Marco Torres

Frank's Americana Revival and Chef Kevin Naderi of Roost: 2013 Menu of Menu's Big Winners

The annual Menu of Menus grand tasting is much more than just a night for our readers to come out, meet their favorite restaurants, find new favorites and get their faces stuffed with delicious grub. It's also a fierce competition. A wooden token was given to each guest as they entered Silver Stree ... More >>

Riddle: How Is Dubstep Like Picasso?

Although dozens of EDM subgenres are brain candy to me, I haven't personally given in to the auditory assault that is dubstep (mostly... maybe). However, I'm here to say that there is actual science to appreciate behind the work of Skrillex and many others. If you think about it, many people argue ... More >>

Menu of Menus 2013: Ticket Presale Begins Today

Anyone who went to Best Bites at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo this past Sunday night can attest to how much fun these grand tasting event extravaganzas can be. Our very own tasting night is coming up on April 9 at 7 p.m., and plans to be bigger and better than ever. Last year was our 10th ann ... More >>

The Real Fame Monster: How Much Evil Could One Pop Star Do?

Consider the following hypothetical scenario: over the past five years you, through a combination of talent and charisma, have managed to scale the music industry summit to become a pop icon with millions of fans worldwide, including 30 million followers on Twitter; among the millions are a group o ... More >>

The 5 Worst Tattoos In Rap

Lil Wayne loves weed. He loves it so much that he got "baked" tattooed on his forehead.. Yes, I'm serious. It also apparently refers to Baker Skateboards as well because skating is the only thing Weezy loves as much as weed. This joins the litany of other stupid things tattooed on Lil Wayne's face w ... More >>

The Top 10 Houston Music Stories of 2012

Looking back over the major music-related stories around Houston the past 11 and a half months, 2012 was light on the kind of headlines you'll usually see in a year-end "music scene" recap: Obituaries, arrests, venues closing down, malfeasance, bad behavior, that sort of thing. There was some of tha ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Friday In Review: Bun B, Bob Mould, Against Me! & More

The first day of Fun Fun Fun Fest was marked by the oddball stylings of an in-character Val Kilmer terrorizing the stage with the Black Lips, and the triumphant return of rap legends Run-D.M.C. rocking the main stage to close out the night. In between there was Bob Mould, Converge, Houston's own Bun ... More >>

Shot In The Dark: Angels & A-Holes

When you're in the photo pit taking pictures for a publication such as Rocks Off, you can become the unwanted center of attention from both the audience and especially the artists. Most of the time you are only a few feet away from the performer, and often in their direct line of sight. They can and ... More >>

Shot In The Dark Photo Exhibit Returns May 17

Rocks Off is glad to announce that Shot in the Dark, our exhibition of concert photography that has appeared online and in the pages of the Houston Press, will return Thursday, May 17 at the War'Hous Visual Studios at 4715 Main in the Museum District. This year, since it's at an actual art space, a ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Thursday 3/15/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music e ... More >>

Predicting Your Future Half Time Show Performers

Photo By Marco Torres​All of the Super Bowl talk this week has given me a chance to ponder one of my favorite pop culture questions: how big do you have to be to perform at the Super Bowl half time show? When you consider the acts that have performed since the 2005 move to one act performances ... More >>

Saturday: Chris Gray Day at the Continental Club

Photo by Marco TorresChris with the officers that saved his life.​Click here for a slideshow of the bands and here for a slideshow of the crowd. "I didn't know Chris was a celebrity." Chris Gray's mother told a rapt audience from the stage on Saturday afternoon that she was "overwhelmed" by ... More >>

How to Appear Knowledgeable at a Texans Gamewatch Sunday (From the Bad Advice Dept.)

