Rick Rubin

Five Nine Inch Nails Remixes That Don't Suck

2013 is going to be a big year for Nine Inch Nails and their fans. Already we've seen the giant awaken with the announcement of a new tour, a new touring line-up (which has been in and out of chaos ever since), a new album titled Hesitation Marks, and the release of a new single, "Came Back Haunted, ... More >>

Happy Birthday Kurt Cobain: Where Would He Be Today?

Last year on this date in honor of what would have been late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday, I wrote a blog supposing where the grunge icon would have been in 2012. It got a lot of traction and people loved and hated it. Imagining him as a dubstep DJ was really for grins and shock valu ... More >>

Black Sabbath Teases New Album With YouTube Clip

Yesterday Black Sabbath released a three-minute YouTube clip for their new upcoming album, 13, which is due to hit the streets in June. Producer Rick Rubin is behind the boards and Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk is on drums, as Bill Ward is still involved in a contract dispute with his estra ... More >>

Kings of the Stone Age

Dave Grohl and other rockers toast L.A.'s Sound City.

The Top 10 Houston Music Stories of 2012

Looking back over the major music-related stories around Houston the past 11 and a half months, 2012 was light on the kind of headlines you'll usually see in a year-end "music scene" recap: Obituaries, arrests, venues closing down, malfeasance, bad behavior, that sort of thing. There was some of tha ... More >>

ZZ Top Playing Sugar Land's Constellation Field October 20

Rewind: What Happened to That ZZ Top Show In The Woodlands? ZZ Top Returns to Espanol for September's LA FUTURA Apparently Roger Clemens wasn't enough. Now everybody wants to play. According to its Web site, ZZ Top will play Constellation Field, the home of the Sugar Land Skeeters, on Saturday, O ... More >>

Last Night: Crosby Stills & Nash at The Woodlands

Crosby Stills Nash Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion August 15, 2012 As a trio, duo, solo, in their previous bands, or with that Neil guy dropping in once in a while, there's no doubt that David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash have collectively baked a respectable slice of the Classic Rock P ... More >>

ZZ Top Taps SUC Classic to Shill Dubious Malt Beverage

Rocks Off did certainly not expect to find this on the Internet today. Or ever, really. But what could possibly be the first single from ZZ Top's long-awaited new album is now appearing in a new ad for a budget line of liquor-flavored malt beverages, the kind you might find in a tub of ice near the ... More >>

Last Night: ZZ Top At Reliant Stadium

ZZ Top RodeoHouston, Reliant Stadium March 8, 2012 See more photos from Thursday, even some without beards, in our slideshow. I admit, I had almost given up on waiting for ZZ Top to show me something new. Not even something from their new album - which is finally completed but caught up in the mus ... More >>

Kurt Cobain At 45: Where Would He Be In 2012?

​Had he not died in April 1994 by his own hand -- or sinister forces working for Courtney Love (insert maniacal laugh) -- Kurt Cobain would have turned 45 years old today. The rock icon killed himself at the age of 27, leaving behind not only a daughter to fend for herself against the wiles of ... More >>

The 10 Most Real Artists of All Time; The Anti-Milli Vanillis

Milli Vanilli​On this day in 1990, the manager for recent Grammy winners for Best New Group Milli Vanilli held a press conference to tell everyone his act was a fraud. They did not do any of the singing on their best-selling record and they lip synced their shows. It was a startling revelation ... More >>

Happy Birthday Don Was: His Five Best Production Jobs

Vicky Sapp​Nerds like us - you have to be a music nerd if you're reading a blog on Don Was - have favorite producers, like some sports guys have favorite coaches. Sometimes we listen to an album just because someone we like produced it, or it somehow gives it us extra cred even if we may not l ... More >>

What's The Leading Cause Of Poor Record Sales?

​Last week, the music world laughed up a hiccup as Lil Wayne pranced around the VMA stage in nut-suffocating, Le Tigre-inspired jeggings. While that performance affirmed that Wayne is no fashion guru, his chart performance a week later reminded us that he's very good at something else-selling ... More >>

2 Become 1: Musical Match-Ups We'd Like To See

​Kanye "Hitler" West and Jay-Z released their (overused music writer word alert) epic Watch the Throne album this week, to mostly great reviews. This fall the first fruits from the recently announced Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration should be on the store shelves, which still sorta weirds us o ... More >>

Friday Night: The Avett Brothers At Verizon Wireless Theater

Ed. Note: This review was written by photographer Jason Wolter. Photos by Jason Wolter​The Avett Brothers Verizon Wireless Theater May 20, 2011 Friday night's Avett Brothers show started out much like any assignment would for me: In the pit photographing the Brothers' opening salvo and then ... More >>

Neil Diamond's Top Six Pop-Culture Moments

​Happy Birthday to the undisputed "Jewish Elvis," Mr. Neil Diamond, who can make a grown man weep with a few bars of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," swiveling his hips and swaying his hair while wielding a deadly acoustic guitar. Diamond turns 70 years young today, and he seems to only be get ... More >>

Future Elvis: What If The King Had Lived?

