Rage Against The Machine

Last Night: Muse at Toyota Center

Muse Toyota Center March 12, 2013 There are certain types of bands you expect to pack arenas: bands who have figured out the power of pop hooks (Maroon 5), bands who play the most populist modern rock imaginable (Nickelback), and the dinosaurs of classic rock (Fleetwood Mac). Muse could have been ... More >>

Music That Will Officially Be Old In 2013

One of my favorite pastimes is reminding my friends how old we are all getting, partly because I am cruel, and probably because even I am astounded that actor Steve Guttenberg is now three years older than Wilford Brimley was when they filmed Cocoon together in 1985. We can all think of things tha ... More >>

Wouldn't It Be Cool If the Houston Texans Only Played Texas Music at Games?

Much like most Houstonians, I will be in front of a television on Sunday watching our Houston Texans play the Miami Dolphins at Reliant Stadium. It's a big and promising year for our team, one of only professional sports franchises in town that are successful. Did you know that Billy Ray Cyrus is ... More >>

The Republican Candidate's Guide To Picking Campaign Music

This week Republicans from around the country gather in Florida to celebrate all things conservative and curse Issac for stealing the national spotlight. For me the 2012 Republican National Convention marks the true start of the presidential campaign season, the playoffs to the primaries' regular se ... More >>

Fanning the Flames: The Top 10 Performances at Woodstock 99

This week marks the 13th anniversary of Woodstock 1999, the iconic festival's much-maligned third iteration that kinda dissolved into rape and looting towards the end. As 200,000-strong anarchic gatherings go, everything went off rather pleasantly for much of the festival, but the bonfires, looting ... More >>

Curated Festivals and the Changing Face of Summer Entertainment

While most Texans are spending their Friday counting down to ACL or speculating about the Fun Fun Fun Fest line up, I find myself thinking about a festival north of our fair state. We're halfway through June and that means that the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial should be dropping any da ... More >>

They're Ba-a-ack!: The Six Best Coachella Reunion Performances

Over the weekend, we experienced one of the most exciting musical events of the year: The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. One of the main features of the festival is the reunion aspect. For most of Coachella's lifespan, it has featured at least one classic band back together for the first ti ... More >>

Tori, Tool, TLC And The Other Musical Debuts Of 1992

1992 was a pretty heady year for music in general, with the masses gobbling up all the gangsta rap, grunge, and pop-country they could. That year would see the release of not only R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People, Peter Gabriel's Us, Pantera's Vulgar Display Of Power, but also what is arguably The ... More >>

10 Things Rock Music Should Do This Year to Regain Former Glory

When I saw School of Rock for the first time, I was struck by just how accurate Jack Black's character was when teaching kids the meaning behind rock music. Telling the one girl with the great voice to listen to "Great Gig in the Sky" or letting his students know that "one great rock show can change ... More >>

Bulls on Parade: Ten Songs for Ten Texans Players and One for the Team

​This past weekend, not only did the Texans roll to yet another improbable win over the Atlanta Falcons, they seemed to find a battle cry in the song "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine. The song was played over and over inside Reliant Stadium and seemed to fire up linebacker Connor ... More >>

Libra Soul: The Singing Voice Of The 99 Percent

Photos courtesy of Aiton Extea/Libra Soul​Around this time last year, Rocks Off told you about a man named Aiton Etxea and his quest to find "reason-filled musicians" for the purposes of forming a band. His use of the term "reason-filled" caught our attention because we were regular trollers o ... More >>

Dig This: Mydolls, Second Lovers, Yello Echo, The Answer Page & //TENSE//

The current volume of local music is staggering. New Houston bands and new songs are born daily, and all too often pass away just as quickly. Rocks Off wants to help you (and ourselves) keep up. ​It's time for another installment of Dig This, wherein we inform you about the multitude of music ... More >>

Riot Riot Upstart: Songs For The UK Riots

photoshoplooter.tumblr.com/​A few days ago, in the midst of the worst of the rioting going on around London, which has now dominated the headlines for the better part of a week, someone on Twitter remarked "If Americans rioted every time the cops shot somebody we'd have no time for cocaine and ... More >>

10 American Anthems That Tell It Like It Is

​Captain America, Marvel's newest superhero movie, comes out today. We'll pause until the excitement passes. ... Rocks Off likes Captain America. The three comic books we read with any regularity as a scupper were Cap, Batman (Detective Comics), and Spider-Man. But we love America. The land ... More >>

Forrest Gump & Other "Generation-Defining" Soundtracks

​The Forrest Gump soundtrack debuted on June 28, 1994, a week ahead of the film itself, which would go on to smash box-office records, win numerous awards and become one of the most beloved movies of the past 20 years. It is still endlessly quotable, emotional, and entertaining, and the soundt ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Music Videos Of All Time

​It's hard to fathom a time before music videos, and it's even sadder to remember when channels like MTV and VH1 were wall-to-wall music videos. In between there was a golden age, when with every clip that you watched could spark a revolution in you, or at least change your fashion sense. It's ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

