Norway

How to Roast the Perfect Chicken in 10 Simple Steps: It's Easier Than You Think

"Who's going to teach me to roast a chicken?" I saw my best friend Tweet a few days ago. After a two month-long work trip to Norway, she had come back to the States more determined than ever to eat healthy. And what's healthier than a roasted chicken with a few vegetables tossed in? It's cost-effici ... More >>

Essential Rock and Roll Literature For Budding Music Writers

Right about now young, budding rock writers and nerds are sitting on gift cards and credit from the holidays, and may need to know what books to pick up at the local bookstore or Amazon to further their education. It's not enough to just read every new music blog or (gasp!) pick up a few music mag ... More >>

Visitor's Guide: 7 Things We Don't Want You to See When You Come to Houston

Last week, many were surprised -- some even perplexed -- to see our beloved city on the annual New York Times list of places to visit in 2013. Houston was number seven on a list of 46 that included Rio, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hawaii's Big Island, Oslo, Bangkok and Paris. Yes, we were on a "must visit ... More >>

SXSW Releases First Batch of 2013 Performers

Here go hell come, SXSW has just released the first batch of names for the 2013 festival. I know, only a week after Fun Fun Fun Fest and a month since ACL. Did you see the FPSF blog from earlier today? Yeah, time is moving too fast. The big names on the list so far include the Zombies, Alt-J, Akro ... More >>

Horror Business: The Top 5 Most Evil Rock Stars

Halloween and rock and roll go together like peanut butter and jelly. Something about darkened rooms filled with outlandish costumes and screaming girls, we guess. Some of the rock's most ghoulish stars are also its most fun, as Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson will no doubt prove once again at Reliant ... More >>

Last Night: Beach House at House of Blues

Beach House House of Blues September 19, 2012 It's been two years since Baltimore dream-team Beach House visited Houston. When they played Walter's in 2010, we foresaw bigger things for them -- a bigger stage, to be exact. Our vision was accurate: Beach House played to a near sold-out crowd at Hous ... More >>

Bottoms Up: 5 Beers From 5 Bands To Give You 5 Hangovers

Whether you're at a show with friends or just putting your feet up while listening to some tunes after a long day at work, for many alcohol is just another part of the rock and roll experience. And when hard liquor gets too expensive and wine seems too highfalutin, there is one drink that's always t ... More >>

“Scandinavian Design”

Oslo, August 31st

An addict revisits the people he has hurt and his own demons.

Summer Fest Ticket Prices Go Up At 10 p.m.; More Talent "Soon-Ish"

Free Press Summer Fest is increasing ticket prices tonight, with a promise to compensate by adding more talent to the two-day music festival on the banks of Buffalo Bayou. According to FPSF's email blast this morning, the price of passes will go up at 10 p.m. tonight, and the festival will announce ... More >>

This Just In: SXSW Announces First Round Of 2012 Showcasing Bands, Including Fat Tony and Something Fierce

Photo By Marco TorresFat Tony at a day show at SXSW '11​Sweet lord, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and South By Southwest is making us excited for March in Austin already. Today the industry festival announced a few bands coming to the capitol city next year, and a few Houston names and Rocks ... More >>

SPECIAL GOOD GABACHO/EVIL ALABAMA EDITION

When Should You Use Usted instead of Tú And Are the Letters in this Column Real??

The Shuttle's Souvenir Load

20,000 flags and 10,000 patches aboard

Shuttle Atlantis' Souvenir Load: 22,000 Flags, 10,000 Patches, A Very Small Painting And More

Atlantis: Last chance for souvenirs​If you're making the last-ever trip on the space shuttle, you want to make it count. And if the list put together by collectSPACE.com is any indication, this last flight is taking along enough souvenirs to outfit a small army. Almost all the items are put ... More >>

Top 5 Weed-Inspired Album Titles

​Moments ago, actually earlier this afternoon now, Rocks Off opened an envelope from Universal Music that turned out to contain young No Limit-affiliated rapper Curren$y's major-label debut, Weekend at Burnie's (Warner Bros.). We'll give you three guesses what the New Orleans native's primary ... More >>

Graphic: When Festival Booking Goes Too Far

Garland RobinetteYes, this is the real Jazz Fest 2011 poster, and that's really Jimmy Buffett.​Every spring, New Orleans puts on something called the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. But as Jazz Fest has grown more and more popular, the headlining acts have had less and less to do with ja ... More >>

The Asle Roe Trio

Five Artists That Make Deadlier Weapons Than Creed

Nooooo!!! Anything but "One Last Breath"!!!​The headline is promising: "Norwegian Boy Fends Off Wolf Pack With Heavy Metal." Pretty awesome, right? Picture the frozen steppes of Rakkestad - we're just assuming there are steppes there - and it's after 2 p.m. in the wintertime, so the sun has ... More >>