Photo by Marco TorresOh, and wear a mask.​You don't have to be a football fan to find yourself at a Houston Texans gamewatch party Sunday when they take on Baltimore. Which can be a problem, because you'll be surrounded by fanatics and you don't want to look foolish. Luckily, you can look li ... More >>

Aftermath: Our Favorite Shows of 2011

Photo By Craig HlavatyRex's War Face: The crowd's at June's Free Press Summer Fest were feral and friendly. ​This week we asked our pool of Rocks Off writers what their favorite shows of 2011 were, the ones that brought joy to their hearts to attend and helped them make magic with a keyboard h ... More >>

Aerosol Warfare: Exhibit, Visual History and Performance Art in One Show

See more pics of Aerosol Warfare's Rock the Lot in our slideshow. There was a lot going on at the Aerosol Warfare artist reception Saturday night for Rock The Lot! Art Attack schmoozed with other gallery wanderers as we took in the art accompaniment of the film Stick 'Em Up!, the documentary abou ... More >>

Rodeo Houston Announces First Four Performers

Photo by Marco TorresZac Brown Band will be on the list of Rodeo Houston 2012 performers.​Yeehaw. It's not even December, but it's apparently time to talk rodeo. This is Texas, after all, and boots are in season, even if in Houston you're more likely to see Prada than cowboy despite what north ... More >>

Operation "No Tacos" - A 30 Day Challenge

Portrait of a Taco Enthusiast as A Young Man​That's me up there with my dad, eating a plate full of tacos, the happiest 4-year-old ever. It was there in that one-bedroom duplex in the East End where my love of tacos and all things Mexican originated. Menudo for breakfast? Yes, please. Tamales for ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Marco's Taco Hell

​Here on Eating Our Words, the commenters absolutely make the blog, and our Comment of the Day honors the best of the bunch. Every day, we read you guys and pick the commenter, or commenters, who made us laugh, cry, salivate over something delicious, or think about things in a new way. In re ... More >>

Last Night: Zac Brown Band at the Woodlands

Photos by Marco Torres​Aftermath has heard a decent amount of entertaining segues at concerts. Most concert segues are awkward and some are funny, but this one from Zac Brown's last night was the most country shit we've ever heard: "Sometimes you have to fight the chicken when you're a man." ... More >>

Friday Night: DJ Erick Rincón and 3BallMty at El Chaparral

photos by Marco Torres​As we walked up to the entrance of El Chaparral Houston on Friday night, we immediately felt out of place. The doorman gave us the "what the hell are you doing here?" look. We certainly could have blended in better had we not left our pointy boots, oversized belt buckle, and ... More >>

BREAKING: Rapper Rick Ross Unconscious After Seizure

UPDATE: Ricky Rozay is tweeting from the hospital, so all seems well. That is the great arbiter in determining someone's health, tweeting. If they can't tweet, then something must be very, very wrong. Or they are sleeping. Photo By Marco Torres​Frequent Houston performer Rick Ross is current ... More >>

Friday Night: B.B. King at the House of Blues

The blues is a funny ol' gal. By definition, the musical genre is a projection of the sadness and melancholy caused by a broken heart, or the lament of a "just can't catch a break" life. Yet the sold out crowd at the House of Blues on Friday night exhibited the exact opposite of sadness and downtro ... More >>

BestFest Single-Day Passes Now On Sale For $25

Marco TorresBun B: As trill as it gets.​You asked for it, you got it. Like KISS. Now, right now, you can buy single-day passes for this weekend's Best of Houston® BestFest on the festival's Web site, bestfesthouston.com. If the virtual ticket window isn't quite ready, give it a minute or to ... More >>

ACL Last Night: Kanye West At Zilker Park

Marco Torres​By the end of the first night of this year's Austin City Limits, Kanye West had gone over his allotted set time by 15 minutes, turning in one of the most un-rap, rap shows, injecting a Bjork and Talking Heads stage-commanding sensibility into a collection of champion singles. It w ... More >>

ACL: Smoking Ban Openly Flouted At Zilker Park, But Ah Hell What Did You Expect?

