Norah Jones

Love And Madness: The Top 5 Songs Named "Crazy"

Starting in 1992, October 10 has been known as World Mental Health Day. Started by the folks at the World Federation For Mental Health, it's a day that helps promote awareness and education of depression and other mental health illnesses. It's one of those "days" that isn't nearly as big as those t ... More >>

Musically Speaking, What Is the Best Zodiac Sign?

Sometimes some musicians just can't even be put in the same sentence as one another. Depending on people's musical preferences. It's hard to compare and can be a bit confrontational. But one thing is for sure the day on which someone is born can't be changed. And then that's where astrology comes in ... More >>

Ted

Seth McFarlane's new film is stuffed with more of the same.

Upcoming: Glen Campbell, Toadies, Norah Jones, Crystal Method, Etc.

13 Black Coffins, Ese, Zipperneck, The Failed Attempt: Fri., June 1, 7 p.m., $10. Mango's, 403 Westheimer Road, Houston. 23 Shades, The Solidier Thread: Fri., June 1, 8 p.m., $10/$12. The Bronze Peacock Room @ House Of Blues, 1204 Caroline, Houston. Aesop Rock: Fri., Aug. 10, 8 p.m., $18/$22. Fitz ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Friday 3/16/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music editors have selected t ... More >>

Rumor: Eminem To Perform At Tonight's Shady Records SXSW Party

Most of the world's biggest rappers - Jay-Z, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, T.I., 50 Cent - have performed in Austin within the past week, are about to perform, or are at least in the city partaking in the SXSW festivities. Rocks Off was leaving Stubb's late Thursday night and heard Snoop Dogg performing ... More >>

Houston Acts Stage Own SXSW Invasion

Sixteen Houston acts will play an all-day free show during SXSW from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, March 16, at the Gypsy Lounge, 1504 E. 6th St. The party is sponsored by The Convoy Group, the company run by Houston promoter and sometime Rocks Off photograher Mark C. Austin, who announced the party ear ... More >>

Classic Christmas: George Winston's December

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, a record or artist outside the mainstream will make a blip on the pop culture radar, like Norah Jones' sudden ascendance ... More >>

Showcase Showdown

Fifty bands, 11 stages and three music writers talking HPMA highlights.

Artist of the Week: HPMA Nominee Clory Martin

​Welp, you've made it. Tonight is the Houston Press Music Awards ceremony, otherwise known as Music Christmas, otherwise known The Opposite of the Holocaust, otherwise known as The Day Jesus Says "Fuck. Yes." We figured we'd sneak in one more HPMA-themed Artist of the Week column. Meet, Clor ... More >>

HPMA Preview: Seven Nominated Bands Perfect For Ear Fatigue

Photo by Liana LopezNick Gaitan and Umbrella Man​Oh, yes, it is that time again, time for the Houston Press Music Awards Showcase You can almost smell it...well, hopefully not. This week we will be profiling the bands who will be performing at this Saturday's HPMA showcase at venues all over ... More >>

Out Today: Danger Mouse In Rome, Nick Cave & Queen Reissued

​It's back to the usual grind for Rocks Off after last night's late-night Austin City Limits Festival lineup announcement. Sadly, we will not be seeing the Foo Fighters play songs from Wasting Light in Austin come September. And yes, still playing it, along with a steady diet of Guns N' Roses. ... More >>

Lonesome Onry And Mean's Top 11 Obscure 2010 Albums

​As per previous years, Lonesome Onry and Mean isn't going to bother with running down all this year's major-label releases. Ranking the relative merits of Lady Gaga, Carrie Underwood and Adam Lambert is the Houston Chronicle's job, we suppose. Seeing major players like Robert Plant, Bruce Sp ... More >>

Katy Perry? For Album Of The Year? Seriously?

​Don't get Craig's Hlist wrong, we think that Katy Perry is extremely attractive. In fact, if we think about her long enough, it makes us want to cry and punch a wall. She's a buxom, bubbly, raven-haired pop star who dresses like she's expensive grandma candy. We even interviewed her last ye ... More >>

Young Man, Older Woman: Top Ten Cougar Anthems

​Congratulations to Houston folksinger Glenna Bell. Her "The Cougar Anthem," from this year's Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love and Murder, was singled out Tuesday alongside Aaron Neville, Keith Richards, Norah Jones and Paul McCartney & Wings in USA Today's weekly "The Playlist" feature. I ... More >>

Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 3

Marco TorresTrombone Shorty​Craig Hlavaty: News coming out of the media tent: Don Henley of the Eagles had a stent put in his heart this past week. He will be singing and possibly playing guitar, but not exerting himself on drums. This could very well be the last Eagles show for a while - if e ... More >>

She's Got Rhythm: Jazz-Pop Upstart Nikki Yanofsky, 16 And Swingin'

myspace.com/nikkiyanofsky​Nikki Yanofsky has been "singing since I could talk, basically." And doing it well: When her dad asked the Montreal native to sing a few songs with his garage band at a charity event, it was a little different than practicing in the garage. In the audience was the fou ... More >>

How Is Houston Doing ACL-Wise?