SXSW 2011 Still Untainted By Houston Artists

listenlisten: Not playing SXSW 2011... yet.​Rocks Off just got the latest list of names for next year's SXSW conference and festival in Austin, and just like the last time, the conference remains unsullied by any performers from Houston's filthy, rotten, disgusting, in-need-of-quarantine music ... More >>

Pictures at an Exhibition

Houston Slammed By European Travel Blog: We're Boooorrring

But...but...there's the Kemah Boardwalk!!​Among world cities, in which category does Houston rank second only to Brussels, the capital of the European Union? Tedium, at least according to the European Union-funded wiki blog OpenTravel. According to "Chili," an English-language challenged scr ... More >>

A Royal ABBA Salute And Other Scandinavian Musical Delights

Photos by Brittanie SheyThe Royal Band outside Stockholm Palace​Välkommen from Scandinavia! More specifically, Gothenburg, Sweden, the country's "second city" and home to some of Rocks Off's favorite bands from recent years, including El Perro Del Mar, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and The Knif ... More >>

Rocks Off Close To 2,000 Twitter Followers... And A New Tattoo

Allow us to step out of the usage of the royal "we" that we use at Rocks Off for a blog that will have a lasting impact for the rest of our lives. Not Rocks Off at large, but one member who made a promise on the Internet that he can never take back. Well, he probably could, but then he would look li ... More >>

Summer Tours We'd Like To See: Bring Back Texxas Jam!

Reminder: Tickets for Lady Gaga's Toyota Center show next year go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m.​ Summer concert season doesn't last as long as hurricane season, and leaves somewhat less damage in its aftermath, but at least it gives us something to look forward to during those long, hot months. This ... More >>

Houston's Anne-Kathrine Ubberud Learns The Hard Way About Immigration Law

America, you will soon be free of this (we assume) terrorist​Ever-vigilant of illegal aliens taking over our state and country, Hair Balls jumped at the chance to look into the case of Anne-Kathrine Ubberud, a Norwegian citizen who will have to leave Houston Wednesday, after 17 years in the U.S.Ub ... More >>

Sailing Away With Songs Of The Caribbean

​A couple of years ago She Said was in Oslo, Norway, where she saw an exhibit by artist Tacita Dean chronicling the mysterious voyage of Donald Crowhurst. Dean found and photographed the Teignmouth Electron, the boat Crowhurst apparently abandoned, and collected newspaper articles from the circum ... More >>

"Perspectives: An Intercultural View on American Values"

Artists from around the world look at the elements that bind Americans together

SXSW Aftermath: Pirate Love's Proto-Punk, Codiene Velvet Club's Swinging Harmonies Carry The Night At Rusty Spurs

Photos by Adam P. Newton​Aftermath is quite the fan of tromping across the whole of downtown Austin, moving from one day party to the next. The point of those events is to provide people with an unending stream of options so as to gain a fairly decent glimpse of what's happening in current mus ... More >>

Five Pieces Of New Year's Weirdness

As you recover from your New Year's Eve party, rest assured that no matter how weird it got, it could have gotten weirder. The changing of the year seems to bring out some odd stuff.Here are just five examples of New Year's Weirdness.This clip features Father Time getting blasted by rayguns, a whole ... More >>

Black-Metal Documentary Sees the Light at Alamo Drafthouse This Weekend

Starting tonight and through weekend the Alamo Drafthouse (1000 W. Oaks Mall) will be screening the documentary Until The Light Takes Us, an unflinching look at the Norwegian black-metal scene from directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. The film is recommended viewing for any and all music and tru ... More >>

You Local School Districts Are Paying Your Teachers Too Much!

There's beeen plenty of drug talk when it comes to Houston schools lately, but what about some good news?Well, how about the fact that school districts are bitching that teachers down here are just getting paid too damn well?It's true. (We'll pause to give the teachers reading this a chance to stop ... More >>

Last Night: Negativland at Rice University

SXSW: Fourteen Bands in Eight Hours

Weekend Music: Sublime Lives (Sort Of)

MySpaced Out: Fortress Europe

MySpaced Out

Our social-network scout sizes up some all-female Scandinavian bands

KTRU Outdoor Show

The 2007 KTRU Outdoor Show with 120 Days, Ratatat and Despot is Saturday, April 7, at Rice University, 6100 Main, 713-348-0000.

Second Run

Celebrating the overachieving, underhyped movies of 2004

Book Learnin'

Another year of textbook follies

Hamer Time

This unconventional comedic drama from Norway might be just the ticket

The Velvet Viking

Norwegian phenom Sondre Lerche brings his precocious sunny-day pop straight outta the fjords

Frode Gjerstad Trio

Friday, October 11

Mixing It Up

International dance fans can get their fill with Dance Salad

Viking Makeover

There's more to Viking culture than just pillaging and plundering

News of the Weird

Cat Stats

Night & Day

September 10 - 16, 1998

The Love Barge

Letters