Lou Reed

Drenched In Blog: What Happens at Half Price Books....

Drenched in Blog: SXSW Rumblins'

SXSW Ephemera: Random Notes from the Field

SXSW: Lou Reed. Live. For One Song. Lou Freakin’ Reed.

South By Scavenger Hunt

Laurie Anderson: "The World Has Turned Itself Inside Out in the Last Few Weeks"

Wordy Jukebox

Eat Your Vegetables: Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music

Consisting of nothing more than one hour of two overlaid tracks of guitar feedback, Metal Machine Music ranks near the top of music history's shit list in terms of total amount of critical bile received. Houston's own Ramon Medina summed up the album's status succinctly on the NonAlignment Pact ... More >>

Rotation

Consisting of nothing more than one hour of two overlaid tracks of guitar feedback, Metal Machine Music ranks near the top of music history's shit list in terms of total amount of critical bile received. Houston's own Ramon Medina summed up the album's status succinctly on the NonAlignment Pact ... More >>

Static

Consisting of nothing more than one hour of two overlaid tracks of guitar feedback, Metal Machine Music ranks near the top of music history's shit list in terms of total amount of critical bile received. Houston's own Ramon Medina summed up the album's status succinctly on the NonAlignment Pact ... More >>

Rotation

Consisting of nothing more than one hour of two overlaid tracks of guitar feedback, Metal Machine Music ranks near the top of music history's shit list in terms of total amount of critical bile received. Houston's own Ramon Medina summed up the album's status succinctly on the NonAlignment Pact ... More >>

SXSW: Echo & the Bunnymen at Stubb's

Photos by Chris GrayBy Friday afternoon, SXSW fatigue has taken hold. You're walking a little slower, less inclined to whip out the notebook to jot down every little observation - Rocks Off has seen many journos just typing notes into their BlackBerries, a trend that both intrigues and dismays him - ... More >>

Culturcide: Year One

Photos by Chris GrayBy Friday afternoon, SXSW fatigue has taken hold. You're walking a little slower, less inclined to whip out the notebook to jot down every little observation - Rocks Off has seen many journos just typing notes into their BlackBerries, a trend that both intrigues and dismays him - ... More >>

Pavement

Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition

Sam Winch

The Lullabadeer

Antony and the Johnsons

I Am a Bird Now

Walk on the Wild Side

Meet Supestar diva Holly Woodlawn at the Houston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

Biirdie

Wednesday, August 17, at the Proletariat, 903 Richmond, 713-523-1199.

Messing with Texas

Rockers bash Bush, with varying results

A.R.E. Weapons

Wednesday, July 9

The Strokes

Is This It? (RCA)

Mortal Soul

Scorsese and Cage elevate the EKG of the mean streets

Friday Night Noise: Caddywhompus and Alarmcock

Caddywhompus, "Fun Times at Whiskey Bay": If nothing else, this Houston/New Orleans noise-pop unit is a prime contender/offender for an international "worst name imaginable" contest. Singer/percussionist Sean Hart and singer/guitarist/keyboard player Chris Rehm are certainly more plugged-in than the ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs for Getting It On

[Ed. Note: While we were off watching Night Ranger videos or something - which should tell you all you need to know about our own sex life at the moment - Rocks Off No. 2, Craig Hlavaty, and Web Editor Katharine Shilcutt started going back and forth about how men and women want to hear very differen ... More >>

Stuck In a Moment You (Still) Can't Get Out Of: Remembering 9/11 In Music

Just as none of us will ever forget where we were the morning of September 11, 2001, Rocks Off will never forget what he was listening to most of the day of the terrorist attacks. Sadly, he admits it was System of A Down's Toxicity, which had come out just the week before. For us the album conveyed ... More >>

Graveside Songs for Edgar Allan Poe's Long-Overdue Funeral

​Kicking the bucket at the age of 40 is bad enough, especially when, to this day, nobody's really sure how you died (everything from syphillis to rabies to political "cooping" has been thrown out there as a possible cause). But getting buried in an unmarked grave after a three minute "service" is ... More >>