"Comeback" Albums Nobody Is Really Asking For

Marc BrubakerLimp Bizkit flexes their "Gold Cobra" at Buzzfeest XXIV, May 2010​Mark your calendars, fellow music lovers. June 28 will be a sales matchup that'll make 50 Cent and Kanye's 2007 album release square-off look like a playground brawl. The contenders are Limp Bizkit and Taking Back S ... More >>

Delo's Hood Politics Vol. 2 Best Local Mixtape Of 2011

​On his first tape, Hood Politics Vol. 1, Missouri City product Delo did one great thing ("Ghetto Boy"), one excessively beautiful thing ("Ain't My Style"), six good things ("Dream On," "Tell Me Mamma," "16 David," "Can I Live," "Hold On," "Money & Blood"), two bad things ("I Got Wings," "Hwy ... More >>

Adios "Age Of Aquarius": A Zodiac Realignment Playlist

​If Twitter is good for one thing, it's the immediate and rapid dispersal of breaking news. If Twitter is good for two things, it's that, plus the immediate and rapid dispersal of whatever trumped-up rumor, lie, or fakery that manages to draw the ire of the millions of poor saps reading along ... More >>

Wu-Tang Clan's Best Pop-Culture References

​Rocks Off can't rightfully remember the last time the whole Wu-Tang Clan was ever in Houston, if they ever have been. For some reason, we keep wanting to think they came once with Rage Against The Machine around 1997. In 2007, they came to Dallas on the Rock The Bells summer tour with Nas, Ta ... More >>

Footpie, Dread-Free And Jammin' The Suburbs

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. myspace.com/footpie​Foot ... More >>

Presenting... Theremin Hero!

Every day Rocks Off trolls the tubes of you in search of videos deemed worthy to share. If you have something you think deserves to be video of the day, send a link to jef_rouner@yahoo.com. ​You're thinking, "It's a joke or a parody or a trick," but you are so, so wrong. Grieg Stewart has act ... More >>

Cypress Hill

Bulls On Parade: Our Favorite Songs About Livestock

​It's almost Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo time again. Our annual celebration of sub-par country music and pissed-off bovines stomping poor fools' nuts in the dirt kicks off March 2 and runs for almost three weeks. During which Houstonians will enjoy traffic-delaying wagon trains and more dou ... More >>

The Proper Methods of Mixing a Musical Anger-Release Cocktail

​One of the typical byproducts of getting older is that, by and large, you don't tend to get as angry anymore. Not necessarily the "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention" social-awareness type of anger, but the hard-edged, passionate type of anger which seems to be a prerequisite of ... More >>

HPMA Aftermath: Heptic Skeptic, Runaway Sun, the McKenzies, B L A C K I E, the Tontons and Spain Colored Orange

Photos by Shea Serrano​ 5:08 p.m.: About two weeks ago, vocalist Kammera Franklin broke her ankle. It has not stopped her hustle. Sunday, she sang for Heptic Skeptic, Umbrella Man and every single other band on the HPMA schedule. 5:27 p.m.: The Skeptics, who have always been a little more soulful ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Daylight Coma

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com. Growing up, we were big fa ... 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 >>

Musicians Don't Have W. to Kick Around Anymore... So Now What?

Now that Lil' Bush has shuffled off the Presidential coil - or will in a couple of hours, anyway - and heads off into some Dallas burg to write his memoirs and reflect on his two wild and strange terms as Commander in Chief, it seems that the writers of so many protest songs can call off their guns ... More >>

Give Us a Hand

Drenched In Blog: El DeBarge Arrested? Somebody Notify Steve Guttenberg

Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, UGK, Pharoahe Monch, David Banner, Immortal Technique, Jedi Mind Tricks, Supernatural, Rahzel

Rock the Bells goes down Wednesday, August 8, at Reliant Arena, 1 Reliant Park, 832-667-1400.

The Nightwatchman

The Nightwatchman performs Monday, June 18, at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-225-5483.

Last Night: GZA in Austin (Cuz We Missed Him in Houston)

Protest Songs for George W.

That's my Bush!

Cred Sheet

A guide to being cool

Dissent for Sale

Opposition is a Commodity in Sundance Docs.

Encore Performance

Don't fret. Guitar Hero II kills the opening act

Killith Fair: M.O.D., with Crisis and Jacknife

Thursday, June 9, the Engine Room, 1515 Pease, 713-654-7846.

Downfall 2012, with Pimpadelic

Friday, November 29

Rage Against The Machine

Renegades (Epic)

Social Distortion

Ask your local rocker to stop (over-)using his wah-wah pedal

Dready Metal

Unlike their North American counterparts, Jamaican rappers are incorporating heavy metal into their material, with some amazing results

Where Will They Be?

A look at the rock scene in 2020

Metal Manifesto

Rage Against the Machine preaches anticapitalism, sells millions of records

Uncommon Cause

Rotation

Powerful Tool