Retail Trade

Your 2013 Houston Record Store Day Rundown

Your financial situation be damned, Record Store Day 2013 is coming this Saturday, April 20, to drain your wallet of life and those little green pieces of paper. This Saturday your dance card should be full with all the major indie record stores in Houston and the surrounding areas offering up giv ... More >>

Exploring Sweet Spot Audio And Records In Webster

A few weeks back, our own Marc Brubaker detailed ten of the best record stores in the Houston area. This past weekend I finally visited another one to add to your list of must-visit shops in Houston, and it is worthy of the drive if you live inside the Inner Loop. Sweet Spot Audio and Records is l ... More >>

Promoter Sues Owners of Club Where Jay-Z, Beyonce, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade Celebrated All-Star Weekend

A group called All Pro Management is suing the owners of Rich's, where Jay-Z (aka Mr. Beyonce Knowles) hosted an NBA All-Star par-tay, accusing them of cheating All Pro out of proceeds from liquor sales. The promoters claimed to have paid $25,000 to host the event, according to the Courthouse News ... More >>

Louis Vuitton Obsession: Domain Seizure Reminds Us of Five Things You Shouldn't Buy Online from Random Websites

As part of the continued crackdown on counterfeit merchandise websites, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations announced in a release that it seized 89 Internet domain names last week. Of those 89, a whopping 78 were related to Louis Vuitton, the high-end handbag ... More >>

30th Annual Houston Auto Show

Long-Time Car Salesman Rocky McCullough: Dealership Fired Me Because I Have Cancer

You might recognize Rocky McCullough from his Goodson Honda TV spots, where he guaranteed low prices while standing next to a buxom model or two. But now McCullough is playing a different role: the plaintiff in an employment discrimination lawsuit against Southern Ford in Pearland. McCullough claim ... More >>

Record Store Day: 8 Ways To Annoy A Record-Store Worker

Tomorrow is Record Store Day, which is a little bit like the Super Bowl of music shopping: People who have no interest in the sport the rest of the year will be front and center. Rocks Off would never, ever tell anyone not to go to a record store, but people not already planning to make a beeline fo ... More >>

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.

Bill & Ted's Alex Winter Examines Napster's Fall In SXSW Doc Downloaded

Alex Winter (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Idiot Box) has spent the last decade trying to make a movie about Napster, the revolutionary peer-to-peer filesharing site that changed the music industry forever. Winter met Napster founder Shawn Fanning in 2002 and was instantly energized by the p ... More >>

Last Minute Shopping: The 10 Best Online Retailers (Not Named Amazon.com)

​For a decade now, online retailers have increasingly grown their sales to the point they now rival traditional brick and mortar establishments. Let's face it, it's just easier to shop online if you have a computer, an internet connection and a desire to avoid crowds. You can sit there with a ... More >>

Material World: Music to Rock Your Cyber Monday with Video

In the late '70s, there was a movie spoof on Friday the 13th called Saturday the 14th. It was about as dumb as you imagine it would be. Well, insert punchline here because Black Friday is over, but we are still smack dab in the middle of Cyber Monday, where instead of being stampeded by rampaging sh ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Cyber Monday Is Better Than Black Friday

To bastardize a line from Groundhog Day, "Well, it's Black Friday...again." It's that oh-so-magical time of year when the strong walk away from predawn shopping trips with armfuls of electronic goodies while the weak get treated by EMS for boot marks left by shoppers stampeding into Best Buy. Since ... More >>

5 Reasons You Should Skip Black Friday for Cyber Monday

Well, it's Black Friday again. I sincerely hope you and your loved ones remain un-trampled and filled with holiday spirit or, if retailers got their wish, with carloads of merchandise. Since 2005, the nerdy cousin to Black Friday has been Cyber Monday. Traditionally, and I hesitate to even use that ... More >>

Musicians Can Wait: Black Friday More About Flat Screens Than Instruments

Back in college -- yes, in the stone age -- I worked for a musical instrument store on the north side of Houston. Over the years, there were busy days where I just stood behind the counter while a line of people handed me guitars to buy without the hint of a sales push and there were days we sat in ... More >>

Record Store Day Contest Coming This Afternoon

​When so many Americans will be camping out at Best Buys and fighting over big screen televisions at Walmart, music fans will be sleeping soundly in anticipation of Record Store Day's Black Friday events. The now annual day celebrating the stores that once carried the weight of music sales is ... More >>

Tequila Coleman: Loves Fancy SUVs, Hates Paying For Them

Land Rover: Get one by any means necessary​Apparently, Tequila Antwannette Coleman really, really, really digs luxury SUVs. They are the salt and lime in her life; without them, she is just not complete. The trouble is, she seems to have trouble paying for them, and now the 31-year-old Houst ... More >>

Bye-Bye, Books-A-Million

BAM!! It's gone!!​We always thought a major bookstore downtown was a bit of a longshot, but Books-A-Million thought otherwise. Until now, that is. Swamplot reports that the store in the new-ish Houston Pavilions will soon be shuttered. Books-A-Million is kind of a southeastern Borders, with ... More >>

Infographic: The Black Friday Experience

See the whole thing after the jump​Today is "Black Friday", so named because of the hellish throng of shoppers and cars choking the streets, sidewalks, and retail outlets all over the country. Believe it or not, up until a few years ago, "Black Friday" was an urban legend; the shopping crowd w ... More >>

$2.99 Grand Slams at Denny's on Black Friday

We prefer the Moons Over My Hammy​Let's say for the moment you plan on being out early on Black Friday. Let's also say your four hours of sitting in line followed by the frenzied trampling of other humans to buy the hundred-dollar laptop and three-hundred-dollar flat screen television you are ... More >>

