Pearl Jam

The Chronic: 10 Musicians With Ongoing Illnesses

When they hit the stage and do what they do, it's easy to forget that our musical heroes are basically just talented, driven and very lucky human beings. They're flesh, blood, bone and the right type of grey matter, all formed into a singular unit designed to delight us all with their extraordinary ... More >>

Saturday Night: Red Hot Chili Peppers at Toyota Center

Red Hot Chili Peppers Toyota Center October 20, 2012 The Red Hot Chili Peppers have stuck around long enough -- through drugs, overdoses, creative strife and changing musical tides -- to have 30 years of hits they can knock out into the nosebleeds at any given live show. Saturday night's Toyota C ... More >>

6 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: Dinosaur Jr., Some Stones, Big K.R.I.T., Optimo Radio, etc.

Dinosaur Jr. Friday, Fitzgerald's Dinosaur Jr. may be one of the most underrated indie-rock acts of the past 25 years. They weren't as sexy as Pearl Jam or as populist as Nirvana, but the music dripping from the instruments of the criminally-unsung J Mascis, bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph has ... More >>

MTV's Best Year: The Top 5 Videos of 1992

In 1992, the recording industry was riding high. The compact disc had become a major success, with music lovers purchasing new albums and old releases in astonishing numbers despite the format's comparatively steep price tags. And the music-video juggernaut known as MTV was helping major labels to b ... More >>

Hey, Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone: A Back to School Playlist

I have been a teacher for six years now. I joke about it, but it really is the best job of all, and remains to be the only one I've ever had that didn't make me want to drive right the fuck into a tree after doing it for three weeks. Last week, teachers returned to campuses. We cleaned our rooms a ... More >>

Explaining Classic Rock Bands to Kids

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a piece by Paul Greenberg where the author explained how important the Beatles were to music and pop culture to his five-year old son. The child didn't know that the band had albums, but only knew the Fab Four from iTunes playlists. "When the Beatles record ... More >>

8 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: Another HPMA Deal, We Were Wolves, Ceremony, Etc.

For the next few days, general-admission tickets for the Houston Press Music Awards showcase -- perhaps you may have heard us mention it recently -- are available at the two-for-one price of $10 through the Living Social network. Just thought we'd mention that. DJs Ceeplus Bad Knives and Mr. Casti ... More >>

Runaway Sun

Readers Poll: The Best Third Albums Ever

This week in 1980, Van Halen released their third album Women And Children First, which contained the hits "And the Cradle Will Rock...," "Everybody Wants Some!! and fan favorite "Romeo Delight." It's not the best VH album ever, but it was, in fact, their third album. Most VH super-freaks I know an ... More >>

Cloud Nothings

R&Grunge: Four Grunge Covers We'd Like To See (& One Actual One)

The '80s and '90s will never die as long as young artists continue to keep their influencers alive in song. When news broke earlier this week that D'Angelo of all people have decided to cover Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun", it marked one of the few times that R&B, a genre which now sadly revolves ar ... More >>

Friday Night: Incubus At The Woodlands

Photos by Groovehouse​Incubus Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 30, 2011 Aftermath's dirty little theory is that Incubus is probably one of the most critically underrated modern-rock bands of the past decade. Or, they are justly compartmentalized as a blustery Southern California grou ... More >>

Say My Name: Bands Named After Actual, Real People

Punk Rock Elite​This Friday would have been Z.Z. Hill's 76th birthday, but the popular Texas bluesman passed away in 1984 from a heart attack. Most people only know who the late soul crooner is through his connection to ZZ Top. The moniker of that little ol' band from where we are sitting righ ... More >>

G N' R, The Cure & Chili Peppers Could Be Hall Of Famers Next Year

Oh, this will be a fun induction ceremony...​This morning, The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland announced the list of nominees for its Class of 2012: The Small Faces & The Faces, Freddie King, The Cure, Guns 'N Roses, Heart, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Spinners, War, Joan Jett and the Bl ... More >>

The Best Episodes Of MTV's Unplugged

​MTV Unplugged was like health food for your soul during its heyday on the music channel, which was full of junk food. When artists stuck to the template and went untethered to electronic instruments and really dug into their music with new eyes it was amazing. Debuting in 1989 with Squeeze ... More >>

Beyonce's 4 & 11 Other Numerical Album Titles

​Beyonce is not the first artist to title her album after a number. Here are 11 more - one of which B may have to unseat from the top of the charts when her fourth solo album, 4, is released next month. Chicago, Chicago III-Twenty 1 (1971-91): Chicago had a simple formula for naming albums: ... More >>

New Music Releases April 5: Leon Russell, Robbie Robertson, The Ravonettes, The Kills, Etc.

