Led Zeppelin

The 10 Greatest Rock Bassists in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Geddy Lee Edition

I could sit here and write paragraphs about my appreciation of Geddy Lee. He was the first true influence I had as a bass player when I was in high school. For years after, I admired not just his talent as a musician, but his ability to improve and grow. He is also underrated for how great a "rock" ... More >>

Songs I Didn't Want to Hear at a Casino While Losing Money

Recently, I spent more than a little time at the Harrah's casino smack in the middle of downtown New Orleans, which was unfortunately the only place besides my hotel room floor where I could get some sort level of sanity away from football. If you have ever been to a casino, you know it is built l ... More >>

The Rocks Off 100: Dwight Taylor Lee, the Wandering Bufalero

Welcome to the Rocks Off 100, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community -- a lot more than just musicians, but of course they're in there too. Who Are You? "I'm Dwight Taylor Lee, singer/songwriter/producer," Lee introduces himse ... More >>

7 Songs About Hobbits NOT By Leonard Nimoy

I'm keen to catch The Hobbit soon. If nothing else, the Seventh Doctor apparently goes full-on wizard battle against the Witch-King in it, and I would have paid just to see that scene alone. The rest of it looks cool too, though. In the meantime, I have to wait for an overnight babysitter to free u ... More >>

10 Iconic Final Concerts Plus The End Of Beatlemania

The Beatles' concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park 46 years ago today was the end of an era for the band. Except for a famously unannounced appearance on top the Apple building two and a half years later, it would be the final live performance that the Fab Four would ever play together. It w ... More >>

Robert Plant: Former Honeydrippers Front Man, Current Texan Is 64 Today

Today is Robert Plant's 64th birthday, and hopefully the adopted Texan -- he lives near Austin with maybe-sorta-"wife" Patty Griffin -- is spending it the way a good Texan should, covered in barbecue sauce, listening to Lightnin' Hopkins on his turntable and wearing nothing but a pair of cowboy boot ... More >>

Explaining Classic Rock Bands to Kids

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a piece by Paul Greenberg where the author explained how important the Beatles were to music and pop culture to his five-year old son. The child didn't know that the band had albums, but only knew the Fab Four from iTunes playlists. "When the Beatles record ... More >>

The Great Taj Mahal, Still Whistlin' the Blues

It's been a long time so it's hard to remember exactly, but some time in the winter of 1970-71, Taj Mahal played the Houston Music Hall. Between 1968 and 1971, he had put out five albums and become a staple of the hippie music scene. Yet with his soulful reinterpretations, permutations and homages ... More >>

10 Heavy Metal Double Albums That Make Us Want to Buy a Turntable

This week, one of our most highly anticipated albums of the summer was released: Baroness' Yellow & Green. We were already looking forward to hearing whatever came next from the Georgia rockers after the success of their epic Blue Record in 2009, but we got especially excited when we found out that ... More >>

Explosions In the Sky: No Vocals Necessary

Known for elaborate guitar work, referred to as "cathartic mini-symphonies," Explosions In the Sky put on emotional shows. Remaining completely devoid of vocals, three guitars and one drummer (a bass guitar is thrown in at times) Explosions combine to create a sound that seems to carry the crowd on ... More >>

The Cave Singers

When Car Commercials And Rock And Roll Collide

This weekend is the big Houston Art Car Parade, where children and adults of all ages can gander at their fellow Houstonians' labors of car love. Each car is a marvel to the ingenuity and the insanity of this race known as the modern Texan. The Art Car festivities have cars on our brains. Rock a ... More >>

Six-String Pawn Stars: Top 10 Famous Stolen Guitars

Tom Petty got a real kick in the balls late last week when he discovered that his vintage blond 1967 12-string Rickenbacker and his Gibson SGTV Junior had been stolen from a California soundstage where the Heartbreakers had been rehearsing for an upcoming tour. Three other vintage guitars owned by b ... More >>

Missed Opportunities: 10 Musicians Who Turned Down Big Hits

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought to yourself, "Why did I do that?" or "Why did I turn that down?" Those kinds of moments happen to all of us. It's part of life, unfortunately. This happens all the time in the movie world, but you never seem to hear about it in the music worl ... More >>

Top 10 Greatest And Most Essential Music Lists Of All Time

​Any fan of music journalism, well hell any sort of journalism in the past five years has seen a massive amount of top 10, 20, or 31 lists all over the Internets. They help cull information into one meaty morsel for you to swallow without, you know, have to type shit. Pretty cool, huh? As a ... More >>

The Best LP Side Ones Ever

Spurred on by the realization that both David Bowie's commercial breakthrough Let's Dance and Queen's News of the World had solid, sturdy side ones on their vinyl releases, I then began the hunt for other great vinyl slabs with amazing side ones. Of course, the idea is that this could only include ... More >>

Show Me Your GIFs: Great Classic Rock 'N Roll GIFs Galore

It seems to me that musical history is made up of fragments of indelible images, good and bad, that inform each person's experience. Then there are the swatches of tunes that grab you by the heart strings or the throat, making you a fan for life. But it's those moving pictures that you first remembe ... More >>

