MySpace Inc.

Internetocalypse! Facebook and Gmail Go Down in the Same Afternoon

When I read yesterday that Facebook was down, only hours after Gmail servers had gone dark, I actually laughed a bit to myself because I realized I was reading it on Twitter. I began to imagine what would happen if it also had server issues. What would the world do...go back to MySpace? Then, it da ... More >>

According to This, San Antonio Has a Better Music Scene Than Houston

Like any and all lists, the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI)'s list regarding the best music scenes in the country will leave most of you passing out side-eyes and stares. Easy to spot and digest, Nashville, New York and Los Angeles ranked 1-3, but after that it's a complete flaming crapshoot. Th ... More >>

Post Carefully: Social Media Now Being Used in Court Cases

For anyone who thought the worst thing social media could do was help turn an embarrassing photo into an Internet meme that would haunt you the rest of your life, think again, Twitter fan. It could also cost you in court. Such is the case in a recent trial where a woman was found almost entirely li ... More >>

Dig This Vol. V: With Hollywood Floss & Born Again Virgins

​The current volume of local music is staggering. New Houston bands are born daily, and all too often pass away just as quickly. Rocks Off wants to help you (and ourselves) keep up. Dig This is back with another handful of local acts for your perusal. On the table today are musical innovators ... More >>

Dig This: Dig Dug, Bang Bangz, Los Skarnales, The Wiggins & Craig Kinsey

The current volume of local music is staggering, so Rocks Off wants to help you (and ourselves) keep up. Dig Dug​Dig This is back with another round of gems following some successful mining of the Internet. Here's another handful of local music acts for you to explore, including a few that yo ... More >>

Dig This: Mydolls, Second Lovers, Yello Echo, The Answer Page & //TENSE//

The current volume of local music is staggering. New Houston bands and new songs are born daily, and all too often pass away just as quickly. Rocks Off wants to help you (and ourselves) keep up. ​It's time for another installment of Dig This, wherein we inform you about the multitude of music ... More >>

Would You Sell Your Soul For A Million Twitter Followers?

​Recently, Rocks Off was rolling the List o'Craig like we do when an all caps entry screamed at us that for only $50 they would gain us thousands of Twitter followers and Facebook friends. $50? That's less than a the price of a good Lego set! However, is it a good deal? Rocks Off firmly belie ... More >>

This Looks Legit: 4 Craigslist Music Ads We Passed On

Photo by Justin Sullivan​Rocks Off likes to troll CraigsList looking for ads in the musicians section. You can often find some truly original and interesting people at the very inception of their careers. You can also find rampaging lunatics who are interesting enough to talk to. But nyone w ... More >>

Black Queen Speaks: The Perfect Band Web Site

​Not too long ago, we did a name dissection of Black Queen Speaks. As we prepared for the article, we did something we rarely do anymore, and that's go to the band's actual Web site rather than just sampling them on Facebook or (ugh) MySpace. For some reason, we decided to go straight to the o ... More >>

Radio Is Dead, MySpace Too. How Do We Find New Music?

​As both a music journalist and an actual musician, one of the things Rocks Off is always interested in is finding out how you people are finding out about the music worth finding out about. When you work for a major music blog, new music is hurled at your head at an astounding rate by both t ... More >>

Indie-Rock Band Kitchen Knife Houston Airport = Jail

MySpace.com/yellerfever​In "Me & Paul," from 1971's Yesterday's Wine, Willie Nelson sings, "Almost busted in Laredo, for reasons that I'd rather not disclose/ But if you're staying in a motel there and leave, just don't leave nothin' in your clothes." If Austin-based YellowFever covered "Me & ... More >>

"It's About Damn Time" You Heard Gotty

In Monday's mix bag we plugged a video, "It's About Damn Time" by under-the-radar - maybe not for long - 24 year-old hip-hop artist Gotty. You know, when we first took a listen, we were really digging it, but we took it for what it was - probably a track being played all over 97.9. We assumed this ... More >>

Fights! Musicians Mixing It Up

Earlier this month, Craig's Hlist witnessed no fewer than four fights during Limp Bizkit's Buzzfest set while covering the day-long festival of titties and beer. Funnily enough, those are the two (three?) things on Earth that are most likely to start fights. You drink too much of one and ... More >>

DJ Eddie Deville: Mastering Turntable Artistry; Pursuing Anesthesiology; Liking John Mayer

​ Pre-med. University of Houston. John Mayer. Atheist. Anesthesiology. These are all terms that aren't associated with hip-hop. Or could that change? Acres Homes' own Edwin Penn may change all that if he stays his course... or, should we say, passes his courses. Eddie, known better to the streets ... More >>

Mayalino's "We Alive Now" Video and Big Dan's "Lentes" Video... Trailer

​ Mayalino, your favorite JBlock Street Gang member of Southeast's Magnolia, just released a high-quality video, "We Alive Now," from his Fuck These Wet Wacks album, dropping the third week of April. "The song is really real to the Mayalino contrast, rebelling against hip-hop rules, rebelling agai ... More >>

BRWN BFLO Is Ballsy; Preemo's Concrete Dreams Passes the Time

"Illegal aliens come from all over the world, not just from the hole in the fence in San Diego." - George Lopez, "Corazon," on BRWN BFLO's self-titled album. ​Rocks Off gets lots of thank-you notes from readers showing their appreciation for giving Latino hip-hop a voice, though we find it odd. W ... More >>

Recovery Has Exorcised Lucky Luciano's Demons. This Rapper Is Clean.

