Motley Crue

EPIC: The 20 Most Overused Terms In SXSW Band Bios

Before I take any trip to Austin and SXSW, I always take more than a few days to peruse the schedule and check out a few of the hundreds of names on the roster and read their bios. Some years there are more bands with "wolf" and "space" in their monikers than usual, and some years there are random ... More >>

Woodlands Pavilion Moves Up to World's No. 2 Amphitheatre, Says Pollstar

Houston's edgy restaurants and diverse museums may have drawn the attention of The New York Times, but both alternative and classic rockers, plus brawny country stars, scattered boy bands and Latin lovers, drew enough people through the turnstiles of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion that concert- ... More >>

What Was Your Favorite Concert at The Summit?

It must be music-venue day today. Rocks Off would like to thank Jon Harvey of Houston (@oompahead) for alerting us via Twitter to the fact that on this day in 1975, when I was a few weeks away from turning one year old, the sports and entertainment arena then known as the Summit opened in Greenway P ... More >>

Wanna Feel Old? These Are Pamela Anderson And Tommy Lee's Kids

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee and pinup gal Pamela Anderson were one of the most read-about and photographed couples of the '90s. Their leaked honeymoon sex tape would make millions for porn company IEG and it would cement Lee's legend as a wangsman of the highest order and make lonely men and young ... More >>

Digital Endorsement: 10 Artists Who Will Gladly Mention Your Business On Twitter

As a culture it appears that we've stopped caring about the idea of selling out. Whether it's because we've learned that record sales don't always pay the bills, have started seeing artists as humans instead of paragons of creative integrity, or simply stopped caring, artists saddling up with corpor ... More >>

Kiss, Mötley Crüe

Pollstar: Woodlands Pavilion Now World's No. 3 Amphitheater

The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, site of Sunday night's aromatic 311 show, has long been one of the country's busiest concert venues, usually ranking at or near the top in annual attendance. Now it's officially one of the busiest in the world. In concert trade publication Pollstar's new survey ... More >>

The 8 Most Bro-Tastic Bands of All Time

"Hipster." The word is older than you think: it pops up in an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry refers to Kramer as a "hipster doofus." It even predates that by many years. A few years ago, it was convenient shorthand to refer to someone who overcompensates, who tries too hard to be unique and inter ... More >>

The Case Against Change: Five Acts Whose Sound Evolved for the Worse

If you're one of the many Muse fans around the world or you checked out Nathan's excellent post last week, then you've probably seen the teaser the band put out for their new album, The 2nd Law. To say it's been controversial with a certain segment of their fanbase is putting it lightly. Some people ... More >>

Girls, Girls, Girls At 25: Anatomy Of A Strip-Club Classic

Mötley Crüe, those depraved kings of '80s sleaze, took a major step toward strip-club immortality 25 years ago this week when the band released its fourth album, Girls, Girls, Girls.. Glossy, debauched heavy metal ruled the charts in the summer of 1987 -- Whitesnake, Ozzy, Bon Jovi and Poison all ... More >>

Stryper

Bret Michaels

The 71's Raise An Astounding $12K For Latest Album

​Just how viable is Kickstarter in helping an up-and-coming band to raise funds? As much as it saddens us to admit it, it mostly seems to fail. However, for one of our favorite local rock acts, the 71's, it has been an astounding success. Fans of the band have raised a mind-boggling $12,541 f ... More >>

Are Streaming Sites Ensuring The Music Industry's Long-Term Survival?

The look on my face when I couldn't hear "Temporary Secretary" on Rdio.​This past week, Paul McCartney's team pulled most of his catalog - including his works with Wings - off streaming music sites such as Rdio, Rhapsody, Spotify and MOG. Listeners are now deprived of Band On the Run, Back To ... More >>

Is Dave Grohl Rebooting Probot With Hair Metal Kings Ratt? Maybe So...

Dave Grohl and Ratt team up​When Dave Grohl released his Probot project in February 2004, it opened a whole new world of metal to a new legion of kids whose only exposure to the hard stuff may have been whatever was on MTV or VH1 Classic. Here was Grohl teaming up with crusty scumlords like Le ... More >>

Pop Rocks on Sting: "Rock Stars...Is There Anything They Don't Know?"

You rotten flexible bastard.​ Sting. He's the artist we love to hate: Sting, everyone's favorite somnambulant acoustic pop star, has developed a somewhat checkered experience in Central Asia. In 2009, Gulnara Karimova--herself a fledgling pop singer under the name GooGooSha and daughter of ... More >>

Top 5 Musician Novelists

Ted Barron/New West RecordsSteve Earle: What's up, Doc?​Despite what our paychecks and sometimes even our diplomas say, the perception persists that music journalists are not "real" journalists. Similarly, no matter how literate their lyrics, some folks think musicians could not possibly put p ... More >>

The Best Songs From 1958

​This Saturday is Craig's Hlist's father's birthday, and the man turns 53. Sorry to out your age, Dad, but it's for science. This week while doing other research, we found that most people whose art we enjoy were actually born in 1958. People like Alec Baldwin, Prince, Jello Biafra, Jools Holl ... More >>

Children Tackle Hair Metal, Awkwardly, In Monster Ballads

​In our usual mail haul this morning, Rocks Off received an invitation to a porn store's grand re-opening (natch), a copy of the brand-new Fucked Up album, David Comes To Life, and the anxiously awaited Kidz Bop Sings Monster Ballads that we have been anxiously awaiting since its creation was ... More >>

Top 10 Musician Tweets About Bin Laden's Death

​Last night, this member of Rocks Off was sitting at a pizza parlor off Ella when he found out that our military killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. It was a monumental moment in time, as we sat back and looked at the past decade and half of our lives, since we learned his name in 1998 with th ... More >>

