Phil Spector

The Trailer For the Al Pacino/Phil Spector Movie Looks Pretty Great

On March 24, HBO premieres Phil Spector, a biopic centered around the years leading up to the legendary producer and madman's 2009 murder conviction. Al Pacino steps into the shoes of Spector, whose production credits read like the Rosetta Stone of modern pop music. Judging by the trailer -- relea ... More >>

Tabu

Miguel Gomes offers more.

Gatsby-Mania: 5 Songs for the New Great Gatsby Soundtrack

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written that everyone had to read in high school. And now it's going to be the greatest movie ever made that everyone will have to watch, supposedly out in May, because Leonardo DiCaprio is in it. It's in 3D for some reason too, even ... More >>

New Book Gives Session Aces the Wrecking Crew Their Past Due

The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret By Kent Hartman Thomas Dunne Books, 304 pp., $25.99. Motown had the Funk Brothers, Nashville had the A-Team, and Stax/Volt had their Memphis men, but gold-record-for-gold-record, no group played on more hits in the '60s and '70 ... More >>

The Coathangers, Jaill

Hipster Lessons: 5 Ways To Make Indie Bands Less Annoying

My girlfriend got a new car recently and it has satellite radio. The result has been a lot of channel-surfing and among the more regular selections is Alt Nation. Though there are certainly some God awful songs that get played on there, on the whole, it isn't bad and has even led me to some interes ... More >>

The Jesus & Mary Chain

Classic Christmas: Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Let me just get this out of the way right off the bat: I don't care for Mannheim Steamroller. I think their music is odd and a little creepy. But, that doesn't mean 1 ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Ella Fitzgerald's Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​There is an admission that I have to make having written all these Classic Christmas posts this year. When I think of Christmas, I don't think of carols or choirs or ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Elvis' Christmas Album

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​In 1957 at the near peak of his early success, Elvis Presley did what many artists did: He made a Christmas record. The result was what would become one of the best s ... More >>

Classic Christmas: Bing Crosby's White Christmas

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Bing Crobsy was the first crossover pop star. He made movies, music, appeared in both radio and television programs and did all of it successfully and, more important ... More >>

Classic Christmas: A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some classic Christmas albums taking some track by track and just digging on others. ​Christmas music comes in all shapes and sizes. From jazz and blues to hip hop and heavy metal, everybody thinks they have an interesting take on holiday classics, but ... More >>

Looking Back at A Very Special Christmas Track by Track

In the late 1980's, music empresario Jimmy Iovine cobbled together quite a collection of pop and rock artists to record songs for a Christmas album benefitting the Special Olympics. In 1987, A Very Special Christmas was released and rapidly became an instant holiday classic thanks to the star powere ... More >>

Out Today: Arctic Monkeys Suck It And See, Black Lips Get Cosmic, Joe Ely Satisfied At Last

​This week of new releases brings a Mark Ronson-produced Black Lips album, the country debut of psychobilly idol Nick 13, an inventive career-spanning set from Randy Travis, and another Arctic Monkeys album, continuing their interesting progression from Brit garage brats into muscular rockers ... More >>

Asobi Seksu

Sleigh Bells

Rocks Off's Must-See Music Picks For SXSW '11

​As you may have heard, there's a teeny-tiny little music festival going on in Austin later this week. Some of the early birds on team Rocks Off are either already there or well on their way, as a matter of fact. With more than 2,000 artists playing the official part of SXSW alone, trying to ... More >>

20 Musician Biopics Currently In Development Hell

Happy birthday, Janis.​News came down last week that Sacha Baron Cohen will be stepping into the rhinestones and glitter as Queen icon Freddie Mercury. It's been a long time coming for Cohen, the Borat and Bruno star who is slowly becoming his generation's Peter Sellers and has been rumored to ... More >>

J. Hoberman's Top Ten Movies of 2010

The Top 15 Cartoon Bands (Sorry, Gorillaz)

​Gorillaz makes a stop in Houston tonight (Toyota Center, 7:30 p.m.) on their "Escape to Plastic Beach" world tour. Damon Albarn's "virtual band" is by now far better-known on this side of the pond than his original group, Blur, and is as famous for its inventive music videos as for the songs ... More >>

Friday Night: The National At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​The National House of Blues October 8, 2010 Houston crowds like to party. The National does not. These two seemingly indisputable musical facts led Aftermath to imagine all sorts of nightmare scenarios for the Brooklyn band's visit to House of Blues Friday night, from t ... More >>

Top 10 Worst Music-Related Tattoos

​As the sole in-house bearer of the Rocks Off tattoo load (aside from Brandon K. Hernsberger and Brittanie Shey), we get asked to do a lot of tattoo-related musical blogs. It's cool, because worse things could happen. We aren't killing dogs at the pound nor are we the lead singer of Slightly Stoop ... More >>

Aftermath: Wild Moccasins Hit The Highway At Full Speed At Walter's

Photos by Chris Gray​ It's no longer acceptable to call the Wild Moccasins "cute." The Houston quintet still does cute things, like toss wads of paper back and forth with the crowd and shower them with Silly String during their set, but they no longer have to get by on charm and enthusiasm alone ( ... More >>

A Brief Guide To Super Happy Fun Land's SXSW Overflow Fest

www.myspace.com/jodyseabodyandthewhirlsHouston psych-rockers and Overflow artist Jody Seabody & the Whirls​Thursday marks the beginning of Super Happy Fun Land's SXSW Overflow Fest, two weeks of performers stopping by the East End art space/music venue/sock-monkey emporium on their way to and ... More >>

New iPhone? Rocks Off Has an App for That.