​Last week brought new releases from Britney Spears, Radiohead, and a few Pearl Jam re-issues hitting store shelves amid reports that the industry was finally starting to see some improvement. Spears' Femme Fatale is currently projected to enter the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart with sal ... More >>

Happy Anniversary, Nirvana's Nevermind

​This past Friday, a significant musical anniversary came and went with barely a peep. It was only 19 years to the day the last album to cause a legitimate sea change in popular music - both the industry and the art - was released. Rocks Off knows that was a few days ago, but hey, we had a bus ... More >>

FAIL: Kanye And Taylor, Lupe Fiasco, Kings Of Leon

​Taylor and Kanye Need To Move the Hell On: The MTV Video Music Awards happened this past Sunday, so you had to know there was going to be at least one sizable fail in there somewhere, and of course they didn't disappoint. Taylor Swift took the stage and sang a melodramatic tune she'd written ... More >>

Houston Locals Musicians Film Video With Dallas Native, Head to Austin for Release

• Fat Tony, Tom Nguyen from The Ton Tons and Kyle Vento from Simple Success teamed up with director Tedric Huff to play the backing band for Dallas artist Angela Carter in the new video for her song "Love Anymore." It looks like they had tons of fun. • Roky Erickson spent about 30 minutes las ... More >>

5 Songs That Are No Day At The Beach

This past weekend, Craig's Hlist spent a good solid two days at the beach playing in the surf down off Mustang Island just south of Corpus Christi. It was one of those mental-health weekends that if we hadn't have taken, we would have ended up throwing beer bottles against the wall at an old folks' ... More >>

The Walking Dead

Texas City's Come See My Dead Person is very much alive.

"Rap Song Or Murder Ballad" Revealed

​ Rocks Off is really enjoying these little quizzes we've concocted, because it gives us a chance to revisit some of our favorite rap tunes and bask in the comforting knowledge that, whatever their time, place and circumstance of origin, songs about killing are pretty much all the same. We only wi ... More >>

A Horse With No Name: Livestock Songs Fit For The Glue Factory

​ At Rocks Off, there is no yin without yang, no Yahweh without Satan, and no Charles Barkley without Godzilla. And since we already presented you with an assortment of rockin' livestock songs (to get you in the mood for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo), it's only fair that we offer a count ... More >>

Mommy's Little Monster: Songs To Remind You That Children are Inherently Evil

​Like you, as Rocks Off grows older we have to come to terms with the fact that many of our friends are having children. Usually we can just scroll quickly past the offspring-related Facebook updates or send those 12-MB emails containing brood photos into the Trash folder unread. No harm, no foul. ... More >>

The Last Place You Look, Metavenge, Peekaboo Theory, American Fangs Lead Local Texas Buzz Nominees

Megan E PhotographyThe Last Place You Look​ It's no secret that sometimes Rocks Off likes to rag on Houston's, ahem, "New Rock Alternative," 94.5 FM The Buzz - let's see, according to www.yes.com, last hour the station played Green Day's "Longview," Foo Fighters' "My Hero," Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Three: Girl Talk

Photos by Groovehouse​Of all the bands at ACL this year, Ghostland Observatory and Girl Talk competed heavily against one another for the most visually compelling acts. But because we can see lasers down at the Pink Floyd show at the planetarium just about any old time, our vote g ... More >>

ACL Day Two: Deadheads Rejoice!

Photos by Mark C. Austin​An unexpected guest showed up yesterday afternoon at the Austin Ventures Stage with Austin-by-way-of-Louisiana slide guitar hotshot Papa Mali. The Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzman was backing up the dreadlocked Mali on drums.

Aftermath: Collective Soul and Black Stone Cherry at House of Blues

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ Something strange happened during the '90s. Southern Rock as we once knew it all but disappeared. Charmed by grunge, drowned in amplification, bands began shedding the elements of blues and country that threaded that noble line from Lynyrd Skynyrd through the Georgia Satel ... More >>

Defending The Buzz: Does 94.5 FM Really Suck That Bad?

What with Creed reuniting, BuzzFest coming up in a couple of weeks and, hell, maybe even the swine-flu scare - As in: What's worse than coming down with swine flu? A Houston radio that only tunes in 94.5 FM - Rocks Off sure has been thinking a lot about The Buzz lately. Probably too much. I mean, it ... More >>

Zac Brown Band

Zac Brown Band

Austin City Limits Goes Grunge; Tickets On Sale Today

Just in time for tickets to go on sale - as in now - leaks have conveniently begun to spring in C3 Entertainment's carefully under wraps lineup for this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival, scheduled for October 2-4 in Zilker Park. (Don't worry, Longhorn fans: Unlike last year, that's UT's ... More >>

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 >>

Priestbird

Priestbird performs Tuesday, May 15, at DiverseWorks, 1117 East Freeway, 713-223-8346. Pit er Pat and Balaclavas also perform.

Kings of Leon

Because of the Times

Break the Silence

Yellow and Green

Paris Green's new CD Rambling Yellow Paper

Glaude Be with You

Arctic Monkeys

Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Messing with Texas

Rockers bash Bush, with varying results

Da Bombing

The postering of West Gray

Rotation

New Releases Reviewed

Tired and on a Farewell Tour?

Beyond the Stars

Playing Dumb

Atticus Finch are smarter -- and hungrier -- than they sound

Rotation

Sound Check

Cover Boys

For Houston's cover bands, the party never ends and the songs remain the same

Letters