Pink Floyd

Boogie Nights: How Surviving Disco Helped Me Understand EDM

Some kid I know asked me if I ever plan to write an article about electronic dance music. I told him yeah, probably I would. I guess that seemed too cavalier an answer. He wanted to know if I had something against EDM. Naw, it's all right, I told him. What was I, he wanted to know, some kind of ... More >>

Why Greatest-Hits Albums Matter, and 10 Greatest-Hits Haikus

A solid album, to me, is what I have dubbed a "Front-to-Back." I have two definitions for Front-to-Backs: 1) albums that are structured to listen to as an entire piece of artwork (like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, or Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea); and 2) alb ... More >>

Molly Flogs Houston

Flogging Molly makes the walls sweat at the House of Blues.

Revisiting Robertson Stadium's Forgotten Concert History

After years of dreaming, planning and even a little begging, the University of Houston broke ground on a new on-campus football stadium this month. It's a pretty darn exciting development for the Cougars that marks the beginning of a new era of UH athletics: The program will play its first season in ... More >>

The Cavern and the Top 10 Iconic Rock Clubs In History

Last week back in 1957, the most famous rock club in England opened in Liverpool. There was absolutely no rock and roll on the bill that night. The Cavern Club was originally opened to mimic the cellar jazz bars that owner Alan Synter visited in Paris. There was a strict jazz-only policy in place ... More >>

10 Songs Still Missing From Spotify & What You Can Listen to Instead

As recently mentioned, I'm a pretty big fan of Spotify. Speaking as someone who never got over getting burned by my purchase of Stroke 9's Nasty Little Thoughts I'm a big fan of having the chance to listen to a record all the way through before making a purchase. In their advertising the company i ... More >>

Pass the Wine: Our Writers Review Rolling Stones Merlot

Rocks Off gets bottles of wine here at the office every few weeks. We once had an AC/DC tasting at the office with middling results, though I finished off the Highway to Hell bottle at home by my lonesome, so it wasn't so bad. I have a bottle of Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Cabernet Sauvignon w ... More >>

Squeezing the Lemon: Led Zeppelin & the 10 Most Shocking Rock and Roll Reunions

Five years ago this week, Led Zeppelin fans young and old squeezed their pants full of lemon juice when the band's three surviving golden gods -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - announced that they'd be reuniting for a one-off concert in London. John Bonham's son Jason would man the s ... More >>

Here's Some Very Aces New Music From Houston Rappers

Botany Boys: Not new, still great. The amount of music that is coming out in Houston -- specifically the amount of GOOD music -- has grown to such an unignorable volume that it not only forces me to make up words like "unignorable," but also warps the editorial calendar. Originally, I was plannin ... More >>

Infographic: Dark Side of the Moon Landing

Friday is the 33rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, best known as the city of Houston's one shining historical moment as the first word spoken from the surface. Somewhere in London, the landing must have stirred something else in the four members of Pink Floyd -- soon to release Ummagumma ... More >>

9 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: Alkari, Black Bananas, Chico Trujillo, Etc.

Pot luck show of the weekend: ElecTrick, The Space Villains and Los Area 51 tonight at Rudyard's. Free. It's the big Art Car Weekend, if you haven't heard, and you can get a peek at Saturday's parade at Discovery Green tonight at 6:30 with two solid hours of a murderer's row of local blues greats ... More >>

Last Night: Jane's Addiction At Bayou Music Center

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 >>

Playing for Keeps: Vinyl Essentials

Here's our must-haves if you're kick-starting a record collection.

Vinyl Gets Another Spin

Showing it has more lives than a cockroach, vinyl has been reborn, resulting in some beautiful music. But sometimes production values in records and turntables are lacking.

Summer Fest Ticket Prices Go Up At 10 p.m.; More Talent "Soon-Ish"

Free Press Summer Fest is increasing ticket prices tonight, with a promise to compensate by adding more talent to the two-day music festival on the banks of Buffalo Bayou. According to FPSF's email blast this morning, the price of passes will go up at 10 p.m. tonight, and the festival will announce ... More >>

Lord Lordy, Look Who's Forty: The Best Albums Of 1972

Last week I told you about the best debut albums of 1992, making a lot of us feel old in the process. Hell, I was only nine when those came out and I felt feeble making the list. This week we look at the best albums of 1972, now four decades in the hole, but no less fulfilling and influential. Wha ... More >>

In The Flesh: 10 Semi-Obscure Facts About Pink Floyd

(Cue heartbeat sound effect) This week we turn our fact-finding spotlight on of the most successful cosmic rock bands of all time, Pink Floyd. The band is going through another period of rediscovery by fans young and old with a new set of remastered reissues, along with last year's extremely popula ... 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 >>

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 >>

The Best Fourth Songs On History's Greatest Albums

Sorry, Manowar, maybe next year...​As we come up on the July 4th weekend, Rocks Off considered a myriad of blog ideas to commemorate the holiday. Most patriotic songs, album covers, artists? Sorry, Lee Greenwood, Richard Pryor, and Ted Nugent, but it's all been covered. On this weekend of inde ... More >>

