My last official day at the Houston Press is tomorrow, so these past two weeks I have been sifting through my body of work here at Rocks Off, almost seven years of words. I've been gleefully overdosing on nostalgia here at my desk, and I have (almost) no regrets. I'll have some more words on my depa ... More >>
2013 marks the first year that the Austin City Limits Music Festival -- Texas' other large outdoor music festival, never to be confused with Houston's own Free Press Summer Fest -- expands to two consecutive weekends with identical lineups. At this point the lineup for the festival, scheduled for Oc ... More >>
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 >>
Like most writers who aren't named Stephenie Meyer, I find the Twilight novels an abhorrent abomination and a great offense to the written word. I assume the movies are the same to serious filmmakers. But Twilight presents me with a unique problem. Having one foot in the world of writing and literat ... More >>
Does the looming '90s revival presage a Nirvana-style breakthrough?
Note: This is part of our Twin Cities sister paper City Pages' coverage of Lollapalooza this past weekend in Chicago. -- ed. See Also: Lollapalooza 2012: The People BY IAN TRAAS With every year that passes, it feels like electronic dance music gains a bigger foothold in the summer festival circu ... More >>
Having grown up on Unsolved Mysteries and Time-Life books... as well as being completely ignorant of organized religion, my head is full of a thousand examples of Fortean phenomena, unexplainable happenings, and tales of a eldritch and incomprehensible world that gnaws at the edge of reality like a ... More >>
Growing up as I did in the '80s, professional wrestling was more than entertainment, it was religion. The Hulkster, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage and Andre were all unapologetically over-the-top, one-dimensional; comic characters that did glorious battle for dubious reasons. It was a great time to watch ... More >>
Born Villain, Marilyn Manson's first album since 2009's The High End of Low, marks his debut as a cheeky pop-culture gawker, a far cry from where he was just a decade and a half ago. I wrote about some of the best Manson myths on the occasion of his birthday back in January. He's not the snarling, ... More >>
Jane's Addiction Bayou Music Center May 9, 2012 Perry Farrell is a twisted freak. Of course that's intended as a compliment. Farrell has become one of rock's most successful misfits of the past 25 years, combining an astute business sense with a sincere interest in the any number of alternative su ... More >>
Tonight Jane's Addiction comes to the Bayou Music Center, touring behind last year's The Great Escape Artist, only their fourth studio album in their nearly 27 years as a band. A few weeks back Rocks Off talked to lead singer and Lollapalooza honcho Perry Farrell about the band's future and what cou ... More >>
Jane's Addiction and Lollapalooza mastermind on Bin Laden and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
"Which button do I push to make R's go backwards?" Yes, we are now on the twenty-eighth Buzzfest in Houston history, with the all-day show on April 21 boasting a lineup that includes Korn, The Dirty Heads, Blue October, Evans Blue, Evanescence and Cage The Elephant, plus undercards Foxy Shaza ... More >>
Photo by Ann SummaThe documentary Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone flirts with a balance between history and character as it looks behind the scenes at a group that failed to achieve large-scale commercial success, but inspired many groups that did. Directors Lev Anderson and Chris ... More >>
Last night during their Buzzfest 26-closing set at at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, classic alt-rockers Jane's Addiction had the distinct honor of announcing to the nearly sold-out crowd at the shed that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by American special forces.
The Festival of Lights is upon us, as the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah officially kicks off at sundown tonight. Some of music's leading bigwigs will likely be sparking up the menorah, among them Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Leonard Cohen, Diamond David Lee Roth, Perry Farrell an ... More >>
Photo courtesy FBISo caught up in his work, he's even ignoring the candy bowlEarlier we brought you a tale of the biking brigands, two unrelated Huffy-rolling heisters breaking banks in far-flung suburbs around Greater Houston.Today we bring you the further adventures of their portly polar opposi ... More >>
Get out your towels: R. Kelly is coming to town. The singer would be best known as "that guy who sang that song in the Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny movie" if not for the allegations in 2002 that he engaged in sex with an underage girl. Kelly was found not guilty of child porn charges last year, but ... More >>
Photos by Mark C. AustinDavid GarzaSo, what happens to freshly laid grass in a public park after a day full of rain and thousands of people walking back and forth across it at the same time? Well, as anyone who was present for Day Three of Austin City Limits Festival 2009 (ACL) could tell you ... More >>
Photos by Mark C. AustinPearl Jam closed out this year's ACL with aplomb, the audience stretching nearly the entire length of Zilker Park to see Eddie Vedder and the seminal band while nostalgically recalling large portions of the 1990s as songs like "Daughter" and "Evenflow" washed over the ... More >>
Photos by Mark C. AustinIt only took one song in to Pearl Jam's Sunday night closing set at the Austin City Limits music festival for it to dawn on Rocks Off that for way too long this band has been forsaken by back-handed hipster discount and radio-influenced apathy. No band from the grunge- ... More >>
Sounds like Jane's Addiction is more or less a lock to play tonight's Playboy/C3 Presents super-exclusive late-night party at an old supermarket at 1107 N. IH-35 this evening starting around 11. It's pretty much the most popular rumor making the rounds at SXSW at this point - Rocks Off has heard it ... More >>
If you haven't got Secret Machines (above) tickets yet, stop on by Cactus Music (2110 Portsmouth) today and pick up the proggy Dallas expats new self-titled CD; you'll get a free ticket to their show at Warehouse Live tonight with Perry Farrell and Electric Touch. (And a free poster!) If you're th ... More >>
Austin's little music festival is all grown up
Alterna-god Perry Farrell's been caught spinning
In a scandal-ridden election year, the year's top ten music stories were all about winning the popular vote
In a scandal-ridden election year, the year's top ten music stories were all about winning the popular vote
Saturday, April 17
Friday, January 11
Jim Rose got a makeover, but he still has fans rolling in the aisles
Mark Seliger
Mudhoney March to Fuzz
The Borrowers take from anyone they can in order to find themselves
The chords are the same, but the lyrics are en espanol. The rockeros like it, yes they do.