​Do you realize that Woody Allen, Julie Andrews, the dude who was in the Darth Vader suit, and Ron Paul are all the same age as Elvis Presley would be on Saturday? Look at Woody Allen next time you see him on TMZ and just think, he's as old as Elvis. In order to get in the frame of mind to t ... More >>

John Lennon's Top 10 Solo Songs

Cactus Music is hosting a Beatles & John Lennon DJ session featuring DJ Black Slacks from 5-7 p.m. today in the Record Ranch, 2110 Portsmouth. ​Today marks 30 years since humanity lost John Lennon. The man has haunted Craig's Hlist since he was very little, when the man broke out from being t ... More >>

Top 10 Musical Wikileaks We'd Like To See

Bigger than Bowie and Bing, we tell you.​Ever since WikiLeaks began the publication of what is claimed to be over a quarter-million United States embassy cables last week, we've been pondering what secrets, phenomenon and other ephemera could be lingering out there in the music world, awaiting ... More >>

Bon Jovi, Rock & Roll Hall Of Famers? It Could Happen...

Stay classy, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...​This morning the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced this year's ballot of nominees, with the winners to be announced in December and inducted next March in New York. Fifteen names are on this year's ballot, ranging from hip-hoppers, proto-metal icons, ... More >>

FAIL: Kanye And Taylor, Lupe Fiasco, Kings Of Leon

​Taylor and Kanye Need To Move the Hell On: The MTV Video Music Awards happened this past Sunday, so you had to know there was going to be at least one sizable fail in there somewhere, and of course they didn't disappoint. Taylor Swift took the stage and sang a melodramatic tune she'd written ... More >>

Another Side - Several, Actually - of Willie Nelson

It's easy for older Willie Nelson fans to overlook his modern works, where he saw his influence dig out tributaries away from the safer riverbeds. In the past two decades, he has ventured out from his hearty country roots into reggae, spooky Daniel Lanois-produced noir, pop standards, Spanish-tinte ... More >>

Midwinter Graces

The sounds of Christmas 2009 from Bob Dylan, Sting, Tori Amos, Rob Halford and more.

Pete Yorn

Don't Ever Count Britney Out — Just Like These Others.

Back in Black

Turning the Screw: OG Ron C, Bun B, "5000" Watts, DMX, The Kanye, Rihanna/Chris Brown, Big HAWK 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: "Killa Joe," Michele Thibeaux Wire To Wire Houston's OG Ron C, head honcho of the GO DJ Coali ... More >>

Butthole Surfers Part 3: Tom Bunch on Signing With Capitol, the Media's Problem with the Name, Babysitting the Buttholes, Gibby vs. Paul and the End of the Affair

Butthole Surfers Pt. 2: Ex-Manager Tom Bunch on Managing the Band (Officially and Otherwise), the "Ranch" in Dripping Springs, the Rough Trade Bankruptcy, pioughd and Steering BHS to the Majors

Aftermath: Neil Diamond at Toyota Center

The Greatest Texas Rock Album of All Time

Metallica: Death Magnetic

2007 Music Year in Review

Being There

The Sixth Annual Austin City Limits Festival feels like home...almost

The Cult

Saturday, March 11, Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-629-3700

The Hanukkah Songs

Wherein we find the coining of our new favorite word: Jewpergroup

They Did What?

The top WTF moments of 2005

Rivers Runs Dry

Weezer's sullen front man trades good songwriting for meditation. Such a pity, indeed.

Hot Shows

Summertime concerts that will leave you sweating

Mouth of the Dirty South

The Geto Boys showed the nation hip-hop with real staying power

The Mars Volta, with Saul Williams

Saturday, October 4

Merle Haggard

If I Could Only Fly (Anti/Epitaph)

Breaking Through to the Mainstream

Rotation

Rotations

Kicking the Genre Habit

Even the Normal (Get Lucky Sometime)

Craftsman Tom Petty uses the right tool for the right job

Rotations

Down and Dull in Austin

South by Southwest disappoints -- again

Pretty Ugly

Brooklyn's Barkmarket tries to hack off every oppressively prettified, mass-market notion of music