New Order (Band)

The Best of Coachella, Weekend One

Ed. Note: Rocks Off proudly presents to our readers coverage of Coachella's first weekend courtesy of our sister papers LA Weekly and OC Weekly. Karen O's Outfit Karen O's wardrobe on Friday night was bad-ass. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman appeared on the main stage in a technicolor cape draped o ... More >>

Last Night: New Order at Coachella

New Order Coachella April 13,2013 While over at the main stage the bulk of the Coachella crowd was enduring Phoenix with the hope that Daft Punk would come out -- they instead got R. Kelly -- a smaller but perhaps more enthusiastic crowd got a first-rate greatest hits set from New Order Saturday n ... More >>

Saturday Night: The xx at House of Blues

The xx, Austra House of Blues February 9, 2013 For a band that revels in bringing icy silence to post-punk, it could be relatively easy for The xx to lose all of that so-called "negative space" when playing to a cavernous venue packed to the gills with Houston concertgoers who love to talk. The ve ... More >>

Coachella 2013 Takes It Back to the '90s

Coachella, the Only Music Festival That Matters (or so we're told), announced its 2013 lineup late Thursday night, no holograms or Rolling Stones included. Instead, two beloved '90s UK acts whose popularity in the U.S. is spotty at best, Blur and the Stone Roses, headline the first night of the tw ... More >>

A "New-Old" New Order Album? We'll Take It!

While we all wait for the remaining members of New Order to do more expansive touring (read: Houston or Austin and not just Dallas) or record new material, their camp released a mini-album from the Waiting For the Sirens' Call sessions in 2004. For now, we will take what we can get. Lost Sirens ... More >>

The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1979

All this week, Rocks Off will be looking at the biggest years for goth music, and exactly what they meant for the genre. Like any good structure, goth is built on the foundations of other previous cultures. You can walk back through David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and all the way ... More >>

Who's Ripping Off the '80s This Year?: The 5 Biggest Offenders

In case you hadn't noticed, the '80s are back. They have been for a few years, but it seems like with each passing year we get more and more new bands wearing their influences on their sleeve. That's putting it mildly. The influence is, in fact, so pervasive as to make these bands practically offens ... More >>

Merchandise

The 5 Best Shows In Houston This Week: Victor Wooten, Merchandise, etc.

Victor Wooten San Jacinto College Central Victor Wooten is the kind of musician who leaves other musicians, especially bass players, in awe. One of his four older brothers taught Wooten the four-string arts at age three, and he's gone on to a distinguished career that includes stints with both jazz ... More >>

Yes, Public Image Ltd Is Playing Scout Bar

The runoff attached to Fun Fun Fun Fest during the first weekend in November has paid off for Houston, which will see dates from Baroness -- fingers crossed, Tomahawk, Converge, Red Fang, Valient Thorr, and now Public Image Ltd. The post-Sex Pistols John Lydon project will play Clear Lake's Scout ... More >>

Saturday Night: Cafe Tacuba at House of Blues

Cafe Tacuba House of Blues August 18, 2012 Imagine for just a second that Fishbone, the raucous L.A. band that threw all sorts of music into a blender with minor success in the late '80s and early '90s, grew to an award-winning, arena-size act that could draw tens or even hundreds of thousands of p ... More >>

8 Musical Activities That Should Be Olympic Sports

After years of preparation, unprecedented security, and a Mitt Romney gaffe or two, the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London get underway about 3 p.m. Houston time. At the same time, multitudes will gather in nearby Hyde Park for a free concert with Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, ... More >>

Wild Moccasins: Zahira Gutierrez's Top 10 New Wave Songs

Have you seen the Wild Moccasins? Rocks Off is starting to get a little worried. Just kidding. Houston's favorite indie-pop quintet has been strangely scarce recently, working their day jobs and getting ready to head out for a month of dates with Michigan don't-call-them-emo crew Saturday Looks Goo ... More >>

Top 10 Local Covers Of Famous Songs

A good cover song must reach a perfect balance between innovation and preserving the original's appeal. There have been some really great covers from Houston's music scene, and we wanted to pay tribute to them.

