Nirvana (Band)

Why Has the Strokes' Comeback Tanked?

The great hope of rock and roll critics at the start of the 21st century, the Strokes, released their newest record Comedown Machine last month. It was met with the sort of lukewarm reviews that the band has been receiving for years now; about the greatest compliment anyone can give it is that "it's ... More >>

The Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Bruce & Kelly, KTRU Outdoor Show, etc.

Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis McGonigel's Mucky Duck, March 8 Spouses tempting fate by naming their new record Cheater's Game? Nah, just the "First Couple of Texas Country Music" rewarding fans with the couple's first-ever full-album collaboration, to go with any number of guest spots on each other' ... More >>

Seal Turning 50 Gives Us An Excuse To Use This Picture On A Blog

Today British singer Seal turns 50 years old, which is a perfect excuse for me to finally use the above picture and for you all to bask in its glory. Look at it. It's Seal's head on an actual seals head! I mean when I first saw it years ago I thought, "Internet, just when I think you can't get any b ... More >>

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Album-Cover "Controversy" Bores Me

The release of the "controversial" cover art for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' forthcoming album, Mosquito, has managed to stir up quite a bit of buzz. (Leave me alone. I like puns.) If you've somehow managed to escape the album-cover hype, I'll let you in on a little secret: you're not missing much in ... More >>

Dave Grohl Doc Sound City Screens at River Oaks January 31

For one night only, Dave Grohl's Sound City flick will screen at the Landmark River Oaks on January 31. Tickets should be available for pre-sale on the Landmark site very soon. Rewind: Dave Grohl Releases Trailer for Nerd-Boner Doc Sound City Rocks Off has been tracking the film since it was ann ... More >>

Last Night: The Adolescents & Youth Brigade at Fitzgerald's

The Adolescents, Youth Brigade, The American Heist Fitzgerald's December 30, 2012 To end 2012 on a note of anti-apocalypse, in which the forces of vitality outmaneuver destruction and oblivion, Willow Villarreal of Hatetank Productions -- who has survived through the thick and thin of a fickle Hous ... More >>

Old News: Paul McCartney Could Have Been In Them Crooked Vultures

If you have seen and heard Paul McCartney's collaboration with the surviving members of Nirvana this past week, then you no doubt have entertained the thought of a tour or at least an album by the super group. As of now of course, they have only publicly released one track, "Cut Me Some Slack", whic ... More >>

The Name Of That Paul McCartney/Nirvana Song Is "Cut Me Some Slack"

If you were watching the long, long, long Hurricane Sandy benefit on Wednesday night with The Who, Chris Martin, Kanye West, Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Alicia Keys, then you more than likely stayed up late to see Paul McCartney play with the surviving members of Nirvana. ... More >>

Dave Grohl Releases Trailer for Nerd-Boner Doc Sound City

While the Foo Fighters have been on hiatus, lead singer Dave Grohl has been putting the finishing touches on his cinematic love letter to Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. Today the full trailer for Sound City was released online. You can check out the studio's discography here. The studio's du ... More >>

25 Million Drops In the Bucket: Why Adele's Continued Success Matters For All of Us

According to @chartnews, last week 27,772 people either visited their local record store or went online to purchase Adele's 21. Even though the album came out here in the states on February 22, 2011 there will still 27,772 people out there who decided last week was the week they were finally going t ... More >>

Last Night: Eddie Vedder at Jones Hall

Eddie Vedder, Glen Hansard Jones Hall November 12, 2012 Aging grungers are the new aging hippies. When the first wave of grunge hit in the late '80s and early '90s, the world was still rife with greybeards and their old ladies just two decades removed from cultural nirvana. Before the other, bigger ... More >>

HSPVA's Robert Glasper: Jazz's Newest Hip-Hop Star

If you're looking for homegrown musical success stories of 2012, you could do a lot worse than Robert Glasper. True, technically he lives in New York, where he became such an in-demand session player he called his 2009 album Double Booked, but now the Missouri City native and HSPVA grad is on the ve ... More >>