Kick 'em While They're Down: The Worst Songs Ever Recorded For Charity

Please take this thing away from me. Please.​ When Rocks Off received an email touting Sting's new MySpace charity video for the Prince of Wales' Rainforest Project, we almost chipped a fingernail hurriedly clicking on the link, which promised oodles of celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John, Rich ... More >>

8 Songs Guaranteed To Get Those Damn Relatives To Leave Already

​But if I really say it, the radio won't play it, Unless I lay it between the lines! - Peter, Paul and Mary, "I Dig Rock and Roll Music" We know, we know. It's late Christmas evening, you've had a few too many glasses of nog. That turkey is starting to take its toll, and yet you've still got a hou ... More >>

Acts We Think - OK, Hope - Are Playing ACL Fest This Year

​By this time Tuesday, we will all know who is playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in October. Damn, it seems like we have speculating about the line-up since, well, we got the last of the "Dillo Dirt" out the middle of our toes after last year's muddy and rainy ACL weekend. Tuesday brig ... More >>

The 7 Most Polarizing Albums In Recent Memory

​This Monday night, MGMT hits the House Of Blues behind new album Congratulations, which has been getting one of the most tepid responses for a new album by a buzz band in recent media memory. The people that jumped on the bandwagon in 2008 after the Brooklyn-based then-duo released Oracular Spect ... More >>

FAIL: "American Idols Live," Montreal Jazz Festival, George Michael, Suge Knight

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Jazz Festival Audience Somehow Unprepared to Enjoy Aimless, Self-Indulgent Noodling: Lou Reed, John Zorn, and Reed's wife Laurie Anderson performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival recently, and treated the audience to improvisational jazz which the linked ... More >>

Beavis And Butt-Head's Greatest Video Hits, Dillhole

​On the night of November 28, 1997, Rocks Off was sitting in his friend Chad's parents' house in Pearland, watching the final episode of MTV's Beavis and Butt-head. The boys had been a part of our daily lives since at least fifth grade, and as we marched into the second semester of ninth grade ... More >>

Cartoon Band To Play Toyota Center

My my, we're busy today. Rocks Off this sent this into the Twitterverse earlier, but for all you non-tweeters, Gorillaz, the UK hip-hop/electronica/rock band composed of Murdoc Niccals, 2D, Noodle and Russel Hobbs - the cartoon avatars of Blur's Damon Albarn and his pal Jamie Hewlett - are pencile ... More >>

Top 10 Pop Songs With Children's Choruses

​On the way home from ACL this past Sunday night, Craig's Hlist had his Rdio account humming over the speakers playing one of his playlists (phlayhlist?), but not the sad-bastard mix we rocks whenever we are at work alone. It was the life-spanning one we have been making since we got on the mu ... More >>

Is Ex-Velvet Moe Tucker A Tea Partier Or Not?

​The Velvet Underground has certainly had an interesting second act. After Andy Warhol's favorite NYC "party" band soundtracked countless narcotic jags and laid the foundation for everything from punk rock to shoegaze, its members went on to very different lives: Lou Reed to street-life classi ... More >>

Bluefinger: The Music

​The Velvet Underground has certainly had an interesting second act. After Andy Warhol's favorite NYC "party" band soundtracked countless narcotic jags and laid the foundation for everything from punk rock to shoegaze, its members went on to very different lives: Lou Reed to street-life classi ... More >>

Top Five Musician/Journalist Feuds

"Like, what is your problem?" Jason Nocito​Hell hath no fury like a spurned musician, but a critic's vengeance doesn't lag far behind. This week in the Houston Press, you can read an interview Noah Bailey at our sister paper the Dallas Observer did with Dr. Dog's Scott McMicken, who says he h ... More >>

Reduxion Returns Next Wednesday With Tax The Wolf

Michelle Tovar/ Tax the Wolf on Facebook​We're baaaaaaack! After a couple of months off - hey, things happen - Reduxion, Rocks Off's monthly series of local bands covering their biggest influences, returns just in time to get you nice and hung over for Thanksgiving dinner. (Kidding... we thin ... More >>