Orgy

Cool Britannia: Your Essential Britpop Playlist

It was announced this week that British bands Blur, New Order and the Specials will be performing at the closing ceremonies of this year's Summer Olympics, which will be held in London in July and August. All three bands represent three distinct parts of British popular music from past 35 years. We ... More >>

Happy Birthday Bernard Sumner: Our Favorite New Order Songs

For about the past month I have been in a New Order phase, which started in earnest the day that I picked up their 1993 documentary, New Order Story, in it's expanded form with a separate disc of all their music videos, at a thrift store. With lead singer and guitarist Bernard Sumner's birthday to ... More >>

5 Bands Your Musician Friends Love...But You Don't

austinpost.comYep. Robert Plant "copped everything" from this guy.​In a 2005 interview with Esquire, Johnny Depp discusses the unwavering authenticity of Hunter S. Thompson, and likens his late friend to another great, often-troubled mind, saying: "...like Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elev ... More >>

Anything Box: "A Change in My Destiny" For '90s Synth Stars

Last year DJ Rob Ehlinger brought a surprise hit to Houston when he convinced Claude Strilio to bring Anything Box of "Living in Oblivion" fame to Numbers for a performance. The show ended up as a packed, breathless success that can be held up as an example that Houston may be reclaiming its place a ... More >>

Forrest Gump & Other "Generation-Defining" Soundtracks

​The Forrest Gump soundtrack debuted on June 28, 1994, a week ahead of the film itself, which would go on to smash box-office records, win numerous awards and become one of the most beloved movies of the past 20 years. It is still endlessly quotable, emotional, and entertaining, and the soundt ... More >>

Top 10 Musician WTF Hobbies

Zazzle.com​Musicians are weird. Well, the good ones, at least. It's a little-known, beloved factoid. While artists' news, drama, and private lives are sometimes aired to the point of over-saturation, it becomes more interesting when we learn relatively kept insight into their rockers' offstage ... More >>

Rough Justice: Bloodthirsty Bar Greets Bin Laden's Death

ericalessandrini.blogspot.com​Osama bin Laden is dead. Following a late dinner at Van Loc Sunday, Rocks Off was a block or two away from Leon's Lounge when a friend texted us the news around 10 p.m. When we entered the bar, our buddy Lonesome Onry and Mean's daughter in the military had just ... More >>

Top 10 Pop Songs With Children's Choruses

​On the way home from ACL this past Sunday night, Craig's Hlist had his Rdio account humming over the speakers playing one of his playlists (phlayhlist?), but not the sad-bastard mix we rocks whenever we are at work alone. It was the life-spanning one we have been making since we got on the mu ... More >>

Happy Anniversary, Nirvana's Nevermind

​This past Friday, a significant musical anniversary came and went with barely a peep. It was only 19 years to the day the last album to cause a legitimate sea change in popular music - both the industry and the art - was released. Rocks Off knows that was a few days ago, but hey, we had a bus ... More >>

Fitzgerald's Reopens With A Hint Of Things To Come

Photos by Jim Bricker​For more photos from Thursday's reopening, see our slideshow here. "I want this place to be the nexus of local music. It's going to be the anti-Mangos," Omar Afra told Rocks Off as he points out the changes made to the second floor of Fitzgerald's on Thursday night as it ... More >>

Open Tab: Rocks Off's New Houston Bar Column

Pull up a chair, start a tab and order a round of shots, because this is Rocks Off's weekly roundup of the goings-on in the Houston bar scene. Ups and downs, openings and closings, we will cover it all. Hit us up with any hot tips at craig.hlavaty@houstonpress.com. Paul Knight​ Rocks Off has ... More >>

Going Platinum: Artists We'd Pay $10,000 To See - And When

​It started one night on the patio of Big Star Bar in the Heights; over Lone Star and cigarettes, a handful of Houston music wags debated the shows they would pay top dollar to see from lartists, iving or dead. We argued the aspects of an At the Drive-In reformation, seeing Sam Cooke in 1963, ... More >>

Acts We Think - OK, Hope - Are Playing ACL Fest This Year

​By this time Tuesday, we will all know who is playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in October. Damn, it seems like we have speculating about the line-up since, well, we got the last of the "Dillo Dirt" out the middle of our toes after last year's muddy and rainy ACL weekend. Tuesday brig ... More >>

Rocks Off Sets You Straight On Musical Happy Hours

​On newsstands now - or soon, depending on where in the metro area you live - you will find the Houston Press' new cover story, "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" - a guide to Jimmy Buffett's discography our city's varied, vibrant happy-hour scene, in which Rocks Off had some input. Naturally, we cover ... More >>