Where Have All Our Heroes Gone?: The Four Saddest Fallen Idols of Our Generation

When we're kids, we'll look anywhere for idols and role models. Most often, we look to pop culture and we find our heroes there by way of idolizing whoever's work we enjoy the most. We copy them in the worst ways. We adopt their style of dress, their opinions on music, their viewpoints on the world ... More >>

The Wiggins: The Myth of Man Is the Truth of Awesome Part 1

One thing that Houston has had for decades is an incredible avant-garde noise scene. Bands like Fiskadoro, Female Demand, and Black Leather Jesus all bring definition to the indefinable genre here in town, but the king of them all is Jon Read, better known as the Wiggins. He followed the evolution o ... More >>

Ever Heard of a $427,500 Mix CD?

Back in the dark ages of Internet piracy, a Rhode Islander by the name of Joel Tenenbaum made the choice of illegally downloading/sharing music online and the mistake of getting caught. The record companies wanted to make an example out of him and nine years later, it looks like they're getting what ... More >>

10 Iconic Final Concerts Plus The End Of Beatlemania

The Beatles' concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park 46 years ago today was the end of an era for the band. Except for a famously unannounced appearance on top the Apple building two and a half years later, it would be the final live performance that the Fab Four would ever play together. It w ... 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 >>

5 Non-Rap Acts We'd Like to See Chopped Not Slopped

Here's a confession: I've never really understood chopped and screwed music. Because of this I've never had an opinion on it and filed it away with Reggaeton and Texas Country in my "genres not for me" mental file folder. Then I heard OG Ron C's take on Girl Talk's All Day and I found myself really ... More >>

Turn The Radio On: Top 10 Musicians Who Should Be DJs

A few years ago, Van Halen front man David Lee Roth filled in for Howard Stern on his nationally syndicated radio show. Roth also served a stint as a deejay for New York's 92.3 Free FM. This is nothing new, because many artists have at some point served as DJs, such as Greg Kihn of the Greg Kihn ba ... More >>

Are SNL's Divisive Musical Guests Making It Relevant Again??

Even as sketch comedy tastes have changed, and a segment of the population has sadly written it off as an unfunny relic, NBC's Saturday Night Live is still pulling in cutting-edge, marquee musical guests each week, in the process creating national stars or pariahs. Or sometimes both. Case in point ... More >>

Ask A Rapper: These are the Best Non-Houston Samplings of Houston Rap

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. Something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com.̴ ... More >>

And, Uh, Um, OOPS: The Third Members Of Great Musical Trios You Probably Can't Name

​Last night we all watched as Governor Rick Perry blanked on the third department he would do away with if he was elected president. It was one of those moments - a la Scanners - when we all tensely waited for his head to explode, figuratively. Of course we love the guy and he's too precious t ... More >>

Baby's Cryin': Rockabye Baby Sends Us Lullaby Renditions of Van Halen

Yep. ​The folks at Rockabye Baby! remake hard rock from the likes of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Tool, and the Smashing Pumpkins into baby-friendly jams with "soothing mellotrons, vibraphones and bells," replacing all the things that made those bands perfect for well, making rock and roll babies. Thi ... More >>

Five ACL '11 Bands That Could Headline In 2012

Jim BrickerSmith Westerns at Fitz in February​This Thursday night, Rocks Off leaves for the 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival at Austin's Zilker Park. This year promises to be a hot one, from the killer temperatures, the constant wildfires just miles from the venue, and the mouth of Frida ... More >>

Turn It On, Leave It On: MTV's 10 Best Music Series

"Henry Rollins asks Kevin Shields how much he can bench on the next 120 Minutes..."​This week marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of MTV, that loud, hyper-colored behemoth that changed pop culture and the music industry forever, endlessly providing viewers with visual and mental stimul ... More >>

Carry That Weight: The Best Bands Pegged As The "Next Beatles"

Laugh now, but remember when Definitely Maybe came out?​How much pressure must it be to have someone, probably some flacky music journalist running out of metaphors and superlatives, call your band the "Next Beatles" just as you start your rock career? That's like being called the next Jesus C ... More >>

Saturday Night: Southern Culture On The Skids At The Continental Club

Photos by Jason WolterSouthern Culture on the Skids is back there somewhere.​Southern Culture on the Skids Continental Club March 26, 2011 Finger lickin': It's not just for fried chicken anymore. This past weekend, Southern Culture on the Skids packed up the eight-piece box and headed down t ... More >>

When We Ruled H-Town

Doc revisits Houston's '90s music scene.

