MGMT (Band)

Don’t Fight It! featuring Dave Wrangler, Piss Heavy and Young $quaddy

Don’t Fight It! featuring Dave Wrangler, Piss Heavy and Young $quaddy

Midtowners meet the Montrose on the dance floor

Juneteenth Revisited

Two arts organizations attempt a new spin on an old event

Season of the Witch

U2's awe-inspiring Reliant Stadium show prompts a search for the unknown — and unknowable — in music.

Rocks Off's Picks for This Weekend's Fun Fun Fun Festival

You can think of this weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin as the indie, metal, and hip-hop little brother of the more staid Austin City Limits Music Festival. The fourth edition of the two-day event held in Waterloo Park in Austin starts tomorrow afternoon. Per our stated life path, Rocks Off will ... More >>

In the Mix: DJ and Dance Music for the New Malaise, Part 1

​The past year brought the worst economy since the malaise of the 1970s, and like that era, it also saw dance music sweep the nation. Lady GaGa, the Black Eyed Peas, Beyoncé and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs all dabbled in the sound. Even Michael Jackson was said to be working on a dance album with the P ... More >>

Our Texas High School Rock Off Preview, Part 2: The Handshake and Living Vicariously

This Friday, House of Blues hosts the first (and perhaps only) Texas High School Rock Off, co-sponsored by Fuse, Sonicbids and Rocks Off our own damn selves. See here for information on tickets, which start at the allowance-friendly price of $8. The winner receives $500, a trophy and an opening slot ... More >>

Love and Theft

The decade with no name left behind plenty of memorable music.

Rocks Off's 2010 Predictions: The Fate of Owl City, Chingo Bling vs. Chamillionaire, the Next Twilight Soundtrack and Madchester In Katy

www.flickr.com/photos/dherholz/​ Adam Young of Owl City will mystify the scientific community, yet surprise no one in the music community, when he is hacked in half in a freak sawmill accident, and it's discovered he is filled with gummi bears. The Arcade Fire/Flaming Lips feud is resolved when ... More >>

Hard-Rockin' Backslash Wins Our First High School Rock Off

Photos by Groovehouse / Click here for a slideshow​Houston's Backslash, none of whom were alive when Appetite for Destruction came out, won the first annual Texas High School Rock Off Friday night at House of Blues, taking home $500, a spiffy new trophy and the chance to open for a national ... More >>

Houston 2020: The Future Is Unwritten

But hey, that's not stopping Noise.

Thanks, But No Thanks: See What Dallas Has to Deal With All the Time?

We know, we know... it's just too easy.​ Rocks Off would like to thank Force Field PR and, we suppose, Neon Indian for sending the above picture to our email this morning. It nearly made us spray coffee all over our monitor. We don't quite know where to start, except to venture a guess that if you ... More >>

Aftermath: How Many Bodies Washed Up At Our Washington Shore Party?

Photos by Son LamTonight's the Night: The fist-pumping contest got pretty heated.​Well... zero, in traditional New Jersey cement-shoes terminology. But despite the miserable weather, which did its part to create a proper Jersey Shore atmosphere, Rocks Off's Washington Shore party filled the Washin ... More >>

SXSW Update: Anybody Remember The Zeros? Lemmy, Maybe?

Have you ever been to a party or bar with about 30 or so acquaintances that you all know to some degree or another? You want to try to talk to all of them, or at least hug and say hello. But you can't because the party just gets louder and louder, drinks start flowing and people are just running ar ... More >>

Rid Of Me And Other Great Albums With Truly Hideous Covers

​MGMT's new album, Congratulations, comes out in April! We're excited. MGMT's 2008 debut album, Oracular Spectacular, was fantastic, and we can't wait to hear what they've got in store for the follow-up. We're positive it will be awesome, as those weird-ass kids are only going to get weirder as th ... More >>

Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW

Photos by Craig Hlavaty12:08 p.m.: "Apparently MGMT is playing in that white box tonight."​ While Rocks Off Sr. holds down the fort in Houston, we've dispatched Craig Hlavaty, the Riker to our Picard, as a one-man away team to SXSW, and he's already been a busy boy. Reinforcements will arrive in t ... More >>

Distant Early Warning: Athlete, The Bangles, Cypress Hill, Imogen Heap, MGMT, O'Jays, Rush, Talib Kweli, Etc.

