MySpace Inc.

Dig This Vol. VII With Western Standards, Dead Mineral & The End Of Young Girls?

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. Courtesy of Dead Mineral​Stay seated smugly at that desk and continue tossing that half-priced Halloween candy ... More >>

What Do Rappers Have Against Facebook?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Every Monday (or thereabouts) that isn't a national holiday, Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​This Week's Panel: Z-Ro, Slim Thug, hasHBrown, Kirk ... More >>

Roky Moon & BOLT!, Glam-Rock Monsters Of Midtown

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. Marc BrubakerRoky Moon at the ... More >>

Young Sensation Has All The Answers

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place - lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good - so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. ... More >>

Stefani Vara's Operation Musical Rewrite

​ Wednesday, just a few minutes shy of 4 p.m., Stefani Vara was driving from Corpus Christi back to her home in Houston after a quick day trip. It had been a while since she heard Tejano music. It's what she grew up with and she realized she missed it. She realized it was part of her roots...part ... More >>

Dead Prez Taps "Richmond Revolutionary" Lee-Coc To Open

Photos by Kris SearsM1 of Dead Prez at the Houston Palestine Film Festival​ Lee-Coc at the HPFF​The Houston Palestine Film Festival (HPFF), which features a wide range of films that highlight the unique strength and struggle of the Palestinian people featured the legendary M1 from Dead Prez on S ... More >>

Twilight: Eclipse And Other Promising Summer Soundtracks

​Summer isn't just the time to look forward to astronomically budgeted, noisy, overproduced blockbuster films, it's also the time to look forward to astronomically budgeted, noisy, overproduced blockbuster soundtracks. Is Graeme Revell still dicking around with ProTools? He is? Oh, super! Anyway, ... More >>

The Eastern Sea: TV-Savvy, Wife-Approved

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. ​Summerfest, the mega-music fe ... More >>

Little Joe Washington Is A National Treasure

Photos by Mark Britain​ For more pictures from Saturday night, see our slideshow here. Aftermath is still trying to get our heads around what we witnessed at Saturday night's benefit for the International House of Blues Foundation in House of Blues' Bronze Peacock Room. In a way, it was one of tho ... More >>

J-Dawg is HataProof; Lucky Luciano Blows Candles At Zona Latina; Fort Worth Holds it Down for Latino Hip-Hop

J-Dawg BHO CD Release Party 4-16-2010 from Hata Proof Films on Vimeo. Over the weekend, J-Dawg of the Boss Hogg Outlawz paid a visit to Hata Proof Records on the Northside for a CD release signing of his anticipated Behind The Tint, Vol. 2. You'll remember the piece we did on Big Cease and the multi ... More >>

Catching Up With Sharks & Sailors

Photos by John Van/ myspace.com/sharksandsailors​ Sharks and Sailors last played in Houston in the summer of 2008, riding high on its second release, Builds Brand New, and the resulting accolades. The band--bassist/vocalist Melissa Lonchambon, guitarist/vocalist Michael Rollin, and drummer Phillip ... More >>

The Hot Seat: Athena Anesti, Houston Entrepreneuress And Five-Star Chick

​ Writing on hip-hop, we see lots of hip-hop videos, so we see lots of video girls igniting our manly senses, but few make us want to know more about them. They're hot. They serve their purpose. Game over. But Houston's Athena Anesti took our damn breath away. When we recognized her on our MySpace ... More >>

Ask A Rapper: Uzoy On Some Absolutely Awful Rapper Names

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good - so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email it to introducingliston ... More >>

Behind the Lyrics: From B-Boy to D-Boy, Mayalino Makes Believers Of Those Who Find His Music

Mayalino - "True Story" from FULL FLEDGE ENTERTAINMENT on Vimeo. We don't know how many times Michael "5000" Watts has hosted a mixtape and didn't chop and screw it down. We can't imagine it's been many. We don't know how many times extremely respected producer Happy Perez has heard an artist on My ... More >>

Goth-Rock Icon and Web Recluse Daniel Ash on His New It's a Burn Out EP

​Every Goth in Houston knows, or should know, that if you want to know what's up or going down with any major Goth musician from the '80s or '90s, then all you have to do is keep an eye on Lonnie Locascio's MySpace or Facebook. Between being on a first-name basis with Robert Smith and having inter ... More >>

"Weird" and Proud, Preemo Understands the Meaning of "Hustle Town"

​ We think "Weird Al" Yankovic screwed it up for everybody. There aren't lots of times you can use the word "weird" in a good way. That's one of those words we need to take back, on the real, because when you put "weird" into the right context it can be a positive thing - a differentiator from th ... More >>

