Skrillex

The Best Things at Coachella This Year, Weekend Two

Ed. Note: This is the final post of our piggyback Coachella 2013 coverage, with an eternal debt to our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly. The Visual Stimulations for People Who Were High Coachella's art installations -- the ones designed to impress you while you're high, aka all of them -- were pa ... More >>

Today's Musicians Have All Lost Their Damn Minds

It seems that there's something in the musician water lately, and it's causing an epidemic of WTF-inducing choices that are just begging to be written about. Headlines are popping up daily about abandoned pet monkeys, pixelated photos, and Skrillex hair, and this shit's getting weird. But rather t ... More >>

Riddle: How Is Dubstep Like Picasso?

Although dozens of EDM subgenres are brain candy to me, I haven't personally given in to the auditory assault that is dubstep (mostly... maybe). However, I'm here to say that there is actual science to appreciate behind the work of Skrillex and many others. If you think about it, many people argue ... 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 >>

MONSTERS, INC.

Lady Gaga brought her Born This Way Ball to Toyota Center January 31.

Top 5 Albums Lost to Us Because of Thieving Dicks

Songs are like babies. Some of them drop into the world with barely a push, while others require yanking out with a wicked set of tongs after a long labor. Generally the latter is more common than the former, which is why any musician worth his or her salt carries around some sort of notebook to kee ... More >>

Saturday Night: Zomboy at Stereo Live

Zomboy, Carnage Stereo Live January 19, 2013 When asked about a philosophy when it comes to club shows, your average DJ is apt to say something about taking the crowd on a journey or giving them an experience. Whether or not they deliver on that philosophy is another matter, and whether the crowd c ... More >>

Match the Anticipated Crowds For Selected RodeoHouston Concerts

This week's RodeoHouston lineup announcement officially kicked off 2013 for Houston's party people and rodeo fans. The lineup is dependable as always, with your standard country acts, classic-rockers, kiddie-pop acts, R&B, and norteño offerings making up the month of music. Sadly, once again this ... More >>

Rating 5 2012 EDM Crossover Attempts, Best to Worst

As 2012 comes to a close, it's time for all of us to take a look in the mirror and accept the truth: Whether we like it or not, EDM is a major force in music and is here to stay. We all knew it was coming; anyone who has spent time listening to mainstream radio has heard how house music has become ... More >>

For Crimes Against the Dancefloor, 5 DJs Enter EDM Kangaroo Court

Like any style of music with more than 15 fans, EDM has its artists that people love to hate. You don't get to a million followers on Twitter without gathering a few haters along the way, and no matter how many fans you have, it seems like the minority is always more vocal. That's not to say these ... More >>

Who Should Play RodeoHouston In 2013?

On October 30, just a few days from now, RodeoHouston will announce its first round of performers for the 2013 edition of the star-studded, yeehawin', nearly three-week event at Reliant Park. The booking the last few years has been getting more adventurous, with the likes of Kid Rock, KISS, Mary J. ... More >>

Rocks Off's Something Wicked Mini-Guide: Bass Massacre

Saturday, something very strange is about to go down at Sam Houston Race Park when Something Wicked, billed as "Texas's first ever large-scale Halloween electronic dance music festival," takes over the grounds, subdivided into three nebulously named areas: "Shadow Field," "Bass Massacre" and "The Ex ... More >>

Top 5 People Who Should Be Judging American Idol

Over the weekend American Idol, struggling to remain relevant in the face of the televised singing-competition series it spawned like The Voice and X Factor, announced its final judges' panel for the upcoming 12th season that begins in January. According to Entertainment Weekly, joining the previous ... More >>

All The September 11th Dubstep Tribute Videos You'll Ever Need

Most of the email I get in my Rocks Off inbox is pretty boring. The bulk of it is press releases for bands I'm never going to listen to with the occasional new album download sprinkled in, but every now and then something comes along that stops me in my tracks. It started off as a Facebook link tha ... More >>

You Won't Get Into Heaven Listening to Christian Dubstep

Driving home the other night, I thought I had come up with the perfect get-rich-quick scheme: Christian dubstep. Roll your eyes if you'd like, but one thing I've noticed is that going to an EDM show is a lot like going to church: They both feature music, alcohol, and standing on your feet for long ... More >>

5 Non-Rap Acts We'd Like to See Chopped Not Slopped

Here's a confession: I've never really understood chopped and screwed music. Because of this I've never had an opinion on it and filed it away with Reggaeton and Texas Country in my "genres not for me" mental file folder. Then I heard OG Ron C's take on Girl Talk's All Day and I found myself really ... More >>

