Rick Rubin

Please, Rick Rubin: Leave Metal Bands Alone

Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard that Black Sabbath recently released their long awaited comeback album, 13. It's their first with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals since 1978's Never Say Die, and riding high at No. 1 on the UK Charts, their first No. 1 hit since 1970's Paranoid. So: comeba ... More >>

Dave Grohl Releases Trailer for Nerd-Boner Doc Sound City

While the Foo Fighters have been on hiatus, lead singer Dave Grohl has been putting the finishing touches on his cinematic love letter to Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. Today the full trailer for Sound City was released online. You can check out the studio's discography here. The studio's du ... More >>

Return to Glory: Rick Rubin's 5 Best Comeback Productions

Recently, Black Sabbath confirmed that record magnate and production auteur Rick Rubin would be twiddling the knobs on their new record, set to be released next year. It will be their first with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals since 1978, and a lot of their reputation is riding on this. Not that it will ma ... More >>

ZZ Top Returns to Espanol for September's LA FUTURA

Moments ago, ZZ Top's publicist Bob Merlis officially announced the title and release date of the trio's first studio album since 2003's Mescalero, a record even many diehard fans were starting to doubt was real. LA FUTURA will be released September 11 on American Recordings, the recently rebooted l ... More >>

ZZ Top: A Double-Sided Take On The New Texicali EP

Craig Hlavaty: What a way to tease your first album of original material in nine years, ZZ Top. You managed to record three songs and one ballad that instantly fit into your canon alongside the rest of your ballbusters without sounding like a classic-rock act reaching for straws. This is no weak, m ... More >>

ZZ Top Readies New Texicali EP For Release Next Week

Our long national nightmare is over: ZZ Top is finally releasing new music next Tuesday, June 5. Their Texicali EP will include four tracks off their upcoming Rick Rubin-produced album, which as of right now, still has no official title. "I Gotsta Get Paid," "Chartreuse," "Over You" and "Consumpti ... More >>

Billy Gibbons Interviewed: New ZZ Top Album Sounds Like Tequila

With ZZ Top ready to rock RodeoHouston Thursday, Rocks Off began to ponder whatever happened to the band's long awaited new-album. Last summer, guitarist Billy Gibbons told Rocks Off that the band's first collection of new material since 2003's Mescalero would arrive in stores this winter. So far ... More >>

Unchained: The Man In Black's Late-Life Comeback

The Resurrection of Johnny Cash: Hurt, Redemption, and American Recordings By Graeme Thomson 254 pp., $19.95, Jawbone Press In 1993, Johnny Cash may have been a country-music icon, but for all intents and purposes, he was also one in need of some serious restoration. Two decades removed from his la ... More >>

2011 Rewind: Concert Tickets From An Alternate Universe

This originally ran on June 8, but seeing that the year is coming to an end, we are looking back at some of our favorite blogs we gave to you these past 12 months. One of the best dreams we ever had was of covering a Clash show for Rocks Off. Yeah, dreaming about work isn't something to brag about ... More >>

Never Say Die!: Black Sabbath Reforming In 2012 For Tour & Album

​Today in Los Angeles, legendary, pioneering heavy metal group Black Sabbath convened in front of reporters at the Whiskey A Go Go to announce a 2012 reunion tour and album, set for a fall release. The event, hosted by Henry Rollins, was telegraphed by a countdown clock on the band's official ... More >>

10 Facts About Slayer's Reign In Blood

​Last week, Slayer's 1986 album Reign In Blood turned 25 years old. We were so wrapped up in doing that dog-ass Pink Floyd facts blog - that we paid dearly for in the comments section - and getting ready for our high school reunion, that we forgot all about this anniversary. We apologize for l ... More >>

Purple, Possessed & Pervy: Rock's Top 10 Houses

harleyslist.blogspot.comJohn Lennon and Yoko Ono in a happy pose in front of their home (and future site of Lennon's assassination).​Celebrity homes will always be a source of fascination, offering a glimpse at the intimate, private side of those who live their lives in the public eye. And it' ... More >>

Our Ten Favorite Glenn Danzig Pictures

Marc Brubaker​Today is Glenn Danzig's 56th birthday, and the former Misfits and Samhain frontman is as evil and cantankerous as ever as he stalks this cursed Earth, darkly reaping the senior discounts of the innocent. For a year now he has been able to buy black jeans and black shirts from Ros ... More >>

ZZ Top Will Release New Album By Year's End, Gibbons Says

Jim BrickerZZ Top at The Woodlands, September 2010​After years of hemming and haw-haw-haw-hawing about how far along it is, who they are working with, and whether or not it even actually exists, ZZ Top singer/guitarist (Rev.) Billy F. Gibbons said the trio plans to release its first studio alb ... More >>

Weezer: The Good, The Bad & The Downright Ugly

​This Sunday night, Weezer headlines Free Press Summer Fest III, and the influential pop-rockers have been a part of indie lore for the past 17 years. With 1994's self-titled "Blue Album" and 1996's Pinkerton, the band created a cult following whom they would promptly weird the fuck out with s ... More >>

R.I.P.: Remembering The 27 Club - Jimi, Jim, Janis, Kurt...