Marco TorresThe Eagles have flown, at least as far as Houston is concerned.​If you have even bothered to venture out of doors during these days of 105-degree heat indices and "Unhealthy" air-quality advisories, you may have noticed that things have been a little light on the roadshow front lat ... More >>

Which ACL Headliners Will Play Houston?

www.eaglesband.comWho knew the Eagles shot their publicity stills for The Long Road Out of Eden at ACL 2005?​When the Austin City Limits festival lineup is released every spring, one of Rocks Off's favorite parlor games besides wondering what sort of Biblical weather-related calamity God will visi ... More >>

Chatter: All in the Family

Woody Guthrie's descendants keep the folk flame alive.

Thanks, But No Thanks: See What Dallas Has to Deal With All the Time?

We know, we know... it's just too easy.​ Rocks Off would like to thank Force Field PR and, we suppose, Neon Indian for sending the above picture to our email this morning. It nearly made us spray coffee all over our monitor. We don't quite know where to start, except to venture a guess that if you ... More >>

Looking for Trouble

Jemina Pearl breaks free of Be Your Own Pet on Break It Up.

Rocks Off Has Some Issues This Morning, But Not as Many as This Guy

​Rocks Off came into the office this morning to discover we had been beset by a bad case of the gremlins. One of our photographers' Web site was down, there was another mix-up with the Willie Nelson photos from Saturday night (which has since been fixed) and... well, it's just a Monday. However, w ... More >>

Hit the Road, Jack: 10 More Notable Musical Deaths From the Past Decade

​ Looking back, this past decade wasn't too kind to rock and roll as a whole. We lost plenty of people who weren't exactly disgustingly huge as Michael Jackson or as monolithic as Johnny Cash. This decade took its share of people who were massively influential and iconic, but not on the grand worl ... More >>

Turning the Screw: Killa Kyleon, Destiny's Child, New Boyz, Lil' Flip, Devin, Trae, Cham, Freddy Gibbs, Weezy, Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Rihanna, etc.

Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "H-Town State of Mind," Killa Kyleon Killa is so, so, so good at flipping at other people's songs. Wire ... More >>

Beyonce Leads 2010 Grammy Field With 10 Nominations

Beyonce leads all nominees for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards, reaping the benefits of her smash double album I Am... Sasha Fierce and her prominent role on the soundtrack to last year's Chess Records docudrama Cadillac Records, in which she appeared as an R&B diva from an earlier age, Etta Jame ... More >>

"My Son Is the Lizard King, and I'm an Admiral": Successful Rock-Star Parents

​Late Thursday, word came across the ticker that legendary comedian and TV star Soupy Sales had passed away at age 83. After a stint in the military and on radio, Sales went on to be one of the major pioneers of televised sketch and children's comedy. In 1965, he pulled a stunt where he asked his ... More >>

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas, Part 2: "Trinity"

[Note: This week Rocks Off is looking at the musical heritage, highs and lows, for each of the five possible states that might result should Texas secede from the U.S. like Gov. Rick Perry wants it to. Yesterday we began with the Panhandle/West Texas "Palo Duro" territory; today it's northeastern qu ... More >>

SXSW: South Congress Circuit

As usual, Saturday afternoon for me was all about South Congress. Bands like Houston's own Allen Oldies Band - fronted by the High Priest of the Oldies and the State of Texas's official unofficial Minister of Fun - are traditions, as are people like Jon Dee Graham and James McMurtry at Mojo Nixon's ... More >>

Mickey Raphael on Willie Nelson, Naked and Clothed

www.mickeyraphael.comFor a disarmingly large number of his worldwide fans, Willie Nelson burst onto the country music scene in the mid-'70s, fully hirsute, sporting an earring and proclaiming the joys of being on the road again. Real aficionados know that his "overnight success" came only afte ... More >>

Texas Monthly, Bound for the Recycle Bin?

There's an interesting supplement in the new issue of Texas Monthly, the one with all-but-declared gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on the cover. It's a 32-page mini-mag called Texas Bound for Music, and appears to be TM's attempt at... well, it's not really clear exactly ... More >>

Cool Out on Your Commute

2009 is only a few days old, and Houston's radio climate is already improving. Not on the FM dial, which remains a wasteland north of 91.7 (same as it ever was), but starting at 4 p.m. today, commuters can immerse themselves in the swinging sounds of Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, B.B. Kin ... More >>

Mp3: The Tontons, “Sea and Stars”

Rhapsody at Bohemeo's on Telephone Road

It's pastels and palm trees at this East End artists' refuge

Wendy Colonna

From Britney to U2: The 2007 NFL Preview

Aaron Loesch Vies to Become the Guitar Center King of the Blues

A dying Houston scene suddenly might have new life

Patty Griffin

Children Running Through Ato Records

Don't Fear the Reaper

The annual return of the Greil Marcus Rock Death Meter

James Hunter

ames Hunter appears Friday, May 26, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899

Last Night at the Alamo

A Grammy party at a local theater turns into quiz night down at the local pub

Rotation

Feelings, Nothing But Feelings

The New York Times misses the point in its attack on "rockism"

Blackbird Fly

Jolie Holland returns to her old hometown with the Tom Waits seal of approval

Cruel Summer

Are we hearing the death rattle of the sheds?

Surgical Strike

Mike Patton's Fantômas exits the OR with a visceral disc

Mentally Disturbed

Dan Donegan wonders what's nü-metal about his band

Change of Beat

Just like the rest of Houston, the local music scene saw plenty of ups and downs

Sitars in Her Eyes

Anoushka Shankar is her father's little raga-muffin

Cultural Clash

SXSW turns a cold shoulder to the Houston music scene