Misty Mountain Blog: Led Zeppelin IV Turns Forty

​Today one of the greatest rock albums of all-time, Led Zeppelin IV, turns 40 years old, and it's still a vital, nasty, stanky, and heavy LP. Released on November 8, 1971, it cemented the Zeppelin legacy with cuts like, well, the whole damned thing. It's all good, and no doubt you can hear at ... More >>

Friday Night: Def Leppard & Heart At The Woodlands

Photos by Groovehouse​Def Leppard, Heart Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 23, 2011 Like so many of their 80s hard rock brethren, Def Leppard has always straddled the line between serious musical territory and the self-parody that threatens all bands associated with that era. On one ... More >>

Allrecords Relocates To Greenway Plaza Area

​It's not a chain like Soundwaves, it doesn't host several in-stores a week like Cactus Music, it doesn't share a side street with a block of bars and music venues like Sig's Lagoon, and it's not a destination for vinyl and underground-music junkies like Black Dog, Sound Exchange and Vinal Edg ... More >>

"Satisfaction": The Mother Of All Rock & Roll Riffs?

​Today is the 46th anniversary of Keith Richards rolling over in his sleep in a Florida hotel, humming the main riff of "Satisfaction" into a bedside tape recorder and going back to slumber, or nodding off. The Rolling Stones would record the song months later and make it their calling card, t ... More >>

The Media Loves Your Album. Who Are You?

​If Rolling Stone loves your album, it means... • You are a well-established musician with legions of loyal fans who may be interested in perhaps taking out some full-page advertisements in, oh, say, some kind of mainstream rock publication. • Your album was released 30 years ago and our ... More >>

Out Today: Glee Warbles, Gorillaz Fall, Kinks Ride Again

​It's been a week since the Foo Fighters' album, Wasting Light, hit the stores, and Rocks Off has probably averaged at least one or two spins of the solid disc per day. Right now, we are actually on track four. Will anything top Light this week? That remains to be seen. Next week will bring ... More >>

Stryper

Ten Country Covers That Top The Pop Originals

​Our copy must still be in the mail, but Rocks Off figures we have heard enough songs from Jamey Johnson's new album The Guitar Song on Sirius/XM's Outlaw Country to know that we like it a whole lot. But none that we've heard so far are our favorite new Johnson song. It's close. No flies on G ... More >>

KISS Off

The makeup-clad rockers may be hilarious, but they're hardly metal.

Westheimer Block Party Listology: The Live Lights Choose 10 Albums to Take Into Space

All this week, Rocks Off is previewing Saturday and Sunday's Westheimer Block Party by asking WBP performers to fill out a list from Lisa Nola's Music Listography book we're so fond of. It's not too late for your band to be up here, either; just email chris.gray@houstonpress.com by noon Thursday if ... More >>

Dance Infusion

Go uptown with Beth Gulledge-Brown and company

How Classic Is Classic Rock?

Lonesome Onry and Mean: "Killing the Blues" with Plant and Krauss

Led Zeppelin shouter Robert Plant and country/pop vocalist Alison Krauss seem like a highly unlikely duo. When I heard they'd made an album together called Raising Sand, the pairing seemed so odd I didn't really even want to hear it. I thought their two voices would clash like Lucinda Williams and R ... More >>

Mail Call: Heartless Bastards, Riverboat Gamblers, Steve Forbert, Thursday and More

Pick of the Litter Cambria HarkeyHeartless Bastards (Austin/Cincinnati), The Mountain (Fat Possum) PR Says: "The record delivers the swamped-up rock howl that fans have always loved - but also brings in this amazing expansion into their sound with pedal steel, mandolin, banjo and st ... More >>

Lost Tuneage: Cactus

Introducing a new column in which Rocks Off delves into the music of short-lived or overlooked performers of the classic-rock era... Who Dat? Billed as "America's answer to Led Zeppelin," this quartet was formed in 1969 by Vanilla Fudge rhythm section Tim Bogert (bass) and Carmine Ap ... More >>

Aftermath: Butthole Surfers at Meridian

ACL Notebook Dump, Pt. 2: Measuring Time Mars Volta-Style, Led Zeppelin Rumors and More

XM Nation: Catching Up and Moving On

Paris Falls

This group makes killer ‘60s/’70s rock

Tonight: Psilli Psybin at the Big Top

Iron Maiden

Lelia Rodgers's Matagorda Island Discs

Get Lit: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Joel McIver

Drenched in Blog: The Song Remains Lame

Two Nights Ago: Linus Pauling Quartet, the Jonx, Jenny Westbury at Proletariat

Paul Rodgers: All Right Now

Tribute Bands Struggle for Respect

Talking to local fakers Dressed to KISS, Black Dog, Lights Out, Bad Motor Scooter, Toology and Brian's Johnson

Secret Machines

Ten Silver Drops

Hidden Treasures

Introducing some of the best discs you've never heard

The Class of '03

Grab your gift certificates and trade in your white elephants -- here's what you really wanted for Christmas

People Try to Put Us Down...

Almost Famous talks about its g-g-generation -- of misguided rock and roll fans

Rotation

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