​Athlete, Carney: Sat., June 26. Walter's on Washington. All Leather, Balaclavas, Yip-Yip: Sat., May 15. The Mink. The Bangles, Tonic: Sat., May 29. Moody Gardens Outdoor Amphitheater. Tyagaraja, Black Queen Speaks, Peekaboo Theory, Robert Ellis & The Boys, The Tontons, VerseCity, Wayside Dri ... More >>

Food, Fun, and Frivolity at Menu of Menus

​This Tuesday, hundreds of hungry Houstonians joined me at Houston Press's annual gala to sample some of the tastiest treats our local restaurants had to offer. The event was held indoors this year at West Ave. Though last year's event at Discovery Green was more casual, this year people were ... More >>

Fails Of The Week: BBC 6 Listeners, Whitney Houston, Rolling Stone And MGMT

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Nature's Revenge: Tunes For A Vengeful Planet

Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​ We like to think of the planet we live on as "Mother" Earth, a caring, nurturing parent figure who we thoughtlessly abuse. Well, we at Rocks Off don't know if you've noticed, but Mom ain't exactly helpless. In fact, sometimes she seems less like a benevolen ... More >>

Fails Of The Week: Justin Bieber, Tom Petty, Jenna Jameson, The Killers, Voxtrot

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Dr. Dog, Deer Tick

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Wrong Number

Houston's Miss Leslie dials up more honky-tonk homilies on her new CD.

Love, Shelby

Shelby Lynne smolders on Tears, Lies, and ­Alibis.

Girl Talk: "Me Wanting To Interact With The Music I Really Like"

Bridget Maniaci​ A few days before Girl Talk's Summerfest show this Saturday, Rocks Off took some time to chat with the mash-up maestro - who refuses to call himself a DJ - about his biomedical engineering degree, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2008's Feed the Animals and Super Happy Fun Land. ... 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 >>

MGMT Phones It In, Leaves It Off The Hook

Photos by Groovehouse​ Here are a few things we learned Monday night at MGMT's show at House of Blues. First off, they are not a "live" band in the grand musical sense of the word. While new album Congratulations is a catchy, odd, fucked-up little sophomore outing, it's not at all meant for live c ... More >>

Passion Pit Moves Bodies, Emotions at Warehouse Live

Photos by Groovehouse/Check out a slideshowPassion Pit played to a sold out crowd at Warehouse Live​Aftermath remembers the first book that ever made us cry. It was Katherine Paterson's controversial but also much-loved young adult novel Bridge to Terebithia. In all likelihood it was also the ... More >>

Devo, MGMT, Mastodon, Devin, Black Congress Head Fun Fun Fun Lineup

GroovehouseMGMT at House of Blues in June​The official lineup for this year's Fun Fun Fun Fest, set for November 5-7 at Waterloo Park in the heart of downtown Austin, was released moments ago. In terms of firepower, this year's Fun Fun Fun roster arguably brings the festival within striking di ... More >>

Five 2010 Albums That Should Be Recalled

Congratulations, MGMT. Now go make a better album.​Like many other foods you thought you knew, eggs will now kill you. A salmonella contamination has caused a massive egg recall across the country, and it just seems to be getting worse. But, you know something, it's for our own good. If only ... More >>

I Put A Spell On You: The Vixens And Visuals Of Voodoo Fest

Photos by Mark C. AustinMGMT: "Ruh Roh! Better play something off the first album!"​Village Voice Media dispatched Houston photographer Mark C. Austin to New Orleans this past weekend for the Voodoo Music Experience, the Crescent City's annual three-day Halloween engorgement of live music and ... More >>

Still Fun Fun Fun, Festival Is On The Cusp Of Change

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Miss the bands in Austin this weekend? See as many as we could squeeze into our handy slideshow. Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin is on the cusp of change. A renovation to its home base, Waterloo Park, is due within the next year, so come next November the festival more than ... More >>

The Worst Album Covers Of 2010

Not a bad album cover. Not even close.​These are some of the worst album covers to grace store shelves your hard drive this year. Only a few of you seem to be buying albums anymore unless you still buy vinyl, in which case you are a saint and a scholar. You know what is a good album cover? K ... More >>

If Your Life Were A Movie, Which Song Would Be The Trailer?

