Ol' Dirty Bastard

Five Punk Goes... Songs That Don't Suck

Last time in our "things that don't suck" series, we looked at some educational songs ( ) that our children could learn from without being bored to death. This week, we're looking at the Punk Goes... series, and some of the worthwhile tracks to grab from the series. Punk Goes... has long been the ... More >>

Gangsta Rap Wings and Surfers on Acid at Goro & Gun

Everyone's been talking about ramen lately -- especially the ramen at Goro & Gun. What I want to talk about are its wings. "We're gonna drive Buffalo Wild Wings out of business," chef David Kaufman joked as a bowl of ODB wings hit the bar, the chicken glazed with local honey and topped with a few s ... More >>

Nosaprise Opens His Book of the Dead Vol. 1

You have to hand it to Nosaprise, although you can't help but worry a little too. This month The Houston rapper/musician's grownup job as an arts teacher presented an opportunity for him to attend a lecture in Nigeria -- travel expenses paid -- and he stuck around to visit family and perform a littl ... More >>

Happy Birthday RZA!: 5 More Creative Outlets For the Wu-Tang Abbot

The Wu-Tang Clan is full of big personalities we know and love. And while Method Man may have had the most success away from the group, Ghostface Killah is the most fun to parody online, and Ol' Dirty Bastard is the most beloved, in terms of influence on hip hop as a whole the most important member ... More >>

Ol Dirty Bastard: 6 Reasons We Sure Miss That Guy

Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan is the only rapper to use his welfare card as an album cover; and the only rapper to take America along with him as he used the card to pick up his welfare check. Ol Dirty Bastard was a breakout star on the Wu-Tang Clan's debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Ch ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan

10 Great Instances Of Rappers Honoring Other Rappers

​People often forget that hip-hoppers are humans, too. They breathe, sleep, eat, and salivate at the sight of buttermilk donuts just like us. And, every now and then, they'll geek over other rappers, just like us. It would have been so much easier to compile a list of rappers dissing other ra ... More >>

The Black Lips

The 10 Best Rock Samples In Hip-Hop

​Rocks Off just finished reading Ian Christe's 2007 Van Halen biography, Everybody Wants Some, which chronicles the band's history from the Van Halen boys' entry into the U.S., the upbringing of David Lee Roth, and devastating, fatal 1985 crash into Mount Sammy Hagar. Sad stuff if you're a Rot ... More >>

Health Department Roundup

​Looks like it was a relatively slow week for inspections, with only a handful of places racking up serious (and entertaining) violations. Seeing a sushi restaurant, of all places, get a stamp of disapproval from the health department is a little disconcerting. Taiko Japanese Grill & Sushi (5 ... More >>

Top 10 Mentally Unstable Rap Songs

thesource.com​As you may have already heard, Gucci Mane was recently admitted into a mental-health facility on a "special plea of mental incompetency" in order to delay his probation revocation trial. He has since been released, and got an ice-cream-cone face tattoo in time for his trial this ... More >>

iLL LiaD: Greek Tragedy Is Gangsta

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. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email it to sheaserrano@gmai ... More >>

Last Night: Wu-Tang Clan At Numbers

Photos by Marco TorresMethod Man presses the flesh. See a slideshow of the Killer Bees (and several of H-Town's finest, who opened) here.​Wu-Tang Clan Numbers December 12, 2010 Sunday night's Wu-Tang Clan show ended around 2:30 this morning, after five or six openers and more than five hours ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan's Best Pop-Culture References

​Rocks Off can't rightfully remember the last time the whole Wu-Tang Clan was ever in Houston, if they ever have been. For some reason, we keep wanting to think they came once with Rage Against The Machine around 1997. In 2007, they came to Dallas on the Rock The Bells summer tour with Nas, Ta ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan

Meridian's Problems Persist; Wu-Tang Moved Back To Numbers

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Just when it seemed like Meridian was on the comeback trail, a mysterious power outage and shows both canceling and relocating to different venues over the weekend have raised more questions about the problem-plagued venue at 1503 Chartres. Sunday, My Onstage Events an ... More >>

Top Five Rapper Deadbeat Dads

​Admit it, when you hear the term "deadbeat dad," you immediately think of a black rapper rocking Gucci stunna shades in a perfectly dimmed room, pants drooping to his ankles. Truth be told, hip-hop dads would be wise to step up and heed Ed OG's words: "Be a Father to Your Child." Relationsh ... More >>

The Soft Pack: 30 Seconds With Matty McLoughlin

​We sat down with Matty McLoughlin from The Soft Pack to see what we could learn about him in 30 seconds. Rocks Off: What is the worst song in the world? Matty McLoughlin: An Eagles song. It's divorce rock and is always a buzzkill. RO: What is the best lyric in the world? MM: "Nigga plea ... More >>

