Lollapalooza

Lights, Camera, Headaches

The quickest way to ruin a music festival? Get actors to show up.

UPDATED: Is ACL Festival Ignoring Houston? Does It Even Matter?

UPDATED (Thursday, 2:50 p.m.) to reflect the Houston-area roots of a few ACL performers this year, as pointed out by reader comments. We stand by our original point, though. As most of our readers no doubt know by now, the Austin City Limits Music Festival announced its 2013 lineup at the stroke of ... More >>

Transcribing Is a Bitch: The Collected Craig Hlavaty Interviews

My last official day at the Houston Press is tomorrow, so these past two weeks I have been sifting through my body of work here at Rocks Off, almost seven years of words. I've been gleefully overdosing on nostalgia here at my desk, and I have (almost) no regrets. I'll have some more words on my depa ... More >>

ACL 2013 Predictions & Rumors: Is This Jimmy Buffett's Year?

2013 marks the first year that the Austin City Limits Music Festival -- Texas' other large outdoor music festival, never to be confused with Houston's own Free Press Summer Fest -- expands to two consecutive weekends with identical lineups. At this point the lineup for the festival, scheduled for Oc ... More >>

Meet Gaga's Opening Act, French EDM Wunderkind Madeon

Whether you're a casual fan looking for a night of spectacle or one of the above little monsters who camped out to be first to get inside, we all know that the main attraction of tonight's show at the Toyota Center is Lady Gaga. That said, there's no reason you shouldn't pay attention to the show's ... More >>

R.I.P. Texas Metal God Mike Scaccia

The Texas metal community lost a major creative force over the weekend when Ministry/Rigor Mortis guitarist Mike Scaccia passed away in Ft. Worth. He was 47. Scaccia collapsed onstage at Metroplex metal haunt the Rail Club early Saturday morning, where he was performing as part of a 50th birthday ... More >>

Texans-Titans: The Best Rapper Tweets

UPDATED: Memorable Houston Concerts of 1992

UPDATE (2:03 p.m.): Alice In Chains was advertised but dropped out, and was replaced with Australia's Baby Animals. The year 1992 was an important one for me as far as Houston concerts are concerned: It's the first time I went to a concert within the Houston city limits, the "Outside Broadcast" leg ... More >>

Dust Off Your Flannel

Does the looming '90s revival presage a Nirvana-style breakthrough?

Friday Night: Eric Church at Toyota Center

Eric Church Toyota Center September 24, 2012 Eric Church is the most curious country artist to come along in a while. He says he sips Jack Daniel's in concert and (despite my assumption) talks it up in his shows without taking a dime from the Tennessee distiller, which is a sight different from Tob ... More >>

#MadeInAmerica: Translation's Steve Stoute Talks Diversity, Honesty, and The Digital Revolution

This Labor Day holiday weekend in Philadelphia, Jay-Z is teaming up with Budweiser and Live Nation to curate the initial and inaugural Made In America Music Festival, a two-day, multi-genre event featuring acts such as Pearl Jam, Skrillex, Santigold, and Gary Clark Jr, and features the return of D'A ... More >>

Last Night: The Polyphonic Spree at Fitzgerald's

Photos by Jim Bricker​The Polyphonic Spree Fitzgerald's February 14, 2012 Some of rock's most intriguing acts have risen from the ashes of their former bands. Such is the case with Dallas-based multi-member psych-pop band The Polyphonic Spree; front man Tim DeLaughter formerly fronted '90s al ... More >>

Hip-Hop, Interrupted: 7 Rappers That Should Be More Active

Hip-hop is a genre full of guys who put out a new album or mixtape seemingly every single month. They just can't stop, even when they're incarcerated in some cases (see: Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, and TI). It's as if rapping really is as much of a competition as they make it out to be and they're in a r ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Can't We Just Leave D.B. Cooper Alone?