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​ We know a ton of you got iPhones over the holiday break. Well, good news: Rocks Off has spent the last few months developing our own iPhone applications (or "apps," as the urban kids are saying) and we're thrilled to debut them here. All inquiries, critici ... More >>

The Postmarks, Brookville

Aftermath: Box Elders at Mango's

Photo By Craig Hlavaty​ Sometimes Aftermath gets so used to covering big venue rock shows that he temporarily forgets about just how small, intimate, and concise a show can actually be. That's why last nights Box Elders show was like a booster shot of reality before he commences a month of huge du ... More >>

For Woodstock: The Five Lamest Hippies In The Movies

Forty years ago this weekend, hundreds of thousands of unkempt youngsters descended on the town of Bethel, NY for an advertised "three days of peace and music." Woodstock has since become etched into our country's history, not just for symbolizing the 1960s, but also for unleashing the continuing th ... More >>

Aftermath: The McKenzies, the Howlies and Springfield Riots at the Mink

Photos by Chris GrayThe McKenzies To Aftermath, the Mink's Backroom has always seemed more like a house than a music venue - especially inside, with the dark floors, corner bars and abundant, comfortable seating, it's like one of those cozy but spacious multi-resident dwellings where we all went to ... More >>

Remembering 1969, Part 3: The Beginning of the End for the Beatles

Note: see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. For most of 1969, the Beatles were pretty much comatose - after the disastrous Get Back sessions (which would later spawn the Phil Spector-produced Let It Be), they reconvened to the studio that spring to record the music for what would become their final reco ... More >>

Phil Spector Sentenced To 19 Years In Prison

Phil Spector, preeminent music producer and architect of the famed "Wall of Sound" made popular by such artists as The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers and John Lennon, was sentenced to 19 years in a California jail this past Friday for his alleged part in the death of ladyfriend Lana Clarkson in ea ... More >>

SXSW 10-Cent Review: Camera Obscura at Central Presbyterian Church

jensenReady to be heartbroken: Tracyanne and Camera Obscura in Austin. Camera ObscuraSXSWCentral Presbyterian ChurchMarch 18, 2009Said Tracyanne: "This is our first show in a church. Well, in a church that's working. Can a church work? I guess for some people."Bonus: Church acoustics go great w ... More >>

Spring Cleaning

This Week in SXSW: Katy Perry Kisses the "Lake of Fire"

There's now less than a month to go until we here at Rocks Off throw sobriety and sane living to the wind at this year's SXSW festival. This past week we learned of a boatload of new stuff about the weeklong liver-damaging voyage in March, so here goes... The list of bands keeps growing and gro ... More >>

Mail Call: Heartless Bastards, Riverboat Gamblers, Steve Forbert, Thursday and More

Pick of the Litter Cambria HarkeyHeartless Bastards (Austin/Cincinnati), The Mountain (Fat Possum) PR Says: "The record delivers the swamped-up rock howl that fans have always loved - but also brings in this amazing expansion into their sound with pedal steel, mandolin, banjo and st ... More >>

Post-1990 Holiday Songs That Don't Blow

This list was damn near impossible to compile. The criteria: original holiday songs recorded after 1990. There aren't many tunes that qualify, and of the ones that do, few of them are worth listening to. Like fake marshmallow froth atop a cup of instant cocoa, here's the crème de la crème of the l ... More >>

Mamma Mia! drains the fun out of ABBA

Thank you for the music, but your movie's kinda drab.

Bruce Springsteen, Magic

CD Review

Miss Pop Rocks: Phil Spector Gets Freed, Gets Humped

Garbage

Absolute Garbage (Deluxe Edition)

The Concretes

The Concretes (Astralwerks)

Half Smile

Brian Wilson's long-delayed magnum opus fails to topple Pet Sounds from its pedestal

Holly Golightly

Friday, October 10

Best Pakistani Restaurant

La Sani Restaurant & Banquet Hall

Wall of Flavor

Phil Spector has got nothing on the Little Karachi neighborhood's La Sani Restaurant

Joey Ramone

Don't Worry About Me (Sanctuary Records)

Silver and Gold (and Green)

Some artists make holiday records for the beauty, not the bucks

Beach Gents

Good ole vibrations from the Beach Boys this summer

Sound Check