from Tennessee, Kings Of Leon are coming back to Houston and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on July 30, with openers Band of Horses. The date marks the first Band of Horses stop in Houston in what looks to be forever. As for the Kings, this will be their t ... More >>

Rockin' In Plain Sight: Our Favorite Hidden Album Tracks

​In the days when compact discs and tapes ruled the world, hidden tracks on albums were like secret gifts from your favorite bands. Off the liner notes, not in the original track listings, and totally unassuming, sometimes tucked away after minutes and minutes of silence on a disc. With the ... More >>

More Local Music News Than Final Four Traffic Snarls

Buxton mixing their new album in L.A.​The Final Four descends upon Houston this weekend. Oh, if there were only four feeds we had to follow to bring all this lovely Houston music news to everyone. Instead, MCM crawls through more feeds than there are colleges in the NCAA, gathering up every bi ... More >>

SXSW Last Night: The Strokes At Auditorium Shores

Craig Hlavaty​Of all the free shows going on around Austin this week, the biggest ones can be found over at Auditorium Shores. They may not have free finger foods and booze galore, but they do have some pretty stellar acts most of the time. Case in point, last night's sundown set from The Stro ... More >>

Rocks Off's Favorite Albums Of 2010

​Editor's Picks: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Mojo: Big surprise, I know. But not only did "I Should Have Known It" vault into my Top 5 Heartbreakers songs the first time I heard it - and make me a bigger Led Zeppelin fan in the process - but others like "Candy" and "Good Enough" also held ... More >>

Things We Never, Ever Want To Hear Again

​Editor's Pick: Vampire Weekend's "Holiday." Everything I hate about indie rock (cloying, fey, highly irritating) and car commercials (they're car commercials) in about 15 seconds.. Repeated seven or eight times a fucking hour. Marc Brubaker: "Check us out on Twitter!" or anything else Twitt ... More >>

10 Music Stories We Wish We'd Ignored This Year

​We in the alternative media - not necessarily the Houston Press and/or Rocks Off, not all the time - enjoy calling out our mainstream brethren. Whether it's ten books that didn't make The New York Times' "Best of 2010" list, or "10 Stories Our Print Version Accidentally Overlooked," us "under ... More >>

Rolling Stone's 25 Worst Cover Misfires

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more. The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film H ... More >>

Rocks Off's 10 Favorite Family Bands

​Tonight Kings of Leon plays their fourth Houston date in three years at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. The band of three Followill brothers and one cousin can't stay away from us, or touring, or recording. This date precedes the upcoming release of the band's new album, Come Around Sund ... More >>

Kings of Leon, The Black Keys

Bare Bones

Lo-fi crushers Woven Bones would remake Pink Floyd's The Wall if they could.

Blogging From Bonnaroo: Damien Marley and Nas, Tori Amos, Steve Martin

Photo by Mark C. Austin/See a slideshow​Houston artist Tyagaraja recently won the Ford Fiesta Team Houston Battle of The Bands, the grand prize of which was a trip to perform at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee. Meghan Hendley, keyboardist/vocalist for Tyagaraja, reports back to us wit ... More >>

5 Songs That Are No Day At The Beach

This past weekend, Craig's Hlist spent a good solid two days at the beach playing in the surf down off Mustang Island just south of Corpus Christi. It was one of those mental-health weekends that if we hadn't have taken, we would have ended up throwing beer bottles against the wall at an old folks' ... More >>

Fights! Musicians Mixing It Up

Earlier this month, Craig's Hlist witnessed no fewer than four fights during Limp Bizkit's Buzzfest set while covering the day-long festival of titties and beer. Funnily enough, those are the two (three?) things on Earth that are most likely to start fights. You drink too much of one and ... More >>

The Eastern Sea: TV-Savvy, Wife-Approved

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. ​Summerfest, the mega-music fe ... More >>

Because We Haven't Written About 10th Grade Cutie In What? Two Weeks?

