Nine Inch Nails

Top 10 Educated Guesses for Free Press Summer Fest

Tomorrow, we will know who will be playing the fifth annual Free Press Summer Fest June 1 and 2 in Eleanor Tinsley Park. We know this because Monday, our rivals over at the Houston Chronicle revealed that they will have an exclusive announcement of the FPSF lineup sometime Thursday, thanks to what w ... More >>

Texans-Titans: The Best Rapper Tweets

The 20 Greatest Goth Albums: The Complete List

BY JEF WITH ONE F AND CHRIS GRAY 20. Marilyn Manson Antichrist Superstar (Interscope, 1996) So squalid and deeply unpleasant it's mesmerizing, Antichrist Superstar is such an intricate dissection of how to become a "rock star" it could have come from a biology lab. Then 24 or 25, Manson gets so fa ... More >>

Top 10 Mark Romanek Videos

Today is the 53rd birthday of Mark Romanek. Though he's a perfectly legit Hollywood director of great films like One Hour Photo and Never Let Me Go, he is also responsible for some of the greatest music videos of all time. For 20 years he has worked with top-level performers, and today we celebrate ... More >>

10 Heavy Metal Double Albums That Make Us Want to Buy a Turntable

This week, one of our most highly anticipated albums of the summer was released: Baroness' Yellow & Green. We were already looking forward to hearing whatever came next from the Georgia rockers after the success of their epic Blue Record in 2009, but we got especially excited when we found out that ... More >>

Texas Sons The Mars Volta Strip Down To Progress With New Album, Movie

El Paso natives Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta have long been known for their bombast and progressive-rock self-indulgence. Ever since they departed the seminal post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, they've spent their time making what can only be described as "epics." ... More >>

Amerika: Rammstein Finally Hitting Houston In 2012

Yes, those are fireworks, Beavis. ​Popular German industrial group Rammstein hits Houston on May 25, 2012 for a date at the Toyota Center. This will be the band's first Houston date since their formation, but they have played sporadic dates at points elsewhere in Texas over the years. This is a ... More >>

10 Great Pictures Of Johnny Cash

​Do you remember where you were when you found out that Johnny Cash passed away, on September 12, 2003? This member of Rocks Off was in our tiny S-10 pickup, delivering pizzas somewhere in Pearland, when one of the country stations he was flipping through delivered the news that the Man In Bla ... More >>

Purple, Possessed & Pervy: Rock's Top 10 Houses

harleyslist.blogspot.comJohn Lennon and Yoko Ono in a happy pose in front of their home (and future site of Lennon's assassination).​Celebrity homes will always be a source of fascination, offering a glimpse at the intimate, private side of those who live their lives in the public eye. And it' ... More >>

Apocalypse Now: 2 DJs' Playlists For The End Of Days

Lee E. Wright/Sweaty. Sultry. Sandy.​Sand, surf, carnival - and the apocalypse. It sounds like a lead-in to "One of These Things is Not Like the Others" (although probably a little heavy for the Sesame Street crowd), but that was the theme of Sweaty. Sultry. Sandy., an art/fashion show held ov ... 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 >>

The Best Fourth Songs On History's Greatest Albums

Sorry, Manowar, maybe next year...​As we come up on the July 4th weekend, Rocks Off considered a myriad of blog ideas to commemorate the holiday. Most patriotic songs, album covers, artists? Sorry, Lee Greenwood, Richard Pryor, and Ted Nugent, but it's all been covered. On this weekend of inde ... More >>

Whole Foods Joins the Party in Montrose, Brings Booze

The 32 foot beer cooler at the new Whole Foods Market in Montrose​I live in Montrose, and I am a big fan of Disco Kroger. The infatuation began almost four years ago, on the very first night I moved into the area. It was after 1 a.m. on a Saturday and I had an apartment full of boxes and only ... More >>

Zachary Byron Helm: Black Leather, Bingo, And Nine Inch Nails

​Rocks Off likes to check in on Zachary Byron Helm and SORP Films from time to time just to see what the master of goth, industrial, and other dark music parodies is up to. Whether it's his masterpiece of mockery The League of Extraordinary Industrial Retards or peddling a rockabilly cereal we ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

Last Night: Sleigh Bells & CSS At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Sleigh Bells, CSS Warehouse Live April 24, 2011 See more photos in our slideshow. The concept of loud music is in Aftermath's blood. From the sweet-ass two-page Van Halen mural our Uncle Kelly drew inside his junior high yearbook in 1984, the blown-out speakers in our ... More >>

The Cold One

Godfather of goth Peter Murphy helps Underworld celebrate 12 years.