Cesar Lozano, Illegal Alien, Is Now Big Cease, American Dream Come True

​ The video that usually crowns our Latino hip-hop blog is going to come at the end of our story today, because without explaining how the American Dream has evolved, the music video won't be given the meaning it deserves. First, you need to know that the American Dream takes on many forms. The Am ... More >>

Behind the Lyrics: Although Rap Doesn't Pay His Bills, the Northside's Stunta "Keeps It 100"

STUNTA "I'm 100" Music Video from G Films on Vimeo. The last time Rocks Off hooked up with Stunta, there was lots of talk about "keeping it 100." "When I say I'm bein' 100 I'm basically sayin' I'm being 100 percent authentic, 100 percent true to myself and to anybody else," he says. "So to say 'Kee ... More >>

Friday Night Noise: The 10 Best Noise Records of the 2000s

​ Here are Friday Night Noise's favorite ten 00s noise albums, in no particular order. Was this an easy list to make? Fuck no. 1. Various Artists, Women Take Back The Noise (UBUIBI) Roughly 10,000 noise compilations were issued in the 00s, but how many came with a noise-making device? How many cam ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Dear Local Musicians, Grammy Consideration Is Not the Same Thing As Grammy Nominations

Ah, here we go again with local artists trumpeting "Grammy nominations." The latest is Atascocita-grown country singer Susan Hickman, who seems to fancy herself as a Miranda Lambert/Martina McBride type. We stumbled across Hickman accidentally through MySpace's "Status Updates," and our eye was imm ... 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 >>

Ask a Rapper: Troublesum on Why There Are Always So Many People Standing Onstage

The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place - lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good - so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email it to introducinglisto ... More >>

MP3 of the Day: Passengers' Leather-Scented Death Dirges

​Somewhere down our dark and booze-addled alley lies the sound of Passengers. Rising from the pieces of mod-punks Teenage Kicks, comes copious amounts of grimy leather-scented organ-infused Krautrock. This is the kind of music that the Brian Jonestown Massacre was making in the mid-'90s before Ant ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Taking a Shot at Cold Shot

www.myspace.com/houstonsbestrockband LOM's significant other got a MySpace friend request from local cover band Cold Shot yesterday. Now I have about as much use for cover bands as I do a dull pocket knife, but everyone has to make a living, I guess, and we aren't all qualified to be pole dancers at ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Daylight Coma

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com. Growing up, we were big fa ... More >>

For April 1: The Five Best "Fool" Movies, No Kidding

Whether somebody posted those drunken emails you mistakenly sent to the entire company on their MySpace or you merely wasted valuable internet time last night making sure your computer was protected against the "Conficker" virus (*cough*), you may very find yourself the victim of a prank this April ... More >>

How About Some SXSW Day Parties? A LOT of SXSW Day Parties?

We here at Rocks Off are only about a week away from chafed inner thighs, weird Japanese punk bands puking in hotel pools and sweating out our morning mojitos while walking to an art space off 4th Street. South By Southwest is now only a week away. It was all fun and games in December when we w ... More >>

Free 7" from Room 101

Local/Chicago one-man noisenik Room 101 isn't letting a silly thing like the economic crisis stop him from releasing music - he's just decided to give it away. Email him at robface1@hotmail.com and he'll send you a copy of his brand-new four-song 7", complete with artwork by Winston Smith, who ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Miss Buffy

Each Wednesday (barring holidays), Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com. We're ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Debbie Forrest

This One Time at BandCamp

In the Shade: News on the March to play around 3-ish

What's the Problem Houston?

The city's skuzzy alt-rock scene thinks it is dying

SXSW Day 1: Tricks of the Trade

Drenched in Blog: Weird SXSW Alert: Care Bears on Fire

Cover Story: Saving Lobo from Montgomery County's Animal Control Department

Asylum Street Spankers

Austin’s vaudevillian country and blues rockers

Drenched In Blog: Being Thankful for JFK Conspiracy Theories

The American Sharks

Get ready to dance your ass off

All Up in the Ozone

Hunter Ward, R.I.P.

Montrose knew him as a Poor Dumb Bastard. His family knew him as a talented, bright brother and son.

KOBAIN

ITALIAN MARGARITA

Explain Your Most Played

Ghetto Class, You!

Killer Page, Your Honor!

Beer and Porn

Once again, the TABC tries to ruin bachelor life

The Raw Power of Really Smooth Music

Climb aboard the Yacht Rock revolution at this week's Michael McDonald/Steely Dan show

Big Show

Screw October

Justin Furstenfeld orders us to hate him. We obey.

No More Pussy

Fabricated pop groups are nothing new, but these Dolls are more than bad -- they're a threat