Music's Top 10 Messed-Up Mouths

​Rocks Off went to the dentist this morning for the first time in... well, a long time. The importance of taking care of your choppers is thus fresh in our minds - especially since we have to go back tomorrow, this time to a "specialist." So... yeah. This would probably be a good time to mention t ... More >>

Mariah Carey's Many Knuckle Children, Or The Self-Gratification Of Mimi

[Ed. Note: You know us... always taking the high road.] mariahcarey.com"Craig! Put your hands where I can see them!"​Thanks to this new thing on YouTube called VEVO, we can watch crisp versions of our favorite music videos, young and old, without worrying about shoddy quality or mislabeling. This ... More >>

Self-Admitted Wanker John Mayer Is Far From Alone at the Musical Spank Bank

​ Photo illustration by John Seaborn GrayThe chicken is Photoshopped. The swimsuit, sadly, isn't.​Guess what you're missing if you haven't picked up the latest copy of Rolling Stone? Go on, guess. All right, we'll tell you: according to their website, you're missing the lowdown on John Mayer's " ... More >>

"Rock Your World" Hot Sauce, Anyone? Like Kenny "Roaster" Rogers, Musicians Will Give Their Name to Anything

​This is how we want to remember you, Kenny.​Kenny Rogers brings his vast collection of hits and the plastic-surgery disaster he calls a face to Jones Hall to perform with the Houston Symphony tonight, and obviously Rocks Off's extremities are sweating profusely in anticipation. Not because he c ... More >>

Sound Off on The Kanye's Jackassery at Sunday Night's VMAs

This is what happens when MTV pulls all its VMA footage from YouTube... their lawyers were up early this morning.​ By now you've seen or at least heard about Kanye West's latest bit of spotlight-grabbing at Sunday night's MTV awards - Rocks Off doubts morning-drive DJs are talking about little els ... More >>

Artist of the Week: OSIRUS

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com.There comes a time in every ... More >>

Idol Beat: The Top Eight Results

Photos by Frank Micelotta/ Fox Guests of the Sheik: Flo Rida and his "harem."First things first: in yesterday's Idol Beat, I made reference to how excited I was for Idol Gives Back, a wildly successful annual event/trainwreck wherein the program brings a ton of celebrities on in an effort to ... More >>

The Distillery: N.A.S.A.'s The Spirit of Apollo

Truth be told, we envy N.A.S.A.'s bumptuous production acumen almost as much as we envy principal astronauts Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon the depths of their Rolodexes - even if, somehow, they couldn't rope Lil Wayne into their genre-mashup free-for-all. Seriously - as you'll see below - N.A.S. ... More >>

MP3 Monday: Music From Teenage Kicks, LSPS, Hash Brown & Fat Tony, OSIRUS and Dave Wrangler

[A while back, Rocks Off sent out a call for Houston bands and musicians to send him MP3s of their recent work. It took a little bit, but here are the fruits of that planting...] Courtesy Teenage Kicks  Here's some snappy punk from Houston trio Teenage Kicks... ...and some STP-e ... More >>

Moments the Grammy Awards Would Rather Forget

Soy Bombed

Beyonce and Luke the Drifter

Because her public appearances are stage-managed to the hilt, and otherwise she generally stays out of trouble (or out of sight altogether), Beyonce is of constant interest but limited use to gotcha!-media outlets like TMZ. "It's hard to imagine Beyonce scratching an itch without undergoing a litt ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan

8 Diagrams

Drenched In Blog: Remembering Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Another Bump

Ten of the best coke anthems, plus a shortlist for the Cocaine Hall of Fame

Last Night: GZA in Austin (Cuz We Missed Him in Houston)

Beat Kings

Beat Kings: The History of Hip Hop

Ghostface

Saturday, April 1, at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-225-9483

ODB

A Son Unique

Singing from the Gut

You never know what'll be spewed at a Heist at Hand show

Various Artists

The Kings of Hip Hop, Compiled and Mixed by DJ Premier and Mr. Thing

Souchin' into Bethlehem

Greg Wood's latest health scare costs him a few pounds of flesh and almost takes his arm

Houston Resolutions

Ten ways to make our town a better place

New Angels in Rock Heaven

Scoring the grim reaper's 2004 harvest

Dishing the Dirt on Dirty

We chronicle the greatest moments of Ol' Dirty Bastard

Strikes and Spares

Original punk Richard Tomcala rejoins the nightlife fray; also, Greg Wood's new crib bowls us over

The Neptunes

Clones (Star Trak/Arista)

Killah Priest

Thursday, July 3

Tha Liks

Saturday, February 2

D12

Thursday, November 1

Men in Black

Method Man and Redman have a Blackout, tour with Family Values

Rotation

Busy Body