Craig Hlavaty​ In news that is sure to send shockwaves of joy, relief and fear through most Montrose-area bars, Rocks Off's favorite minors 10th Grade Cutie are turning legal drinking age this winter. Last night we stopped by Super Happy Fun Land to give special salutations to the birthday boy, 10 ... More >>

Aftermath: Rocks Off's Buddy's Bachelor Party at House of Blues, Leon's, the Darkhorse and, Suprisingly, Not Jail

Craig Hlavaty​ Like we wrote last Friday, Rocks Off attended a bachelor party this past weekend for our friend Brett, who gets hitched this coming Saturday. (It took us a few days for our head to clear.) It was a star-studded event that included a faux Kings of Leon sighting, Luis Scola, a Led Zep ... More >>

ACL 2009: Best Tweets Of The Weekend

Armed with our sort-of handy cellphone we were able to Tweet from ground level at the festival, with sometimes hilarious and vulgar results. Mostly the latter, because we are foul people. Over time, our Twitter updates devolved into angry rants, as you will see below.@hprocksoff sez:Oh god they real ... More >>

ACL Day Two: Deadheads Rejoice!

Photos by Mark C. Austin​An unexpected guest showed up yesterday afternoon at the Austin Ventures Stage with Austin-by-way-of-Louisiana slide guitar hotshot Papa Mali. The Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzman was backing up the dreadlocked Mali on drums.

ACL 2009 Day One: Video Killed the Radio Star

Although audio-visual equipment isn't technically allowed inside the festival, that doesn't prevent kids armed with iPhones and Flip cams from capturing their favorite shows from the crowd. Below are some of our favorite crowd-captured videos from ACL so far. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Aftermath: Collective Soul and Black Stone Cherry at House of Blues

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ Something strange happened during the '90s. Southern Rock as we once knew it all but disappeared. Charmed by grunge, drowned in amplification, bands began shedding the elements of blues and country that threaded that noble line from Lynyrd Skynyrd through the Georgia Satel ... More >>

Aftermath: We Were Wolves and Satin Hooks, Born to Be Wild at the Mink

Photos by Chris Gray​ It's been false-starting for a couple of years, but that grunge revival may be right around the corner - if it ever went anywhere in the first place. Beaumont's We Were Wolves plugged into the Mudhoney machine at the Mink Tuesday night, crafting sludgy sheets of guitar noise ... More >>

Single-Album Sets We'd Like to See, Part 1: Bob Dylan, George Strait, The Pogues and More

Initiated by indie-rockers like Sonic Youth, Slint and Built to Spill at mid-2000s festivals - UK/U.S. hopover All Tomorrow's Parties and its various tie-ins being the most prominent - playing a beloved LP front to back in concert is now the hottest thing going on the classic-rock circuit. Within th ... More >>

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 >>

Austin City Limits Goes Grunge; Tickets On Sale Today

Just in time for tickets to go on sale - as in now - leaks have conveniently begun to spring in C3 Entertainment's carefully under wraps lineup for this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival, scheduled for October 2-4 in Zilker Park. (Don't worry, Longhorn fans: Unlike last year, that's UT's ... More >>

Oh, Christ: Original Limp Bizkit Lineup to Reunite

Because things aren't already bad enough out there right now, the original lineup of crotch-rocking mooks Limp Bizkit annouced today they are reuniting. Here, according to a joint statement by the band's Fred Durst and Wes Borland, is their reasoning: "We decided we were more disgusted and b ... More >>

Local Rotation: Gold Sounds' Gold Sounds EP

The Gold Sounds' self-titled, debut EP is not an exercise in showoffery. There's no mind-bending guitar solos, no time signatures questioning standard musical notation and no quirky elements that smack of an effort to deny obvious influences. It's just four solid hard-rock tunes. True, it's easi ... More >>

Good Luck Academy

Music's Ickiest of the Icky, Circa 2008

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

XM Nation: Catching Up and Moving On

SXSW Ephemera: Random Notes from the Field

Your Weekend, Planned

A Faint Stench

Playbill

The South's Done It Again

Southern rock comes in for another revival