Marco Torres​For the most part this year's drought and wildfire-related smoking ban at ACL is being followed, but during Friday's festivities it wasn't hard to find fans smoking to their hearts content on the grounds, or in the case above, on the ground. It seems to be only really deterring ... More >>

ACL: Cults Semi-Wows To Start Our Day And Ha Ha Tonka Bassist Says To Hell With Smoking Ban

Craig Hlavaty​Smoking ban? What smoking ban? Ha Ha Tonka bassist Lucas Long don't care about the smoking ban at Zilker Park. Good times, y'all.

ACL: Adele & Mumford & Sons - Not Here, But Here

Photos by Marco TorresTrain a-Comin': The Secret Sisters​3:30 p.m. Still they file in. Watching the crowds trudge along Barton Springs Road, their eyes fixed on the pavement about five yards in front of them (not their phones), always reminds Rocks Off of a pilgrimage. And each festival has i ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Leaks Lineup Via Navy Signal Flags

How up to date on your nautical signaling are you? Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest leaked a few names for its Nov. 4-6 fall brawl at Auditorium Shores this morning. If you know your flags, you can figure it out all by yourself via the above video. Rocks Off will be a little busy with our own Houston Pr ... More >>

Saturday Night: Maná At Toyota Center

Photos by Marco Torres​Maná Toyota Center July 2, 2011 It takes a special combination of hype and talent to sell out a concert, let alone two in a row. In recent memory, only two other artists have been booked to perform on consecutive nights at Toyota Center: Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Me ... 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 >>

iFest's First Weekend Thick With Music, Humidity

GroovehouseJimmie Vaughan (left) and his band gave the large iFest crowd some saxual healing Saturday.​Lots more iFest in our slideshows: The bands, the performers, the crowds and even the food. For something that was still going on 24 hours ago, the first weekend of the Houston International ... More >>

“Shot in the Dark: Houston Press Concert Photo Exhibition”

Taylor Swift Coming To Minute Maid Park November 5

Marco Torres​Taylor Swift added a new batch of dates to her Speak Now tour this week, with the pop-country idol and increasingly powerful media giant coming to Minute Maid Park on November 5. If we remember correctly, the last artist to fill up the Juice Box was Madonna back in November 2008. ... More >>

SXSW: Wiz Khalifa, Trae Turn Fader Fort "Black & Yellow"

Photos by Marco TorresWiz Khalifa (left) and Trae Tha Truth​Even his Afro was "Black & Yellow." Wiz Khalifa, the blunt-smoking leader of the Taylor Gang, kept it 100 at the Fader Fort late Thursday night with a performance that proved to be everything you might expect: fun, hazy, and energeti ... More >>

SXSW Saturday: Hot Sauce Hawker Billy Gibbons Smokes Elmore James At Rachael Ray Party

Craig Hlavaty​ Billy Gibbons sat in with The Cringe at Rachael Ray's Feedback Party at Stubb's just after lunchtime for a cover of Elmore James' blues standard "Dust My Broom". The ZZ Top guitarist also mentioned his BFG hot sauce line, which he had a bottle of in his back pocket.

SXSW: Fat Tony Stops By Headhunters For A Quick Day Set

Marco Torres​Houston's own Fat Tony hooked it up at Headhunters this afternoon for a quick day set ahead of his showcase show tonight at Karma Lounge at 10:15 p.m. He just opened up for Snoop Dogg last night at the House Of Blues in Houston. Someone is having the best weekend ever.

Wu-Tang, Fishbone, Trae Top Village Voice/Frank 151 SXSW Party

Marco TorresMethod Man returns to Texas to smoke our SXSW party this year.​We finally have the full lineup for the 2011 Village Voice Media/Frank 151 SXSW party, and it's a doozy. Heading up the bill are Staten Island Shao-Lin spitters the Wu Tang clan, still coasting on their late 2010 reunio ... More >>

Z-Ro Actually Smiles, Laughs - We Have Proof!

