London (England)

Mumford & Sons Strum Into Woodlands Pavilion June 12

This afternoon Live Nation announced that Mumford & Sons, the UK acoustic-rock quartet that has already, um, borrowed more than one page from U2's playbook -- the anthemic songs, Old Testament imagery, missionary zeal and sometimes overwhelming earnestness -- will make its Houston-area debut somewhe ... More >>

SXSW Releases First Batch of 2013 Performers

Here go hell come, SXSW has just released the first batch of names for the 2013 festival. I know, only a week after Fun Fun Fun Fest and a month since ACL. Did you see the FPSF blog from earlier today? Yeah, time is moving too fast. The big names on the list so far include the Zombies, Alt-J, Akro ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 2: Matt Marcus of the Eatsie Boys Food Truck, on Life in The Fat Duck Kitchen and Where He'll Be in 5 Years

Matt Marcus Eatsie Boys Food Truck 845-430-8479 www.eatsieboys.com This is Part 2 of a three-part chef chat series. Read Part 1 here and Part 3 in this same space on Friday. Yesterday, we chatted with Matt Marcus of the Eatsie Boys about everything from selling burgers in his military school dor ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 1: Matt Marcus of Eatsie Boys Food Truck, on Selling Food out of His Dorm Room in Military School and Landing an Internship at The Fat Duck

Matt Marcus Eatsie Boys Food Truck 845-430-8479 www.eatsieboys.com This is Part 1 of a three-part chef chat series. Parts 2 and 3 will run in this same space on Thursday and Friday. The Eatsie Boys have one of the most popular food trucks in Houston right now. Known for their pork snuggies, fanc ... More >>

Squeezing the Lemon: Led Zeppelin & the 10 Most Shocking Rock and Roll Reunions

Five years ago this week, Led Zeppelin fans young and old squeezed their pants full of lemon juice when the band's three surviving golden gods -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - announced that they'd be reuniting for a one-off concert in London. John Bonham's son Jason would man the s ... More >>

John Lydon: "You Can't Hold Prejudices To Brick And Mortar"

On Wednesday morning I had the pleasure of speaking with one John Lydon, the founding member of Public Image Ltd and the lead screamer of punk legends the Sex Pistols. PiL -- that's what he calls it, never the full name -- released a new album This Is PiL earlier this summer. It's been getting gre ... More >>

Iron Maiden

Hunger Games, World's Worst Bob Costas, 300 Dead Pigeons: Photos From Terrible Olympic Events

The 2012 Olympics are barreling to a close, with just as few days before the most over-the-top ceremony since the opener a few months back (or so it seems, in terms of how long ago it was). There have been many highlights, from Michael Phelps winning gold medal after gold medal to a badminton scand ... More >>

Dear Olympics: More Nudity And/Or Violence, Please

"We live in a cynical world, a cynical, cynical world..." said a very smart man once. Maybe it was Nietzsche, or Elmer Fudd. Artifacts like the Olympics -- both the summer and winter variety -- have grown boring and stale. TV giant NBC is getting torn to shreds for including haircut Ryan Seacrest ... More >>

8 Musical Activities That Should Be Olympic Sports

After years of preparation, unprecedented security, and a Mitt Romney gaffe or two, the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London get underway about 3 p.m. Houston time. At the same time, multitudes will gather in nearby Hyde Park for a free concert with Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, ... More >>

Jason Gandy, Houstonian Busted for Taking Teen Rent Boy to London for Olympics

Take it from someone who knows: British customs and immigration officials are a suspicious lot. Sometimes it's a major pain, like when they tear your bags apart for an hour in a fruitless search for drugs because you've arrived from Amsterdam looking scruffy and fatigued. Other times, it's damned i ... More >>

Eight Awesome Events That Should Be Added to the Olympic Games

Every couple of years, the world turns its eyes to a country to watch the pomp and circumstance, the agony and the defeat (as the brilliant Jim McKay put it), the drama and potential glory that is the Olympic games. This year's spectacle are the summer variety being hosted by London. It will be hard ... More >>

Summer Olympics Weather Will Feel More Like Autumn for Many

Jolly ol' England with its fish and chips and beefeaters and shrimp on the barbie...wait, OK, not that last one, is hosting the Summer Olympic Games this year as everyone who isn't living in a cave probably knows (they might know as well). They've gone all out over the last ten years' building facil ... More >>

Muse Releases a New Queen-errific Track: What Ya Think?