Flying Fur: PETA Members to Protest on Black Friday

Don't expect hot, naked protesters on Friday. Think about it if you like, but don't expect it.​When you are out picking up some toys for the tikes at the Galleria this Friday, you might see something besides chubby Santas and frustrated holiday shoppers. You might catch anti-fur protesters. A ... More >>

Top Five Black Friday Fight Videos

Give it or I'll punch you in the jugular​When you are in a battle for your life, you often resort to scratching and clawing, screaming and yelling. When you are in a fight for a plasma television on Black Friday, well, you'll probably do the same thing. Welcome to Black Friday, America's cele ... More >>

Five Reasons Not to Shop on Black Friday

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Shopping Free-For-All!​Every year around this time in the United States, we celebrate a day so important, so American that it brings people together like no other day can. Around 3 a.m. this Friday, bleary-eyed shopaholics will power into retail outlets all over the country in ... More >>

Electric Cars In Houston: There Will Be A Charging Station At Spec's!!

Photo courtesy eVgoeVgo: Jes' juicin' up mah ride​Houston will be home to the nation's first electric vehicle charging ecosystem. Just what is an electric vehicle charging ecosystem? It's a network of charging stations for electric vehicles strategically setup across the Houston area. These c ... More >>

A Guide To Record Store Day 2010 In Houston, Cage Dancing And All

www.recordstoreday.com​ Vinyl fetishists, are you ready to be separated from your mortgage or rent money? Record Store Day is tomorrow, and indie record stores across the whole city will be sticking you up all day Saturday. Rocks Off gets paid today, so you will more than likely see us browsing sw ... More >>

"Record Store Day 2010" With Freddie Steady Five, Grandfather Child, sIngs

Top 5 Grocery Store Closings of the Decade

​Houston -- like most other cities -- was once home to a broad array of supermarkets and grocery stores like Weingarten's (whose last grocery store closed in 1984 -- the company is now exclusively in the real estate market), Continental Finer Foods, and Lewis & Coker before it gave way to bein ... More >>

Murder By The Book Gets Some National Pub

​Murder by the Book is a Houston institution, pretty much the place to go for mystery authors on book tours.The Bissonnet store got some national publicity today, as The New York Times looked at plucky independent booksellers importing a hot new novel from England before its U.S. publication date. ... More >>

Skip Black Friday IRL, And Do It Online

​Hark, singing herald angels! Do you hear what we hear? Could it be the carols of pure bliss lyrically carousing through the annals of our fair city this fine Black Friday? Yes, indeed, 'tis the season for joy to our world! It's the sound of freedom, we reckon. Freedom from familial dining ob ... More >>

When Black Friday Comes, I'll Stand Down By The Door: Tips On Surviving

​If the excessive Black Friday advertising has you overwhelmed, don't fret, we're here to help.  We've been scrutinizing the quadrillion press releases and ads that have been bombarding us in e-mails, on TV, in last Sunday's paper and in any other existing media form you can think of to come ... More >>

An Exercise In Pain: Six Songs of Radio Phil Collins

John Seaborn Gray​ Inspired by Seanbaby's wonderful article using Pandora via Phil Collins as musical gaydar, Rocks Off logged on to our Last.fm account to see where a similar journey with the Genesis drummer and noted Texas history buff might take us. After all, it's not really scientific unless ... More >>

Don't Forget Record Store Day is Saturday

Well, it looks like the weather gods are laughing at Houston again, and have decided to ring in iFest with a good round of drenching rain. So if you'd prefer to remain indoors, don't forget Saturday is Record Store Day - there's even a Web site. Be a good consumer and help out your neighborhood ... More >>

Meiko

Circuit City, Don't Let The Doorknob Hit You In The Ass

So Circuit City is calling it quits, shuttering the remaining 13 stores in the Houston area.Hair Balls had the misfortune of buying the worst TV I have every owned there a couple of years ago. The built-in DVD player broke almost immediately, the picture is weak, the power button has fallen off. Ev ... More >>

Don't Work -- It's Cyber Monday!

Thought the holiday uber-shopping craze was limited to Black Friday? Welcome to Cyber Monday.Admittedly, the day was first a gimmick by Shop.org (they coined the term back in 2005), but over the years, more and more stores have jumped on board and as many as 82% of online retailers are offering spec ... More >>

Wal-Mart Turns To Wind Power, A Little

Wal-Mart is going green in Texas! And we don't just mean the dollars you save every day!! Actually, the company is kinda making a bold move of sorts, teaming up with Duke Energy to get wind power for several of its Texas stores. The two companies announced today that beginning in April, Duke w ... More >>

Now Dat's Classy

Department Of Bad Timing (Press Release Div.)

Uh-Oh, O'Reilly: Racial Discrimination?

It's Debt Collection, Not Extortion

Happy Record Store Day

Free Jazz at the Dollar Store

No Phishing

Best New Magazine

When Online Got Off Base

Or: How Mark Cuban would have--and could have?--saved the music biz

Napster's Spawn

File-sharing copycats keep free music alive on the Net. The Big Five labels still call it theft.

Best Used CDs

CD Warehouse

Ransom Notes

Can one man convince millions of people to pay for their "free" music?

Jewels and Justice

David Yurman yanks a local dealer into court over sales

Amplified

Stolen Axes

Winners and Losers

Lottery operator Gtech was especially kind to the political friends of Texas Comptroller John Sharp. But when supervision of the company was moved from Sharp's office, the party was over.