Freddie Mercury's Musical Stepchildren, Darlings

​Today marks 19 years that the world has been without Queen front man Freddie Mercury, who was taken from us on November 24, 1991. He died of AIDS complications, a disease he kept hidden from the world until just a day or so before his death. He was the first major, epic rock star to be kill ... More >>

Songs For Our Brother's 21st Birthday

Craig HlavatyLemmy (left, duh) and Jake Hlavaty​Today is the 21st birthday of one of Craig's Hlist's biggest musical influences: Not the Pixies' Doolittle, Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine, or even Operation Ivy's Energy LP. It's an actual person, our little brother Jake. The kid came of l ... More >>

Last Night: Atari Teenage Riot At Groundhall

Photos by Matthew Keever​Atari Teenage Riot, Black Congress, Weird Party, Balaclavas Groundhall September 29, 2010 Atari Teenage Riot's set began with the entirety of Groundhall encompassed in darkness. As bass beat in everyone's chests, strobe lights lit up the otherwise pitch-black venue. F ... More >>

King Lear

Shakespeare goes heavy metal

Ten Songs You Never Want To Get Caught Singing Out Loud

The absolute worst version of "You Are So Beautiful" you've ever heard. Trust us.​Some songs are catchy as hell, yet if you're one of those people who sometimes unconsciously sings out loud to yourself in public, there are some you'll want to avoid. Here are a few tunes which, when sung aloud, ... More >>

Trent Reznor Back In (Free) Form On How To Destroy Angels

​Trent Reznor is one of those venerable goth elders that we are all so beholden to for years of stellar music that it's hard sometimes to criticize him without sounding ungrateful. And we are grateful. But it's clear that over the last several years, Reznor has been struggling to find himself agai ... More >>

Alkaline Trio

Bulls On Parade: Our Favorite Songs About Livestock

​It's almost Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo time again. Our annual celebration of sub-par country music and pissed-off bovines stomping poor fools' nuts in the dirt kicks off March 2 and runs for almost three weeks. During which Houstonians will enjoy traffic-delaying wagon trains and more dou ... More >>

What Constitutes a Killer Show? Six Personal Case Studies

​ Rocks Off is going to suck it up and go on the record as saying we had a great time at the Lady Gaga drag karaoke event last Sunday at Guava Lamp. Perhaps it was just the impaired judgment induced by the holiday cheer we'd imbibed at the Christmas party before, but the show was thoroughly enjoya ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs for Getting It On

[Ed. Note: While we were off watching Night Ranger videos or something - which should tell you all you need to know about our own sex life at the moment - Rocks Off No. 2, Craig Hlavaty, and Web Editor Katharine Shilcutt started going back and forth about how men and women want to hear very differen ... More >>

Can't Join 'Em? Sue 'Em or Quit 'Em!

Tony LaRussa and Trent Reznor are bona fide weenies. Yup. Weenies. As flaccid and dejected as they come. So to speak. In an embarrassing showing of overinflated celebrity egos, the Lifestyles of the Rich and Social Media Clueless has had the interwebs all atwitter as of late. As a result, both ... More >>

Industrial Icon Martin Atkins Knows From Touring

Road Warrior

Things That Make Us Feel Old: The Year 1989

"Hey Ladies" As another year begins, record labels start unleashing commemorative editions of classic albums to take advantage of anniversaries of release dates and more importantly, yo' money. We already got wind of the impending Pearl Jam reissues a few weeks back. Now we get word that the Beasti ... More >>

Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 4

Tom Waits, Jones Hall, June 22: "Us Rain Dogs fans had to make do with a spastic "Cemetery Polka" that was a fair representation of Waits' cross-pollination of beatnik jazz and guttural blues; whether or not he's your cup of bourbon, the man does have a unique sound." Peter Murphy, Meridian, Jul ... More >>

The Year in Albums

Tonight: A Place to Bury Strangers at Walter's on Washington

XM Nation: Catching Up and Moving On

Honor Bound

A fictional look at the future of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Starburst

The Velvet Melvin

Bauhaus

Bauhaus appears with Nine Inch Nails and TV on the Radio on Sunday, June 4, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Drive, The Woodlands, 281-363-3300

Creepy Couture

Kill Hannah

Sunday, November 2

Nine Inch Nails

And All That Could Have Been (Nothing)

Gel

Box of Toys (Z-Lab)

Reznor's Rabble

Press Picks

Sound Check

Help Wanted

Get those suggestions in now for the Press Music Awards

Tight, Shiny and Abrasive

Letters

Hole on Halloween

Rounder Rock