Pete Townshend

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 >>

The 10 Greatest Summer Concerts I Never Saw

Well, kids, summer has arrived. If you have ever noticed, all the good concerts seem to come during the summer -- with May being more like a pre-show. My parents, when I was younger, took me to many concerts at some of these venues, mainly Contemporary Christian concerts. I myself had only been to ... More >>

Last Night: The Jesus And Mary Chain At House Of Blues

The Jesus and Mary Chain House of Blues March 13, 2012 The Jesus and Mary Chain must be the definition of "acquired taste." According to my admittedly brief research - which consisted of searching setlist.fm a couple of days before the show - Tuesday was the Mary Chain's first show anywhere in pub ... More >>

Pete Townshend's Operatic Highs... And Lows

Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who from Lifehouse to Quadrophenia By Richie Unterberger Jawbone Press, 300 pp., $19.95 Following the release of The Who's ambitious rock opera, Tommy, Pete Townshend was faced with the inevitable question of any band cresting on a massive success: What's next? As ambiti ... More >>

Pop Rocks: So Who's Going to Perform at Next Year's Super Bowl Halftime Show?

If Janet Jackson's nip slip in 2004 threw ice water on the practice of using current entertainers for Super Bowl halftimes, M.I.A.'s middle finger salute dumped it in the Bering Sea. Finally, after eight years of K. Billy's Sounds of the '70s and Pete Townshend's belly (which somehow didn't draw *an ... More >>

The Most Overused Expressions in Music Critics' Twitter Feeds: An Epic List

It is impossible to overlook this peculiar trend any longer: A few choice words and phrases seem to be dominating many of 2011's music critiques, particularly on Twitter. Seemingly forcibly wedged into friends' and journalists' 140-characters-or-less makeshift tweet reviews, the following words and ... More >>

The 10 Greatest Rock Bassists of All Time

Me (right), God help me, and Billy Sheehan circa 1990.​Last week, Neph Basedow wrote her list of the 11 greatest female rock bass players and she took a little heat for it, including some from me. But, she also got a lot right. At the very least, she highlighted the most under-appreciated musi ... More >>

Father Figures: 100 Famous Musicians' Paternal Professions

If you're a Texan of a certain age, this week you've probably spent some time mourning the death of Jerry Haynes, the children's TV host better known as Mr. Peppermint. Haynes' show on WFAA-TV in Dallas, Peppermint Place, ran from the '60s to the '90s and was widely syndicated across the state, incl ... More >>

14 Things You Didn't Know About Rick Springfield

2. Rick Springfield is a stone cold sex fiend... ​In recent years, many musicians have put down their instruments (at least temporarily) and picked up the computer keyboard to produce some pretty revelatory memoirs. And in one case, perhaps too revelatory - Billy Joel recently pulled the plug ... More >>

Stone Deaf Forever: Rockers With Hearing Loss

​The wages we pay to rock and roll aren't always of the sinful and hungover variety. Some of us pay, dearly, with our hearing, one of the best gifts that God has given humanity. Besides Kate Upton that is. Today is Pete Townshend's 66th birthday, and The Who guitarist is just one of countles ... More >>

Who's Too Old To Rock & Roll?

​It's entirely possible that the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney will each go on tour this year. With ages ranging from 63 to 69 among the four remaining core Stones, the band is obviously the oldest continuing touring rock act, capable of breaking ticket records almost 50 years into the gam ... More >>

Last Night: The Black Angels And Black Mountain At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marc BrubakerSee more photos from Wednesday's fever dream in our slideshow.​The Black Angels, Black Mountain Warehouse Live November 17, 2010 Some music is so evocative and overwhelming it can cause you to flash back to before you were even born. Not all of it - when a Mozart sympho ... More >>

Day Of The Dead: Music In Memoriam 2009-10

itscactus.com​Rocks Off doesn't mean to be morbid, but today is the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday and festival honoring those who have gone before. So instead of waiting until the end of the year, the more traditional time for such things, we wanted to compile a list of the notable name ... More >>

The 10 Most Fun Musical Instruments To Destroy

​A company in Japan is making disposable guitars expressly made for smashing. At around $60 a pop, you won't be too terribly sad about hacking up the stage with it or clocking your bastard bassist or dullard drummer over the head at the end of the gig. Hell, at these prices you could open the ... More >>

Ten Iconic Musical Nicknames, And 25 You May Never Guess

​You know what sucks? Getting saddled with a really awkward family nickname when you are younger and it following you until it takes a frenzied freak-out to stop it. We were once called "Pooter" by our mother until an eight-year-old Rocks Off gave her a terse look right before third grade star ... More >>