Well, Muse's new song is not quite the dubstep massacre that we all thought it be indicated from the album teaser. But it's also the official song for the upcoming Summer Olympics in London, so it had to be palatable for the masses. No molly is needed to enjoy this cut. And whoa, is there a whole ... More >>

Beethoven & Liszt

People

Enter Shikari

Robin Gibb Of The Bee Gees Falls Into Coma

Robin Gibb, one-third of fraternal British/Australian '70s disco-pop superstars the Bee Gees, fell into a coma Friday night in a private London hospital, according to wire services. Reuters reports that Gibb, 62, is surrounded by his family. He was hospitalized for pneumonia earlier this earlier t ... More >>

Getting Thumped

The bass line is everything in dubstep, whose core moves like robo-elephants, stomping and booming along.

6 Cool & Cheap Things To Do This Weekend

The "Reggae Riddim Revival" rides into Last Concert Cafe Friday with D.R.U.M., Bigga Staar, Zin and DJ Meshak, plus live painting and dancers. Before 9:30 p.m., cover is only $5 if you bring a hand drum. In case you were wondering, there will be a drum circle. In one of the oddest bookings we've s ... More >>

Molecular Gastronomy and More: Modernist Cuisine, Volume 1

Modernist Cuisine is not your grandmother's Joy of Cooking. It establishes a new language by which chefs can communicate the complexities of their intellectual work. Authors Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet have produced a beautiful and fascinating cookbook that explores the possibili ... 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 >>

Top 5 British Food Traditions To Embrace Now

As mentioned in an earlier post, I recently returned from London, where I was celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens and stuffing my gob with vittles. Houston stole my heart with its diverse food scene, but London, despite being bloody expensive, still has a certain something, or, rather ... More >>

100 Creatives 2012: Enrique Carreón-Robledo

​Enrique Carreón-Robledo truly believes that his fate was written in the stars. He did not come from a musical family, and it was by chance that he stumbled upon an old gentleman sitting outside near his home in Mexico, teaching children how to play the mandolin. Mesmerized, the young Carreón-Ro ... More >>

Taped Live Brit Plays Come to Sundance Houston in High Def

It's like a tour of the British theater scene on the cheap. Sundance Cinemas is bringing four taped performances of the National Theatre of London to downtown Houston starting in January and running through April. And even in a city like Houston with its extensive theater scene, Sundance Cinemas ex ... More >>

This Just In: SXSW Announces First Round Of 2012 Showcasing Bands, Including Fat Tony and Something Fierce

Photo By Marco TorresFat Tony at a day show at SXSW '11​Sweet lord, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and South By Southwest is making us excited for March in Austin already. Today the industry festival announced a few bands coming to the capitol city next year, and a few Houston names and Rocks ... More >>

Riot Riot Upstart: Songs For The UK Riots

photoshoplooter.tumblr.com/​A few days ago, in the midst of the worst of the rioting going on around London, which has now dominated the headlines for the better part of a week, someone on Twitter remarked "If Americans rioted every time the cops shot somebody we'd have no time for cocaine and ... More >>

6 Wrestling Finishing Moves That Would Suck at Stopping Riots (w/ Video)

Your riot-control specialist​I am admittedly not always the most up to speed on current events. I'm a generally selfish person. If it has nothing to do with my a) job, b) family, c) friends, d) bank account or e) need to satisfy hunger pangs, then whatever "it" may be gets thrown on the back b ... More >>

