Shane MacGowan

A Paean to the Pogues, For St. Patrick's Day

What does it mean to be Irish? Red hair? The gift of gab? A drinking problem? The itch to fight? Of course not. All you need to be Irish is a deep and abiding affection for the Pogues. When I was probably 15, a freshman in high school, I started staying up late enough to watch Saturday Night Live ... More >>

15 More Of The Worst Astros Baseball Cards Ever

Houston Astros 2013 spring training season kicked into high gear this week in Kissimmee, Florida, and fans are ready to see how the team fares in their new American League digs, which more likely-than-not means copious losses, beer bottles broken over televisions, and the testicular fortitude of a s ... More >>

Bizarre Acting Roles by 20 Famous Musicians

It's a toss-up whether actors or musicians will go to greater lengths to make rent, but some musicians have even found themselves so hard up they've been forced to take an acting gig. Such is the case with the haystack-sized Sleepy LaBeef, who in 1968's The Exotic Ones appeared as the "Swamp Monster ... More >>

Living on the Edge: 10 More Onstage Oopsies

Rock stars are just like the rest of us. They eat, love, poop, age, and sometimes they just embarrassingly go ass over tea kettle. Rewind: When Gravity Attacks: 13 Memorable Onstage Stumbles The difference between them and us, besides, you know, money, fame, security, and the like, is that when w ... More >>

The 20 Best YouTube Rock Docs You Can Watch Free (For Now)

**The 31 Best Music Documentaries of All Time So you don't have NetFlix, you hate the video stores (if you can even find one), you don't like going to the little red box next to the liquor store, but you do have an Internet connection, plenty of time on your hands, and an insatiable thirst for rock ... More >>

Blaggards

Friday Night: George Jones At Arena Theatre

Photos by Lisa Rosato​George Jones Arena Theatre April 29, 2011 For Rocks Off, going to see George Jones radiated much the same feeling of apprehension we had about the Pogues show at House of Blues in October 2009. On one level, we half-expected - no, feared - a train wreck, a career-marring ... More >>

Bluefinger

Catastrophic Theatre stages a rock opera redemption.

Bankrobbers: The Clash Family Tree

​Rocks Off cried the night he heard Joe Strummer died. It was December 2002, and we sat on our family couch and let it all out. That fabled Clash reunion that seemed just months away would never happen. Strummer died of a heart attack at 50, just three days before Christmas, leaving behind a w ... More >>

Rockin' His Life Away, Jerry Lee Lewis Shows Signs Of Age

​Lonesome, Onry and Mean waited anxiously as the appointed hour neared. We'd had this feeling around this time last year as we awaited the appearance of Shane MacGowan and the Pogues. Would MacGowan die onstage, spilling his drink? Would he be so drunk he'd make a pathetic fool of himself? We ... More >>

FAIL: Lady Gaga (Again), Take That, Pogues, Paste Magazine

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray​Fans Upset Because They Won't Get to See Their Crappy Boy Band: We're not sure who to side with on this one. On the one hand, we despise scalpers and other scam artists of Jason Debney's type. Debney screwed a lot of people out of their money by selling ... More >>

Music's Top 10 Messed-Up Mouths

​Rocks Off went to the dentist this morning for the first time in... well, a long time. The importance of taking care of your choppers is thus fresh in our minds - especially since we have to go back tomorrow, this time to a "specialist." So... yeah. This would probably be a good time to mention t ... More >>

G.I. Blues: A Soldiers' Playlist

​Today is the anniversary of one of the truly momentous occasions in popular music: On March 23, 1958, Elvis Presley reported for induction into the U.S. Army, thus opening up a thousand alternate timelines for musical historians to formulate "What if he hadn't?" scenarios. For the next few years, ... More >>

Live with Me

The best Houston concerts of 2009: U2, George Strait, Kid Cudi, Jandek, Peaches and even T-Pain.

Aftermath: The Pogues Destroy House of Blues, and Rocks Off Is Ready to Move On

Photos by Daniel KramerThis is about how we feel this morning.​Attention budding music writers, assuming there are still a few of you left who think getting into shows for free is a fair trade for your health, well-being, a decent paycheck and reasonably normal social life: It's not. It's pretty m ... More >>

The Pogues

Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" and the Tragic Ballad of Kirsty MacColl

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has never hidden our distaste for Christmas music. So if we were ever called on to choose our favorite Christmas song, the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" would win hands down. We can still remember the day - we were still Pogues virgins - when the lyrics, waffling between a ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Celtic Accordion Queen Sharon Shannon

​One of Lonesome Onry and Mean's favorite Pogues tracks is actually Steve Earle's great anti-war song "Johnny Come Lately" from Earle's Copperhead Road album. Earle has frequently spoken of his affinity for Ireland, particularly Galway, which we might call one of his retreats. It was through Earle ... More >>

No, It's Not Too Early to Start Posting About the Pogues, As a Matter of Fact...

A small band of Irishmen frequent Lonesome Onry and Mean's local waterhole, and they are all abuzz about the arrival of the Pogues at House of Blues October 29. Led by the charismatic and erratic Shane MacGowan, the Pogues set the music world buzzing when they burst onto the London scene in 1982. T ... More >>

Pink Floyd, Dr. Dre, Velvet Underground and Other Artists We're Glad Discovered Drugs

It was 45 years ago this past Friday... that Bob Dylan met the Beatles for the first time and, more importantly for Rocks Off's purposes, introduced them to marijuana. While this meeting of musical titans would never lead to any actual musical collaboration or "Monsters of Hippie Rock" series of co ... More >>

Hotel Time Again

Whiskey Boat looks up from two years of live rehersals and realizes it's a band.

St. Patrick's Day Special: Ten Great Irish (Or Irish-American) Musicians and Bands

St. Patrick's Day is, well, today, so, rather than hit the pub to celebrate - which we'll probably still do, to be honest - we thought we'd put together a mixtape for you of our favorite Irish and Irish-American bands along with a favorite tracks by them. Pint of Guinness and shot of Jameson sol ... More >>

St. Patrick's Day Special: The Pogues, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God"

Fun Fact: Perpetually soused Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan's first band was the Sex Pistols-inspired, excellently named Nipple Erectors - later known as the Nips.

The Mighty Stef

H-town Hangman: Guess the Band, Win a Prize

All right, all you kids out there, time to test your mettle. Rocks Off knows you know what's up. We've seen you at Walter's, Rudz and all those other hallowed haunts that make up this little "scene" of ours. You can probably rattle off a dozen or so favorite local bands without batting an eyelas ... More >>

Death Race 2008

Amy Winehouse, Chuck Berry, Bobby Brown: Who'll be the first to go?

2007 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase

Into the Frey

If you thought A Million Little Pieces was a pack of lies, wait till you check out the Mötley Crüe biography

Drugged and Disorderly

The Hold Steady keeps it cinematic

Deaf, Not Dumb

Pete Tong is a mockumentary that will make your heart dance

I'm Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

No snow and no Bing for Racket

'Pac, Man

The officially sanctioned Tupac Shakur biopic emerges, and it's quite money

Faux Strummer, Bogus Buzzcocks and Phony Ramones

Never mind the bollocks, here's Rudyard's punk karaoke night

Dark Riders

The good, the bad and the ugly rock-star performance contracts

Crash and Burn

Landlords and bounced checks abort the Fabulous Satellite Lounge's ten-year mission to rock the Heights

Tuam Raiders

For Irish rockers the Saw Doctors, the local is universal

Rotation

Young Dubliners: Red

Rotation