The Top 10 Coolest Music-Video Explosions

​We like fireworks and explosions, and with July 4th right around the corner, we are sure to get our fill. Things burning or blowing up are pretty cool, except of course if it's your house, car or business. In that case, it's an awful, horrible atrocity and God is a bastard for letting it happen t ... More >>

Helen Garcia, Mom Of The Year: Sets Up Sham Marriage For Daughter, Feds Say

It was a real-life Green Card, except instead of Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell finding sweet, sweet love we got a mother hiring out her kid for a fake marriage to a Cambodian immigrant.The U.S. Attorney's office in Houston announced this morning the indictments of six people for trying to co ... More >>

Jimi Hendrix's Pyromania And 5 Other Great Moments In Instrument Destruction

​ We've all seen the famous footage of Jimi Hendrix humping, burning, and finally smashing his guitar to bits at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. What not many people realize is he initially performed this act of musical instrument immolation some months before, at the suggestion of writer Keith ... More >>

ACL Fest Preview: School of Seven Bells and Prescott Curlywolf

Amanda MertenSchool of Seven Bells​For the next three weeks, Rocks Off will be bringing you two or three short previews a day of artists playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park October 2-4. That's right, ACL is 17 days away - where is this year going? (Same place as all the ot ... More >>

What Do Allen Stanford And Pete Townshend Have In Common? A Kick-Ass Drug

Houston's Allen Stanford has told a federal judge here he's not guilty of a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme; he's also asking to be let out on bail.Stanford's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, told federal magistrate that his client has has a bad week, what with all the transferring between jails.He also, accord ... More >>

Happy Birthday Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend, lead guitarist of The Who, turns 64 today. The King of the Mods was the brains behind every twist and turn in the band's long history, from proto-punk stabs like "I Can't Explain" through angst template "My Generation and monolithic rock operas like Tommy and Quadrophenia. (Or, mor ... More >>

(Another) Local Album of the Week: Spain Colored Orange's Sneaky Like a Villain

Spain Colored Orange Sneaky Like a Villain www.myspace.com/spaincolouredorange Thanks to differences with Spain Colored Orange's former label Lucid Records, the songs on the local psych-pop quintet's brand-new disc Sneaky Like a Villain are already old hat to the band members. For the rest of u ... More >>

Thrift Store Cowboy: The Move

The best thing about digging around thrift-store CD bins is discovering someone else's cast-offs. The records that people got sick of, or had absolutely no regard for how awesome it could be. Months back, a wife seemingly threw out her husband's entire punk-rock collection during rout ... More >>

Aftermath: The Magpies and Sideshow Tramps at the Continental Club

Photos by Chris Gray It didn't look good at the beginning. A few minutes after 9 p.m. Wednesday, the posted start time for visiting Cleveland roots-rockers the Magpies, the "count" at the Continental Club front door was all of 16 paying customers, and the band was nowhere in sight. Two chicken t ... More >>

Eyeballin': A Technicolor Dream

This documentary, originally broadcast on BBC television, traces the coalition of the "underground" movement in swinging '60s London. Beginning with a groundbreaking 1965 gathering/reading of the Beat poets at the Royal Albert Hall and following with the opening of the Indica bookstore and galler ... More >>

Classic Rock Corner: The Greatest Band Logos of All Time, Part 1

Daniel Kramer With our ears still ringing from last night's AC/DC concert at Toyota Center (I knew we should have stayed away from the end of the stage with the cannon...), we got to thinking about the Aussie boys' iconic band logo. Sketched in pen on a million different school notebooks, and gr ... More >>

The Clash: Live at Shea Stadium

Five Spot: Jack White, The Edge, Jimmy Page and the Mediocrity of Your Life

Who Stole the Roll?

We Now Present... Steroids, The Musical

Reverberations: Bellrays, Power-Pop and Chevelles

Reverberations: Born Liars and The Heys

Classic Rock Corner: Mudcrutch, Golliwogs, Mynah Birds, Moving Sidewalks and More

SXSW: Lou Reed. Live. For One Song. Lou Freakin’ Reed.

Our Favorite Albums of 2007

Panning for gold in an avalanche of 2007 releases

Drenched In Blog: Just Can’t Quit You Baby

Them’s Fighting Words, Broseph!

Re: SXSW Audio. Now with Pictures!

Re: SXSW Audio. Now with Pictures!

Swindled Art

Ironing Out the Kinks

Infernal Bridegroom Productions resurrects Ray Davies' A Soap Opera after 27 years in rock limbo

Artful Roger

Rotation

Sound Check

Static

Sound Check

The Song Remains the Same

The Smithereens don't have a hot new angle, only solid old sounds

Return to Bali Ha'i

Celting Point

Plus: Less Donna McK., archiving Texas folk music, and Iggy's eats Jelly