Wolfgang Gartner

The Winners of Our "Skrillex Hugging a Kitty" Photo Contest

Last week the kind folks at Rdio sent us four pairs of tickets to the wub-wubbing IDentity Festival set for this Saturday at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Why? Because they love Rocks Off and we love you. Obviously Rocks Off didn't need the eight tickets ourselves since we already have a te ... More >>

Dubstep DJ Doorly: "Everyone Goes Mental"

If he isn't too busy running his own record label as well as heading his own underground radio station in the UK, Doorly can be found creating his classic beats and touring. Now he's back in the U.S. on tour for the first time in half a year, and performs Saturday night at new downtown spot Krypton ... More >>

The 11 Sexiest Women Within the EDM Scene

All right, I have to say it: For the most part, when EDM is brought up men are on top. What people tend to forget is about the sexy women that are sampled and featured within the DJs' work; not to mention there are some sexy women DJs out there too. Now maybe it's because when people hear EDM and ... More >>

Introducing the New Dubstep Drinking Game

OK, I'm sure this has been done before in your own time. But I got bored one day. Hey I live in Katy, Texas, so give me a break. There I was, listening to a few dubstep mixes I have and I was staring at my phone just waiting for people to hit me up so we could head out for the night. It hit me if I ... More >>

The Drop! The Drop!: Welcome To Twitter's Dubstep Island

This past weekend I discovered Dubstep Island, a fantasy Twitter feed where "the stars of EDM go and live together on an island for some reason." The artists live and explore the island with people like James Blake and Skrillex rubbing bare shoulders, though we cannot imagine either of them wearing ... More >>

French Electro Greats Justice Hitting Houston October 28

My prayers from 2007 have been answered. French electronic duo Justice is finally hitting Houston on October 28 at the House Of Blues. The pair, who just released Audio, Video, Disco. last fall, have never been to Houston, though every hipster bar in town played and still plays the hell out of their ... More >>

Top 10 Disney EDM Lookalikes

We all wonder who our celebrity lookalike is. Someone will tell us we look like this person, a Web site will say you look like another and most likely if you're anything like me you'll disagree and give explanations as to why. Well, what if you're already a celebrity? Or DJ? Today DJs are setting ... More >>

Last Night: 12th Planet At 4500 Washington Avenue

12th Planet 4500 Washington Avenue June 14, 2012 Let's just say this wasn't your average college night at 4500 Washington Avenue. Thursday, due to the Rich's situation (still closed), the 12th Planet show was moved to 4500 Washington Avenue. No, not Stereo Live. As soon as I heard this news all I ... More >>

National Punch A Hipster Day: Are You A Music Hipster?

Today, June 1, has been declared National Punch a Hipster Day. First off, who the hell comes up with these random-ass holidays? As someone who gets called a hipster at times, I don't think I am. Maybe I'm a music hipster, in a sense. Most would say repeating this quote -- "I was listening to [bla ... More >>

Who's Got the Power?: The Musicians On Forbes's Most Powerful Celebrities List

Fame and fortune might not be the ultimate goal for every person to ever write a song or learn an instrument, but it is for a lot of people out there. It would be lovely to believe that music is done 100% of the time for the "right" reasons, but most of us are cynical enough to know otherwise. Some ... More >>

Friday Night: Mt. Eden At Rich's

Mt. Eden Rich's April 20, 2012 Friday, Mt. Eden, a music duo from New Zealand that is not Flight of the Concords, played a show at Rich's. And they were very good. At least, I suspect that they were, and that's the probably closest anyone can get to conclusively arguing an opinion one way or the ot ... More >>

Getting Thumped

The bass line is everything in dubstep, whose core moves like robo-elephants, stomping and booming along.

The Time Imaginary Cheese Upended A Perfectly Fine Music Experiment

The original idea wasn't even that original, which is why it didn't work, I suppose. In 2003, a ferociously cool writer named Rob Harvilla (Google him; he's a vocabularian superhero) wrote an article about how he played a Radiohead album for a group of fifth graders and then asked them to draw pic ... More >>

Promised Land

SXSW 2012, from Bruce Springsteen to Buxton.