The Five Worst Canned Foods You Can Easily Find In America

Ha! Spotted Dick is NOTHING compared to the other items on this list.​It's easy to go to a foreign market and find items that seem strange and offensive to an American palate. Wandering through a Korean market, someone might offer you steamed silkworm pupae. In a South American market, you mig ... More >>

The Most Anticipated Albums Of 2011

​NATIONAL White Lies, Ritual: They killed at festivals in 2008 and 2009, but do London's Interpol-styled lads have longevity? Dr. Dre, Detox: It's been on hold or gestating since at least Clinton was in office. Will it continue to be hip-hop's Chinese Democracy? R.E.M., Collapse Into No ... More >>

SXSW 2011 Still Untainted By Houston Artists

listenlisten: Not playing SXSW 2011... yet.​Rocks Off just got the latest list of names for next year's SXSW conference and festival in Austin, and just like the last time, the conference remains unsullied by any performers from Houston's filthy, rotten, disgusting, in-need-of-quarantine music ... More >>

Cage Match: Werewolf Of London Vs. Purple People Eater

​Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a while since we had a Cage Match. Our apologies, we couldn't find a band willing to take on Nickelback - really. Be that as it may, get yourselves ready for a special Halloween edition as two of the greatest monsters in song take on each other. You gotta ask ... More >>

Eclipse

Brooding folk for the Twilight crowd.

Top 5 Fine Food Arts

Japanese Bento Box "Mona Lisa"​Art created from food has a uniquely universal appeal and a certain whimsy that you don't always find with other media. But food artists are often dismissed as "novelty," despite the powerful reach of their work and the fact that it's often crafted out of some of ... More >>

Holly Golightly Talks Country Living, Snake Handling, Old Gospel And Soul

Troy Martin​ Holly Golightly may have unplugged, but the former member of Billy Childish's '90s UK garage-rockers Thee Headcoatees hasn't mellowed out. On 2008's Dirt Don't Hurt and the brand-new Medicine County, she and the Brokeoffs - aka Texas-born drumming companion Lawyer Dave - have been get ... More >>

Year in Film: Director of the Decade

Clint Eastwood talks straight about his prolific career.

Truth in Advertising

Somers Town gets at the heart of working-class London. And might sell some train tickets, too.

Oregon Trail

Art Brut taps ex-Pixie Black Francis for the down-and-dirty Art Brut vs. Satan.

Richard Alston Dance Company

Dance like you want to

Pretty Vacant: The Trouble With Houston's (Newly Award-Winning) Skyline

Photo courtesy GHCVB​Forbes Traveler has a new list up -- called alternately "the 13 greatest urban silhouettes" and "the world's most stunning city skylines."Here is what makes a skyline great, according to the article: It has to be more than merely memorable, it must have some exceptional chara ... More >>

Oh My God, How Did I Not Know Gwyneth Paltrow Has A Stupid Website?

I am such a Johnny-come-lately to this party, I fear. But then again, perhaps it is for the best that I did not realize any sooner that Gwyneth Paltrow has what has to be the most self-indulgent, ridiculous website ever, and it's named -- for some reason -- Goop (with the tagline "Nourish the Inner ... More >>

Feast Is Bloody Brilliant

“End Game: British Contemporary Art from the Chaney Family Foundation”

From skeletons to steel wire, the YBAs use anything and everything to make avant-garde art

Paydirt : "The Thames Mudlarks"

A delightful show at CTRL features seven London artists

“The Thames Mudlarks: A Group Show of London Artists”

A show inspired by London mud wrestlers/artists

Yatra Brasserie

A chic new Indian restaurant on Main Street serves Desi-Tex tacos for lunch

Fish Gone Wild

Dark Side of the Moon

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium

Curry for the Laddies

London Sizzler serves up Indian food made the British way

Bang This

The Red Lion Pub