Wine Me Up: Houston's Top 5 Cougar Dens

​There are few things in this life that young Rocks Off loves more than a gang of cougars on the town spilling wine on the ground and trying to light the wrong end of a borrowed cigarette whilst slurring in our direction that she likes our tattoos before drunkenly pawing at us. We think it's a men ... More >>

UK Web Site Shines "Unsigned Spotlight" on Houston's Watermarks

myspace.com/thewatermarksThe Watermarks at Warehouse Live, September 2009​ ​When Rocks Off wrote about Houston electro-rockers the Watermarks' Thoughts Like Bombs back in May, we said a song or two off the quintet's five-song EP - still available as a free download on the band's Web site - remin ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs from the Year We Were Born That We Still Listen To, Part 2

​When He Said began researching the music that came out the year we were born, 1983, we were taken aback by how much of this music has warped, shaped and informed our life. Pretty much all of the albums and bands that were prevalent that year are still on our turntables and playlists. Why just thi ... More >>

Aftermath: An Exuberant Pre-Halloween Show With The Factory Party, Ringo Deathstarr and Springfield Riots at the Mink

Photos by Adam P. NewtonThe Factory Party​In Aftermath's opinion, there are few things more enjoyable than spending an evening together with friends at the beloved haunt that is the Mink. We're able to toss back a drink or four, catch up on each other's lives, and hopefully hear some really great ... More >>

Ain't No Party (Around Here) Like Houston's The Factory Party

www.myspace.com/thefactorypartymusic​ It always amazes Rocks Off how we'll start liking one band - Bunnymen-loving London post-punks White Lies, in this case - and then a little while later, stumble across a local band who could be their twin. If only, you know, they weren't from halfway around th ... More >>

He Said, She Said: Gone Too Soon

A rash of recent musical deaths (Michael Jackson and DJ AM among others) have led us here at Rocks Off to do some speculating of our own: Which musicians do we feel were taken from us too soon? Obvious answers like the Famous Js (John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin) or the dual ... More >>

No Exit

Blondie casts a wide net indeed on the band's Last.fm station.

He Said She Said: Breakup Songs to Help You Bawl, Part 2

Ever since men and women set eyes upon each other at the beginning of time, there have been break-ups, and painful dissolutions of romantic escapades have made the best art in the world. Hell, somewhere in the world there is a probably a cave painting of a pretty young Neanderthal girl with devil h ... More >>

Tuna Does Vegas

Sodomites Beware: Vera and her pals are on the road to Sin City

George Strait Week, Part 3: George's 10 Commandments

As sad and downbeat as George Strait can be, the dude can also get hella domineering. When he's not doing his best Cajun jams or crying in his beer, he's telling you to do things. Nothing dirty - sorry, Mom - he just wants you to carry out various tasks for him. We read in a magazine somewhere that ... More >>

Aftermath: Pete Yorn at Meridian

Mark C. AustinPete Yorn has been and will always be "sad bastard music" to Aftermath's ears. One thing that has always interested us about the forlorn tunes that seem to drip from Yorn's fingers is how big of a female audience he has. We have quietly hypothesized that somehow women are drawn to li ... More >>

Aftermath: The McKenzies, the Howlies and Springfield Riots at the Mink

Photos by Chris GrayThe McKenzies To Aftermath, the Mink's Backroom has always seemed more like a house than a music venue - especially inside, with the dark floors, corner bars and abundant, comfortable seating, it's like one of those cozy but spacious multi-resident dwellings where we all went to ... More >>

Capsule Art Reviews: "Anthony Thompson Shumate: Novus Ordo Seclorum," "Carlos Cruz-Diez: Crosswalk," "Literally Figurative," "Perspectives 166: Torsten Slama"

Capsule Art Reviews: "Anthony Thompson Shumate: Novus Ordo Seclorum," "The Art Guys: New Clichés," "Measuring Your Own Grave," Round 30: Home. Space. Place.

Bayou City Buzz

Houston's SXSW class — and we mean class — of 2009

Spring Cleaning

Tuna Does Vegas in Galveston

Let the silliness begin

Hooked Up

The Sound of Money

Rotation

Press Picks