Top 10 Recent TV-Show Soundtracks

​A few choice adjectives come to mind when musing on bawdy Eastbound & Down character Kenny Powers. "Inspiring" is not one of them. However, as Rocks Off watched this week's season finale of the side-splitting HBO series, we were pleasantly surprised as we heard indie troubadour Kurt Vile's a ... More >>

House Of Blues Extends Tax-Free Merch Sale Through 7 p.m. Today

​House of Blues has extended its "Great Rock 'N' Roll Sample Sale" to a second day, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today in the Bronze Peacock Room. Sales tax for all merchandise, available for as low as $3 for CDs and hats (Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, KISS) or even $1 for tour programs (Springstee ... More >>

Top 10 Celebrity Music-Video Cameos

​Ratt, "Round and Round" Thursday night, Ratt hits up Warehouse Live with what passes for their original line-up. At their peak, the band was a gritty and decadent alternative to bands like Poison, skewing closer to Motley Crue in terms of excess and drug abuse. ​The band managed to ... More >>

MTV Struggles to Remain Relevant By Naming A Twitter Jockey

​This week MTV announced an online campaign looking for the network's first-ever TJ, or Twitter Jockey. Unlike the video jockeys of the cable station's past, these folks would instead live-tweet from MTV events for a year, earning a salary, and live in New York City. In addition to Twitter, th ... More >>

Busted! 20 Musician Mugshots

​ Getting arrested and booked isn't the end of the world, by any means. Well unless you just killed a shit-ton of people at a bowling alley or something, it really is. But if you are a rocker or a celebrity who committed a minor offense, it's just a funny footnote in your public life you can look ... More >>

Godsmacked: 27 Years Of Mouthwash Buzz And Birthday Shame

​This coming Monday, Craig's Hlist enters his 27th year of decadence and shame. One year closer to 30, with no signs of getting wiser or smarter. This year we have no clue as to what to do or where to go, other than see live music and drink too much. But that's a typical weekend anyway and will mo ... More >>

Get Lit: I Am Ozzy by John Michael Osbourne

​In the long line of rock and roller autobiographies, there is a tried and true formula. You must always recall your humble troubled beginnings, like Anthony Kiedis did with 2004's heroin-addled tome Scar Tissue. Or you single-handedly re-write your own already decadent folklore like Motley Crue d ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs That Make Us Feel Like a Man, Baby!

Mad Men's Christina Hendricks makes us feel like a man in the best possible way...​He Said's view of manhood wasn't built on sweat and labor the way most guys would probably say. Early on in our musical journey, we always equated music to being sleazy and slithery, or just dancing. It makes sense ... More >>

What Would Jesus Jam? Christian Bands Who Found Secular Success

​Save for a few modern screamo bands like Underoath and the rap-rocking P.O.D., few Christian rock bands have had has as much an impact in mainstream secular music than the Bible-flinging Stryper. In the mid to late '80s the band was the premier Holy Ghost-filled metal band during a time when most ... More >>

He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss): Chris Brown and Other Infamous Musical Woman-Beaters

See the rest of Rihanna's 20/20 interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer here. Chris Brown brings his "Fan Appreciation Tour" to town this weekend, leading to several questions. Not the least of which are, "Who the hell is still a fan of this guy?" And, "Will his 'appreciation' of same take some form ... More >>

Crypticon Countdown: Michael Berryman On Star Trek, Motley Crue And Brandon Lee

Photo courtesy Crypticon​There's no mistaking horror-movie stalwart Michael Berryman. The actor suffers from a rare condition called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, which is characterized by few or no sweat glands and lack of hair or fingernails. However, Berryman's distinctive appearance has ... More >>

Aftermath: Alice Cooper's "Theatre of Death" at Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Craig Hlavaty/ Click here for a slideshow​ Who needs to go to an Alice Cooper show more: the 34-year-old satisfying his curiosity or the 61-year-old onstage for whom the gate receipts will buy many, many rounds at Pebble Beach? The 44-year-old whose eyes are blacked out like Alice's or t ... More >>

Five Artists Motel 6 Would Rather Not Give Free Rooms, Including John Mayer

canada.com​In a move sure to boost occupancy among skinny jeans-wearing hipsters while simultaneously driving regular families away by the family truckster-load, Motel 6 is running a promotion to give free rooms to up-and-coming bands: "Here's how it works: Motel 6 will give free rooms to developi ... More >>

Five Hour Energy

The 2009 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase in 300 minutes or less.

Low Man's Joe: Where I Stand

Summer Sounds

Enough shows to keep concertgoers busy all season long

Local Album of the Week: Low Man's Joe's Where I Stand

Low Man's Joe Where I Stand www.myspace.com/lowmansjoeBefore "Wanted Dead or Alive," before "It's My Life," before Jon Bon Jovi went off to Hollywood and took the Lost Highway through Nashville in 2007, Bon Jovi was a pretty decent hard-rock band. Poppier than most, definitely, but Jon's Springsteen ... More >>

RTX

Bret Michaels

Give Us a Hand

Vince Neil, Quiet Riot, Slaughter

Vince Neil, Quiet Riot and Slaughter perform Friday, July 27, at Sam Houston Race Park, 7575 N. Sam Houston Parkway West, 281-807-8700.

ZULA'S ESPRESSO MARTINI

Mötley Goüge

Wanna hang out with Vince Neil? Got an extra five grand on ya?

Bling Twango

Big & Rich delivers country music without prejudice

Our top DVD picks for the week of October 25

Sex, Drugs and Jeff Tweedy's National Geographic Collection

Rock memoirs take us behind the music

Rotation

Playbill

The Donnas

Tommy Lee Uncensored!

The drummer with the big stick bares all about jail, Motley Crue and Pamela Anderson