​As a student of rock music since he was born and sat in front of MTV and VH1, Craig's Hlist has grown up hearing constant aching throb of the number 27, the end-marker for a collection of rockers who died at that hallowed age, due mostly to their own chemical and/or personal misadventures. ... More >>

Last Night: Linkin Park At Toyota Center

Photos by Groovehouse​Linkin Park, Paper Tongues Toyota Center March 3, 2011 "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." Rock writers cannot change what we see, but we can change how we see them. We ... More >>

ZZ Top To Receive Texas Medal Of Arts

Jim BrickerZZ Top at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, September 2010​While they take their sweet time getting around to record that long-anticipated, Rick Rubin-produced next album - which, at this point, could well come out a solid decade after their last, 2003's Mescalero - ZZ Top has be ... More >>

Billy Gibbons And Tequila A Winning Combination

ZZ Top's recording date with Rick Rubin inching closer, he says... Photos by Marc Brubaker​Thursday afternoon, Rocks Off got an invite to a launch party for a new tequila on the scene, Pura Vida Tequila. Where else would this party be at but at the newest tequila joint on Washington Avenue, T ... More >>

Buxton, Wild Moccasins Join New West Records

Here at Rocks Off, we try our best to cover all the local music news, both large and small. Where else are you going to read that you can play Slim Thug on Words With Friends? It is reasons such as these that we trudge the war zones of RSS feeds, seeking out crucial tidbits of information. Buxton o ... More >>

Nine Rappers About To Be Eaten By Their Own Beards

musiconplay.net​In today's crowded music industry, it's becoming increasingly difficult for artists to stand out from the pack, but sometimes a facial package of ample weight and gargantuan growth will do the trick. Look out, these hip-hoppers are one hair strand away from disappearing into th ... More >>

Crosby, Stills & Nash's Skeletal, Primitive Demos

Crosby, Stills and Nash Demos (Atlantic/Rhino)​These are resurging times for this harmonic trio. They're in the midst of a 40th anniversary tour (which stops in Houston at the Woodlands tonight), were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June, and are headed into studio with Rick Rubin fo ... More >>

Crosby, Stills & Nash

In Honor of Michelle Obama and "Shortsgate," the Best Ass Songs of All Time

In a year when the biggest news stories aren't about war or the environment but a mentally unbalanced woman having a litter of children and the death of a creepy pop singer who hadn't put out a decent album in 25 years, it should come as no surprise that so many people would be up in arms ... More >>

Slide Show: Albums That Went Darker

​ For most rock acts, the traditional way to deal with success is to rework their lyrics, image and sound to become palatable to a larger audience. Usually this means brightening the subject matter, cleaning up the bad words, softening the sharp edges on those power chords and getting haircuts tha ... More >>

ZZ Top, Aerosmith Hit Woodlands July 17

Mark C. AustinMonday morning, word came down from Aerosmith and ZZ Top's respective camps, via Billboard, that the two boogie-rocking bands are teaming up for a massive world tour. After some digging, Rocks Off found out the tour makes its Houston-area stop Friday, July 17, at the Cynthia Wood ... More >>

The Year in Albums

Turning the Screw: Promise Pseudo, Soulja Boy, Scarface, Rick Rubin, Akon, T.I., Doug E. Fresh, the Bee Gees and More

Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: "Sunny," Promise Pseudo Wire To Wire We disliked Soulja Boy, and then we read this Scarface inte ... More >>

ZZ Top Signs to Rick Rubin's American Recordings

The Geto Boys Reunite

Beards of a Feather: Rick Rubin to helm ZZ Top session

SXSW: Spank Rock at Levi’s/Fader Fort

Drenched in Blog: Nick Cave Digs Lazarus

Last Night: HorrorPops at Meridian

Radical Chick

You can't tell Natalie Maines to Shut Up & Sing

Rollins Band/X

Monday, August 28, at the Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717

Dixie Chicks

Taking the Long Way

Spank Rock

Yoyoyoyoyo

Neil Diamond; Bobby Bare

12 Songs; The Moon Was Blue

Swede Emotion

Capitalism gives the leftists in the (International) Noise Conspiracy a raw deal

Jet

Get Born (Elektra)

Rage Against The Machine

Renegades (Epic)

Rotation

Wanted Man

Johnny Cash may just be a legend, but he's never sounded better

Decay Becomes Him

Ex-Chili Pepper John Frusciante sleepwalks through a rock and roll nightmare

Rotation

Strange Phenomena

Love and Rockets conjure up some spirits to keep things interesting

Rotations

Post-Christmas Clearance

John Frusciante and Hildegard von Bingen never went to Festus, Missouri