Plus-Size Songs For Those Post-Holiday Pounds

​One of the reasons Lonesome Onry and Mean's local waterhole is our local waterhole is its excellent, eclectic, even exotic jukebox. There's truly something for everyone. For the novices and/or narrow-minded, there are easy defaults like Willie Nelson & Family's Live, the Stones' Exile on Mai ... More >>

Rocks Off's Favorite Non-2010 Music Of 2010

Editor's Pick: It was probably Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne, same as last year. So how about Nirvana's In Utero, which I dragged out of mothballs when we did our article about Nevermind's anniversary in September. In Utero fried my hair all over again, and then got me thinking about the band's cover of ... More >>

Wangcaster Rules: Rocks Off's Top 10 Stories Of 2010

Insert "wanking" joke here.​It's been a wild and crazy year. And while we're still wrapping up some of our personal favorite stories of 2010, Rocks Off throughout we'd take a look at the Top 10 most-read stories of the most recent solar rotation. Relive the magic with our links below... 10. N ... More >>

FAIL: Gene Simmons, Steve Albini, INXS, Danzig (Not)

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Gene Simmons Is Donald Trump In Makeup: Fails has never been a big KISS fan, but we can't imagine watching Gene Simmons' behavior makes being one any easier. If you're a die-hard KISS fan, watching his douchey whoring and cutthroat CEO tactics must be d ... More >>

Walmart's Greatest Hits... Or Maybe Not (NSFW)

​Growing up in Pearland, Craig's Hlist didn't know anything was inherently wrong with Walmart. We didn't see it as trashy. How could a place where we got baseball cards and metal magazines every Saturday be trashy? But when we got older and heard the tales of Walmart's wrongful business prac ... More >>

18 Successful Musicians Under Age 18

Dan Klores CommunicationsTommy, can you hear me?​Tonight House Of Blues welcomes the traveling underage rock revue School Of Rock as they re-create highlights from 1985's Live Aid concerts. SOR features three bands or teens and preteens rocking out and learning the ropes of touring and rock. ... 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 >>

Fails Of The Week: BBC 6 Listeners, Whitney Houston, Rolling Stone And MGMT

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Ten Musicians I Want to Have Sex With Less Than Lady Gaga

​I understand Lady Gaga's declaration of celibacy last month was something of a big deal, if only because most of us have a hard time believing everyone in the music business isn't vigorously fellating each other on those off days when they're not sacrificing puppies to Clear Channel or auto-tunin ... More >>

Uprising

2009 wasn't a great year for albums, but songs were a different story.

Meat Puppets

Halloween Countdown: How Best To Go For The `90s-Nostalgia Look

Halloween is coming, and that means many, many costuming mistakes will be made by normally sane adults. To help stop this scourge, each Thursday we will be offering tips and analysis of what to avoid, or possibly what to do. Check out past entries here and here. If VH1 has taught us nothing else, it ... More >>

Ghosts of Washington Avenue

Noise goes whistling through the scenester artery's music venue graveyard.

Aftermath: White Rhino at Boondocks

Photos by Chris Gray "They're 'classic heavy rock,' or so they tell me," Aftermath texted a friend shortly before Austin's White Rhino went onstage at Boondocks Monday night. "Heavy metal, or just heavy?" came the reply. White Rhino had just gone on, with some menacing guitar spray and a kinetic ba ... More >>

The Axiom

Remembering the Axiom, 20 years later

Corset Rock

All Grown Up

The new Lawndale is a great space for showing art

For a Good Time, Think Pink!

Static

Tupelo's Curse

Sound Check

Mom Muse