In the January 5th edition of the Houston Press, you read about a small piece of Lucky Luciano's life - his addiction to drugs and alcohol and life of pimping strippers. What you didn't hear about is how he escaped death on Houston's freeways several times. You didn't hear about the time he flipped ... More >>

Our Texas High School Rock Off Preview, Part 3: Backslash, Searching for Signal and Disfunkshun

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 >>

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 >>

Our Texas High School Rock Off Preview, Part 1: Useful Information and The Paperwaits

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 >>

Coast: Not a Beach, Not a Rapper... Just Damn Good Music

COAST "I CAN'T COMPLAIN" MUSIC VIDEO from G Films on Vimeo Our mother once told us that whenever she went to the coast during life's crossroads, she felt closer to God. That's because people often take their problems to the coast, because whether they are conscious of it or not, they feel they are a ... More >>

Friday Night Noise: Musicians, Get Your Lazy Asses Off MySpace

​There's no nice way to say this, so Friday Night Noise will just say it: MySpace is not enough, and if you are at all serious about making music and serious about building an audience of fans/listeners (be it 500 or 5,000 or 50,000 or 5 million) - and by "you," FNN doesn't just mean noisers, we m ... More >>

Local Mayoral Campaigns Use Social Media, and Apparently That's News

​If you don't have eyes, ears, or a television set with that nonsensical converter box, you may not be aware that today kicks off early voting for stuff that's pretty crucial to the Houston political agenda. Not only can you stick your ballot in the box for City Council, City Controller, comm ... More >>

Social Distortion: Killing Tom Softly With MySpace's Song

Oh, 2006. Long lost 2006. The Golden Age of MySpace. Remember MySpace? That social networking site you logged into obsessively before the advent of Facebook and after Friendster's demise? Where Microsoft Paint made a fourth-quarter comeback in the image editing (and annotating) arena? Where b ... More >>

This Just In: The Flatlanders Cancel Cactus In-Store Gig

This morning word came from Cactus Music, via a quick MySpace bulletin, that the Flatlanders' in-store performance set for Saturday afternoon has been cancelled. No reason was given for the band backing out of the midday appearance. The roots-rock supergroup, made up of Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmor ... More >>

Morning MP3s: The Jonbenet's "The Sun"

Witch HammerThe dudes in scorched-earth hardcore crew the Jonbenet found time recently to record two new tracks and a re-record another, the tour chronicle "Memphis Blues." The three hellish blasts hit the band's MySpace just this past week, and we have "The Sun" right here. The band turns six yea ... More >>

MySpaced Out: "Fuck Radiohead" and Some Twisted Tennesseeans

Aurélie Decourteix The Russian Sextoys: No Thom Yorke fans, they.MySpace is a great place for discovering off-the-wall tunes and performers. Here are three wack jobs from cyberspace that hail from that weird place that Captain Beefheart found so easily and in so many forms. The Russian Sext ... More >>

MySpaced Out: Vive La France!

Les KiffeursFrance is easily one of my favorite MySpace music destinations. I've stumbled on so much cool stuff I've had to start keeping a notebook. Here are a few of the most interesting artists I've tuned in to lately. Les Kiffeurs (Paris): Loosely translating as people who like to take pl ... More >>

T.I.

RIP Bob Dylan?

At first, when Rocks Off saw this flyer (right) come over ye olde MySpace, we didn't really give it much thought. It looked like a decent night of tunes from a bunch of dead rockers - maybe some "Lithium", a little "Purple Haze." After all, the night is dedicated to rockers who have gone on to t ... More >>

MySpaced Out: When Publicists Attack

It was War of the Worlds author H.G. Wells who famously said, "Advertising is legalized lying." I recently had the unpleasant occasion to have a brief tete-a-tete with a young lady in the music public relations business. They call themselves "publicists." Not liars. It all began innocently enough, ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Miss Mykie

Top Secret: Flash Mob at Westheimer Block Party

A New and Improved Houstoned Rocks

MySpaced Out: A MySpace Mixtape

Labei Ritual

Dainty dames get down with death metal

MySpaced Out: Fortress Europe

Flash Mob: Walking Backwards in the Galleria

You’ve Got a Friend in Drenched

Tiger Army

Psychobilly punks are nearing radio-friendly territory

Move Over, MySpace: Not So Fast

Local musicians aren't ready to write off MySpace just yet

Move Over, MySpace

With friends like these...

Sex Offenders on MySpace? No Way!

Dan Hunter and the MySpace Race

Can clicks become sales?

The Upside of MySpace

How it's changed things for the better

That Girl Is Top Eight Material

Faster Pussycat! Grind! Grind!

Online Confessions

An alleged killer bares all on MySpace

Angular Acid-Glam Gorecore?

Too much music, too many genres

Electric Avenue

Is MySpace.com the future of the music business, or just another Web site?