Marco TorresZ-Ro at Arena Theatre, Jan. 22, 2011​This morning, one of Rocks Off's readers in Dallas sent us an email. In fact, that sentence was almost the headline of this blog - apparently we actually have readers up there, so maybe those North Texans Southern Oklahomans aren't as hopeless a ... More >>

Rocks Off's Favorite Shows Of 2010

Marco Torres​Editor's Picks: Mary J. Blige, Reliant Stadium (RodeoHouston), March: Exquisite. Beach House, Walter's on Washington, April: Can't hate on this one either. Magical. Wu-Tang Clan, Numbers, December: Against all odds, they brought the motherfuckin' ruckus.

Slim Thug Requests "Sympathy P*ssy" After Flight Diverted

Marco Torres​Guess who was on the Continental Airlines flight from San Jose to Houston that was diverted to Albuquerque, N.M., this morning because of a "disruptive passenger"? That's right, the Boss of All Bosses, Slim Thug. Guess how we know? That's right, Twitter. Apparently the passenge ... More >>

New Dynamo Stadium May Not Change Concert Climate Much

Marco TorresLady Gaga at Toyota Center, July 25​Conceivably, today's announcement that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority has agreed to act as landlord for the proposed Houston Dynamo stadium in downtown's East End could present a serious challenge to the Houston area's reigning concer ... More >>

Tax The Wolf Shines As Velvet Underground

Photos by Marco Torres​Who loves the sun? Tax the Wolf does. Dressed for the occasion in ties and turtlenecks, the Houston prog-rockers downshifted into downtown chic to cover most of the Velvet Underground's 1970 album Loaded at the return of Rocks Off's Reduxion Wednesday night at Walter's o ... More >>

ACL Day 3 Recap: Devendra Banhart, Band Of Horses, Other Beardos

Photos by Marco Torres​Aftermath doesn't know the bargain Austin City Limits promoter C3 Presents gets by booking both Lollapalooza and ACL, but to this dog-tired participant, this year's Zilker Park festivities ended up feeling less Austin weird and more something-something. Not that it's a ... More >>

ACL Fest Recap, Day 2: LCD Soundsytem And Bachelorette Cops

Photos by Marco Torres​ For more LCD photos and lots more besides, see our slideshow here. LCD Soundsystem is not a band. It's a six-headed snake, that glides and slithers. It's as if when they perform live they are all mentally tethered into a computer. Saturday night's Budweiser stage show ... More >>

Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 3

Marco TorresTrombone Shorty​Craig Hlavaty: News coming out of the media tent: Don Henley of the Eagles had a stent put in his heart this past week. He will be singing and possibly playing guitar, but not exerting himself on drums. This could very well be the last Eagles show for a while - if e ... More >>

You've Been Kanyed: 16 Musicians Soon To Become Verbs

Marco TorresEveryone was completely Gagaed when James Lee took several hostages at the Discovery Channel's headquarters earlier this week.​Some names become synonymous with an action - just ask Thomas Crapper. With the overwhelming fame of some superstars being beamed at us day in and day out, ... More >>

Signing Off from the HPMA Awards Ceremony

Photos by Marco TorresLee Alexander, Best Male Vocalist​Ed note: The full list of winners will be published on Rocks Off within the next half hour, so please be sure to check back Rocks Off had been using our Flip cam since before 6 p.m., so by the time Tax The Wolf took the stage at 10:10, t ... More >>

Cypress Hill's Hazy Tuesday At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marco Torres​ For more photos from the show, see our slideshow here. If Aftermath never sets foot inside another rock concert for the rest of our life, we will still more than likely not pass a drug test until our grandson's freshmen year of college thanks to the giddily oppressive conta ... More >>

Getting Stuffed at Big Bite Night

Photos by Marco TorresGuests snacking on an assortment of foods from Ra Sushi.​There's something discomfortingly meta about gnawing the spicy flesh off a piece of jerk chicken as you stand, staring idly, next to an exhibit filled with stuffed fowl: Atwater's prairie chickens, ducks, cranes, al ... More >>

Five Spot: A Crap N.O.R.E. Track Reminds Us of Bun B's Better Days

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it's either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com.Marco Torres​ Yesterday, N.O.R.E. released "Set Trip," a wispy, "Look How Tough I Am," available-via-Internet tr ... More >>