​It started as a whim on Twitter, asking friends what songs would soundtrack the trailer of the movie of their life. Would their life's tale be a rollicking drug-fueled, love-filled adventure backed by the Rolling Stones' "Jumping Jack Flash", or would it be a morose and somber drifting story ... More >>

Top 10 Worst Top 10 Lists Of 2010

​Now that's a headline, ladies and germs. It has the added benefit of being succinct as well. That's exactly what we're summing up here, the worst Top 10 lists our peers have written this year. Let's get started, as we've got a lot of ground to cover. 10. This One Not really, this is just t ... More >>

Music's Biggest Disappointments Of 2010

​Editor's Pick: I'm tempted to say myself on this one. I just didn't connect to a lot of music this year. Especially new music, most of which I was either indifferent to or outright loathed. I'm not really the navel-gazing type, though, so I'll just chalk it up to an off year and move on. I do ... More >>

Ukuleles: Suddenly The Hippest Instrument Going

​Trends in music can be as prevalent - and subsequently fleeting - as they are in fashion. Though the eagerness to join trendy-indie bandwagons can be puzzling, music's most recent instrumental trend, the ukulele, grabbed our attention, especially after SXSW. Among the dozens of SXSW-related ... More >>

Beyond "Thriller": Top 10 Zombie Music Videos

​One of Rocks Off's choice ambient/shoegaze artists, Grouper, has just released visuals for her song "Alien Observer" and it's full of (almost) everything that we hold dear: Blood, zombies buried beneath foliage, and girl-on-girl action. Oh, and Liz Harris' haunting voice. It's beautiful; whi ... 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 >>

Summer Fest Saturday: A Sizzler With Beirut, Big Boi, Black Joe, Fucked Up, Sharon Jones, Ween & More

Ed. Note: We're not done yet... Chris GrayRusted Shut​Chris Gray: I think the quickest way to sum up Summer Fest, environmentally, is in fact biologically: In eight hours at the festival Saturday, hydrating continuously with mostly water, I made my own water once, shortly before Beirut. Sunda ... More >>

Your Favorite Bands: How To Correctly Pronounce Their Names

​Back in December 1998, when Eminem was just hitting MTV and rap radio, we remember people pronouncing his name as "Eee-mine-im," and not the candy-inflected way it actually was. We even made the mistake during our first viewing of "My Name Is" late at night on the video channel and calling a ... More >>

Ponderosa Gives House Of Blues A Mouthful

Photos by Jason Wolter​Rocks Off is usually ambivalent, at best, about restaurant shows. One of the few times we're not interested in live music at all is when we're eating, and we imagine we're hardly the only person who feels that way. Strolling violinists and mariachi groups especially get ... More >>

Out Today: Beyonce's 4 Is Square, Limp Bizkit Chokes The Cobra

What is this I don't even....​This week in new releases sees is one of the most varied in months, with new discs by Beyonce, Limp Bizkit, Dolly Parton, and Thievery Corporation hitting shelves and digital outlets today. By far though, the sexiest album cover is the Beyonce art for 4, and the m ... More >>

Foster the People

What is this I don't even....​This week in new releases sees is one of the most varied in months, with new discs by Beyonce, Limp Bizkit, Dolly Parton, and Thievery Corporation hitting shelves and digital outlets today. By far though, the sexiest album cover is the Beyonce art for 4, and the m ... More >>

ACL: Molly's Revenge & Other Encounters

Jim BrickerColdplay: Also with the pretty lights.​A Zilker field. As Friday's shadows lengthened, a young woman - tall, pale, boots - approached Rocks Off. "Are you going to Pretty Lights?" "I don't think so." "Why not?" "I don't know." "Do you know where I can get some Molly?" "Uhhh... ... More >>

TV Party: Beavis & Butt-head Return with "Werewolves Of Highland/Crying"

​Rocks Off has always championed the arts, and Beavis & Butt-head are no different. We've shown you the bands that we got into because of the shows '90s run, and last year we listed our favorite music videos from the series. So earlier this year, when Beavis & Butt-head creator Mike Judge an ... More >>

Friday Night: Yo Gabba Gabba Live! At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by James Bricker​Yo Gabba Gabba Live! Verizon Wireless Theater December 2, 2011 As a parent, Rocks Off can tell you firsthand about the sacrifices involved in child rearing. Most of us know going in that there are trade-offs for raising your own personal organ donors, from simple thing ... More >>

Sunday Night: Starfucker at Fitzgerald's

Photos by Barry Sigman​"We're sorry about your football team," said Starfucker* guitarist Ryan Biornstad to the packed crowd of college-age Houstonians at Fitz, just eight hours after the Houston Texans gracefully bowed out of its first ever playoff trip. Starfucker/STRFKR/Pyramid/Pyramidd m ... More >>

Bartender Chat: Brant Miller of Royal Oak

​This week, I stopped into Royal Oak to chat with Brant, a.k.a. "The Marshall." Inspired by some Civil War documentaries he had been watching a few weeks ago, Brant cultivated a mustache and chops, adorned his vest with a badge, and got behind the bar. He said that as the night wore on, folks ... More >>