The Best of SXSW Music: Friday 3/16/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music editors have selected t ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Thursday 3/15/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music e ... More >>

SXSW 2012: Our Inner Monologue (Day Two)

If you are here in Austin for SXSW you know that this place has just devolved into free cereal, Doritos, and Red Bull on the streets, which are bathed in lasers from the tops of buildings. Plus there are screaming humans of all ages, races, sizes, and creeds on the streets almost 20 hours a day. Whe ... More >>

Verizon Wireless Theater Now Known As Bayou Music Center

Verizon Wireless Theater will no longer be known under that name, because owner Live Nation's sponsorship deal with the communication provider has expired. The venue, which holds about 3,000 people within downtown entertainment complex Bayou Place, will now be known as Bayou Music Center. Rocks Off ... More >>

Put On A Happy Face: 6 Ex-Emos Who Found More Success By Being Happy

Emo. The word conjures so many images. For your average American, it will make them think of black eyeliner, wrist-cutting, and essentially hair metal for the '00s. For hardcore kids, they'll think of Jawbreaker. But either way you slice it, emo has had its ups and downs as a genre and has changed ... 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 >>

Dave Grohl Vs. Skrillex: Dumbest Music Feud Ever?

Sometimes it's very easy for Rocks Off's brain to go on autopilot while checking our email in the morning. If we're not weeding out actual spam to delete, we're wincing at messages hyping music whose wretchedness practically leaps off the screen. (Someone you've never heard of touted as a "legend" i ... More >>

Re:Generation: New Film Makes Airtight Case That DJs Are Musicians

Directed by Amir Bar Lev and produced in association with the Grammys, Re:Generation is a documentary that explores the process behind making music as a DJ and producer through an experiment that sends five DJs on a quest to work in a specific genre outside their normal output. It sounds like somet ... More >>

We Tell You Who Will Win Grammys So You Don't Have To Watch Them

SPOILER ALERT​The best thing about the annual Grammy nominations and awards shows is the clamor of anger that rises up when the mere mention of the event even comes up. Immediately people begin calling it a travesty, trotting out all the people who have been snubbed -- Jethro Tull beats Metall ... More >>

Know Your Subgenre: The Bros(tep)

Photo by Matthew KeeverThe Doom That Came To Dubstep?​Subgenre: Brostep Parent Genre: Dubstep Imagine that you're a genre of music. You've been on the underground for a few years taking the sounds of your parents and evolving in to something new. For a long time few noticed but the last fe ... More >>

The Ten Best (Non-Houston) Rap Albums of 2011

A deal, then: Let's pretend like this was some really clever, insightful preamble; ideally, when you finished reading it, you would've immediately said, "Dang. That was a really clever, insightful preamble." Let's pretend it had some sort of neat underlying agenda, something that directly discusse ... More >>

Five Curiosities from the Grammy Nominations List

The Grammy nominations were officially presented last night. Not surprisingly, Adele, who is considered a front runner in nearly every category she is nominated in, cleaned up with six nominations for her album 21, but was beaten out by Kanye West who had seven, though curiously not among them a nod ... More >>

Korn

Parents And KPRC Just Found Out About Rich's Sexy Dance Nights

Photo By Son LamJust another night at Rich's Houston...​There was a harried report last night on KPRC about the teen nights at Rich's Houston off San Jacinto, namely an upcoming Playboy-themed night geared towards underagers, those 14 to 18, to come out to the dance club in their sexiest gear. ... More >>

Teen Dance Nights at Rich's Come Under Fire From Parents and KPRC

Photo By Son LamJust another night at Rich's Houston...​ Last night KPRC aired a frazzled piece about Rich's Houston's popular teen dance nights, namely their upcoming Playboy-themed night geared towards the kiddos, advertising on Facebook for attendees to strut their underage stuff in their s ... More >>

Friday Night: Bassnectar At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Matthew Keever​Check out Bassnectar and the many babes in costume in our slideshow. Womp womp is an unstoppable force. You can try to fight it, hide from it even, but it will find you or someone you care about, and the almighty power of dub step will eventually suck you in, even if ... More >>

Last Night: Skrillex At Verizon Wireless Theater

See pics from the official Skrillex afterparty at Rich's. Skrillex, 12th Planet, Foreign Beggars Verizon Wireless Theater September 29, 2011 Dubstep is to music what the Oakland Raiders are to the NFL. It's as if a gigantic group of people got together and, as a whole, screamed, "Forget your syste ... More >>

Skrillex

ACL Fest Schedule Released; Your Guide To The "Death Duels"

Stevie Wonder on FacebookStevie Wonder: Even My Morning Jacket will be watching.​This morning, the organizers of the Austin City Limits Music Festival announced the schedule for the September 16-18 Zilker Park throwdown. We all knew there would be some tough choices, but Rocks Off found that w ... More >>