On the plus side, maybe this guy can get a new gig.​This November marks the 40th anniversary of the hijacking of Northwest Flight #305 by a man calling himself "Dan Cooper." The hijacker, later erroneously referred to in the media as "D.B.," jumped out of the plane at an altitude of 10,000 fee ... More >>

Last Night: Cold War Kids At Warehouse Live

Photos by Jim Bricker​Cold War Kids Warehouse Live March 31, 2011 "HOUSTON: A BRACKET TOWN," read signs posted around downtown last night. HPD had begun arranging road-closures and tents were already stocked with T-shirts and Final Four swag, as the city prepared itself for this weekend's ine ... More >>

A "National" Tour Is Not L.A. To San Francisco Or A Few Festival Dates

Pavement? Nope, not here.​Tuesday, Rocks Off was a busy beaver keeping up with all the concert announcements coming over the wire. Along with the Fitzgerald's news, it was hard to keep up with everything going on. Interpol, Stone Temple Pilots, Drake, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros all ... More >>

SXSW Aftermath: Here's To The Most Accessible, Personable Festival In Years

Katharine ShilcuttAt SXSW, everywhere is a venue, including the back alley where we came across these ladies Thursday afternoon.​SXSW is a festival that tries to beat you down like the drip-drip of acid on the blink-blink of an eyeball, and more times than not it succeeds. But if you're able to co ... More >>

Houston 2020: The Future Is Unwritten

But hey, that's not stopping Noise.

Inquiring Minds: Mexican Global Groovers and World Travelers Plastilina Mosh

​Plastilina Mosh has a new CD out, All U Need Is Mosh, on Nacional Records, and brings its international sound to Houston Thursday for a free concert with Venezuela's Los Amigos Invisibles. That's right, it's free - all it costs is a very worthwhile trip outside the Loop. Rocks Off hasn't picked u ... More >>

Twice-Told Tales

How Houston's Justice Records came to release a spooky, sexy Love & Rockets tribute album.

An Abuse of Power?

Readers weigh in on mall cops and First Amendment rights.

Houston Remembers Green Day, Back In the Day

Photos by Rachelle Mendez and Matthew Juarez​Saturday night, one of the most polarizing bands of the past 20 years rolls into town. Since its 1994 mainstream breakthrough, Dookie, Green Day has been dividing fans and critics alike. Some damned the trio for leaving their punk-rock roots behind at 9 ... More >>

Got Live If You Want It

Our Spring/Summer concert preview, part deux

Smiths Reunion Rumored at Morrissey's Jones Hall Show

Strangeways, here they come: Rocks Off has learned that former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has requested passes for his ex-bandmate Morrissey's sold-out April 11 show at Jones Hall, leading to speculation that the two will perform onstage together for the first time since the influential Manch ... More >>

Rock The Bayou Is a Bust

Big State, Big Ideas

Trend-Spotting

In a scandal-ridden election year, the year's top ten music stories were all about winning the popular vote

Trend-Spotting

In a scandal-ridden election year, the year's top ten music stories were all about winning the popular vote

Spoken Like a Champion

Saul Williams -- poetry's only rock star -- aims for the lizard brain

Destroy All Monsters of Rock!

Please come see Shonen Knife's powerful activity!

Female Fear

An exhibition pays tribute to holocaust victims at a camp for women

Pop Populist

Moby's muse knows what the people want

Dude Raunch

All-girl quartet Kittie has more balls than the rest of Ozzfest 2000

Prolific Pop

Guided By Voices does things assembly-line style

Rotation

Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Jordan Knight, Juno

Lilith Fair-ness

Sarah McLachlan had a brainchild, and it was a girl

Turning Old Corners

Pavement has returned to the way they were -- whatever that was

Grunge Schmunge

The Melvins don't give a damn, and so should you

Rotation

Static

Loose Gravel

Pavement walks the tongue-in-cheek line between genius and junk

Static

Simply Beastie

To Hell and Back

Image is all (but not enough) in the supernatural thriller Hideaway

!Quermos Rock!

The chords are the same, but the lyrics are en espanol. The rockeros like it, yes they do.

The Lame and the Great

Lists you've been waiting all year for, in no particular order

Living the Unexamined Life, Happily

ZZ Top is still bad, but now they're planet-wide. And they ain't thinking too hard about it

Twilight of the God

One final round (maybe) for the last romantic, Frank Sinatra

Streep in the Wild

Move aside Sly and Arnold, Meryl's gone muscular

Requiem

Dead at 33, David Catney leaves Houston a special jazz legacy