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

The Most Awesomely Bad Pink Floyd Cover Ever

A few weeks back, Rocks Off was utterly enthralled with Roger Waters' rendition of The Wall, the masterpiece he created with his former band, Pink Floyd. Every note was pitch-perfect and the wall was strategically built onstage while the band behind Waters performed the album note for note. In fac ... More >>

Frickin' Lasers: Six Artists Who Could Really Use Them

Photo illustration by Monica FuentesNow that's more like it.​If you don't have tickets for tonight's Ghostland Observatory show at Warehouse Live, you are shit out of luck. Sorry to say, but the show is sold out, and when things sell out at that venue, they mean it. Seriously, you may have to ... More >>

Rudy's Country Store Sign Don't Need No Thought Control

Craig Hlavaty​Either someone in the front office at Rudy's Country Store & Barbecue near U.S. 290 and Huffmeister got a push from the corporate higher-ups to start slinging more banana pudding, or they are really stoked to have scored front-row Roger Waters tickets. Or maybe Live Nation is in ... More >>

Shakira, Tool, Kings Of Leon, Roger Waters All On Sale Within A Week

​This morning, Live Nation announced more huge roadshows hitting Houston soon (enough), adding Shakira and prog-rockers Tool to Toyota Center's 2010 roster. On-sale information for Kings Of Leon and Roger Water's in-concert production of Pink Floyd's The Wall was also released; see the end of this ... More >>

How Sinful Are The Vatican's Favorite Albums?

​ The Catholic church has released a slightly tongue-in-cheek list of its favorite albums of all time, via the Holy See's official newspaper L' Osservatore Romano. When first you hear about it, you might think it would be filled with Christian rock (Hey. Petra. Right?) but no, for whatever re ... More >>

Capsule Art Reviews: "Body in Fragments," "Cy Twombly: Treatise on the Veil," "Dana Frankfort: Pictures," "Robert Pruitt: The Forever People," "Wishing Well for Houston"

Capsule Art Reviews: "Body in Fragments", "Dana Frankfort: Pictures", "Robert Pruitt: The Forever People", "Ron Hoover — A Retrospective: 1972-2006", "Wishing Well for Houston"

For Black Friday, The Top 5 Videos Set In Shopping Malls

"Are you off your fucking meds or something?"​We at Rocks Off are a bit puzzled by the continued practice of cramming ourselves into local malls on "Black Friday," or whatever we're calling the day after Thanksgiving this year (we perfer to remember it as a Megadeth song). Wasn't online shoppi ... More >>

He Said She Said: Songs That Remind Us of Our Exes, Part 2

​ Oh lord. This could get ugly. Sorry, mom. When it comes to - ahem - unresolved issues in a relationship, almost nothing is better to help us commiserate, haterate and self-medicate than music. She Said sometimes likes to image what the soundtrack of her life would look like. The songs below woul ... 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 >>

Doesn't It Make You Feel Better: Songs About Swine

[Update: Now with the Loco Gringos' "Nurture My Pig" and Houston's own Flying Fish Sailors' "Flu Pandemic."] April is almost over and we're coming into Sweeps Week, when commercial sponsors look at TV ratings to decide where they're going to advertise, and you know what that means: time for another ... More >>

Tonight: California Guitar Trio at McGonigel's Mucky Duck

Simone Cechetti/ cgtrio.comCreated in 1991 after taking part in Robert Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists, the trio formed by Paul Richards, Bert Lams and Hideyo Moriya forms a rare musical partnership that reaches across various genres without any form of prejudice. During the trio's live se ... More >>

Mail Call: Post-AC/DC Edition

AC/DC may be gone (sniff), although the ringing in several of Rocks Off's friends' ears (and his own) lingers on, but the mail goes on... Waylon Jennings & the .357s (Littlefield/Nashville, R.I.P.), Waylon Forever (by request): "'I'd been playing my dad the music I was inspired by at the tim ... More >>

Paris Falls

This group makes killer ‘60s/’70s rock

Tonight: Psilli Psybin at the Big Top

Reverberations: Bipolaroid’s E(i)ther Or

Meet Paul Ford, the 763 mp3 Guy: He Covered the Waterfront like No Other, from Over 1,000 Miles Away

The Church

Wednesday, July 26, at The Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717

Secret Machines

Ten Silver Drops

Between the Cracks

Profiling local bands

Explosions in the Sky, with the Octopus Project and A Hawk and a Hacksaw

Saturday, January 28, at the Engine Room, 1515 Pease, 713-654-7846.

The Heavenly States

Friday, April 15, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington Avenue, 713-869-2727.

Secret Machines

Now Here Is Nowhere (Reprise)

Rock and Roll Never Forgets

Classic rock finds a new generation of fans and keeps on keepin' on into the new millennium

Air

City Reading: Tre Storie Western (Record Makers/Astralwerks)

The Mars Volta

De-Loused in the Comatorium (Gold Standard Labs/Strummer Recordings/ Universal )

Later, Floyd

Laser rock shows at the Museum of Natural Science go the way of the dinosaurs

I'm a Believer...

Pink Floyd spectacular storms through wind, rain and Tyerades

Good Keen Fun