Reduxion

Michelle Tovar/ Tax the Wolf on Facebook​We're baaaaaaack! After a couple of months off - hey, things happen - Reduxion, Rocks Off's monthly series of local bands covering their biggest influences, returns just in time to get you nice and hung over for Thanksgiving dinner. (Kidding... we thin ... More >>

Tax The Wolf Agrees: Velvet Underground > The Strokes

Michelle Tovar/ Tax the Wolf on Facebook​For the night before Thanksgiving, there is a lot going on in Houston tomorrow. But with all due respect to Robert Ellis & the Boys at Fitzgerald's and the LAX/Young Girls show at Groundhall - not to mention, on an entirely different scale, both Bruno M ... More >>

Top 10 Hottest Jewish Musicians

​The Festival of Lights is upon us, as the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah officially kicks off at sundown tonight. Some of music's leading bigwigs will likely be sparking up the menorah, among them Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Leonard Cohen, Diamond David Lee Roth, Perry Farrell an ... More >>

1986: Best Musical Year Ever?

​For almost two weeks now, Rocks Off has been obsessed with the year exactly 25 flips of the calendar backward from this one. It started when Steve Earle did one of his "Time Machine" shows, where the singer-songwriter who plays House of Blues Wednesday spotlights a dozen or so of his favorite ... More >>

Buddy Holly Raves On Into 21st Century

​Lonesome Onry and Mean's buddy doesn't like the new tribute to Buddy Holly, Rave On, which features a major-league lineup of artists ranging from Sir Paul McCartney, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and Graham Nash to youngsters like Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Black Keys and the unlikely inclusio ... More >>

For Labor Day: 10 Songs About Childbirth

kidzcareonline.com​Cyril Connolly said "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall." The famed English literary critic knew, like several here at Rocks Off, that having kids puts a hell of a dent in a parent's free time, and the constant demands of children can make at ... More >>

Garland Jeffreys: NYC Rock Hero Still Wild In The Streets

garlandjeffreys.com​As vapid as television has become, if you're a fan of great live music you might want to check The Late Show With David Letterman Friday night, when Dave welcomes the incomparable Garland Jeffreys. Unless you're a serious music nerd, you've probably never heard of Jeffrey ... More >>

Roadtrippin': The Eight Track Museum In Dallas

Photos By Craig Hlavaty​Last week while this member Rocks Off was in Dallas for the 48th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and our annual trek to Dealey Plaza, we stopped in to the Eight Track Museum in the Deep Ellum district of the city. The opening rumblings of the small museum, lo ... More >>

Bummer, Dude: The 10 Big Musical Disappointments of 2011

Photo by Marc BrubakerThis guy's crazy rant at Fun Fun Fun Fest made the list.​All things considered, 2011 was a pretty bitchin' year for popular music. It wasn't all high-fives and Grammies for our musical heroes, however. More than few steaming flops, blown gigs and sour notes made the yea ... More >>

5 Bands Lou Reed Should Have Called Instead of Metallica

​As mentioned in Nathan Smith's "Bummer, Dude: The 10 Big Musical Disappointments of 2011", Lulu, the not-at-all-anticipated-by-me aural abortion resulting from the un-Godly union of The Progenitor of All Things Cool, Three Insufferable Man-Children & Kirk Hammett, SUCKED. This was crushing fo ... More >>

Bartender Chat: Matt Bradshaw of El Gran Malo

​We stopped into El Gran Malo this week because nothing quite warms your chilled bones like a few shots of crushed black pepper, sea salt, cayenne and toasted Texas pecan-infused tequila. We sampled some of the bar's newest infusions, snacked on bacon-wrapped jalapenos that were so spicy my ea ... More >>

Lord Lordy, Look Who's Forty: The Best Albums Of 1972

​Last week I told you about the best debut albums of 1992, making a lot of us feel old in the process. Hell, I was only nine when those came out and I felt feeble making the list. This week we look at the best albums of 1972, now four decades in the hole, but no less fulfilling and influenti ... More >>