Social Distortion

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 >>

Friday Night: Dwight Yoakam at Arena Theatre

Dwight Yoakam, Mike Stinson Arena Theatre December 21, 2012 When most of us are sick and fighting seasonal flu and cold systems, we retreat to a warm bed with cold pillows and Netflix. Few of us could go onstage in skintight blue jeans and shake our asses for two hours, but that's what Dwight Yoa ... More >>

UPDATED: Memorable Houston Concerts of 1992

UPDATE (2:03 p.m.): Alice In Chains was advertised but dropped out, and was replaced with Australia's Baby Animals. The year 1992 was an important one for me as far as Houston concerts are concerned: It's the first time I went to a concert within the Houston city limits, the "Outside Broadcast" leg ... More >>

50 Rad Things Now on the Sig's Lagoon Walls

Within the past month, the walls of Sig's Lagoon have been transformed into a sprawling pop-culture collage of posters, photos, newspaper clippings, magazine covers, picture discs and cardboard cutouts courtesy of former Sundance Records owner Bobby Barnard. Since the longtime San Marcos music stor ... More >>

Friday Night: Megadeth At Verizon Wireless Theater

Gigantour: Megadeth, Volbeat, Lacuna Coil Verizon Wireless Theater March 2, 2012 Check out our slideshow of the Gigatour. No, Motorhead didn't play in Houston Friday night at Verizon Wireless Theater, but the rest of the 2012 Gigantour bill of Megadeth, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil made it to the Bayou ... More >>

Distant Early Warning: Social Distortion, Gary Clark Jr., Melvins, Girls, Maná, De La Soul

Photo By Jim BrickerBobby Womack onstage with Gorillaz in October 2010 at Toyota Center​2 Chainz, Paul Wall, Propain: Thu., March 1. Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, Houston. Anvil, Rotting Corpse, Metavenge, Fallacy: Thu., Feb. 9. Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, Houston. Asleep At The Whee ... More >>

ACL: The Sound (Or Lack Thereof) & The Fury

Photos by Chris GrayYes, that stage is as far away as it looks.​When a bleary Rocks Off arrived at the media area this morning, there was some chatter about Stevie Wonder's supposed sound troubles, and more online, both in our review and the Austin American-Statesman's. (By the way, we've upda ... More >>

Five Can't-Miss Acts At ACL Fest This Year

Craig HlavatyWe're running this picture of My Morning Jacket's Jim James now because this will be the last we see of him all weekend.​For weeks after we skipped last year's Austin City Limits Music Festival to man the controls in Houston, Rocks Off found ourselves thinking, "Man, I wish I woul ... More >>

Bobby Fuller: Still No Answers 45 Years After His Death

​Forty-five years ago today, on July 18, 1966, rocker Bobby Fuller was found dead in the front seat of his car in Hollywood, covered in gasoline, with the liquid also found in his system. The cops said he died of gas inhalation, with the fumes doing him in, but couldn't conclude for sure if it ... More >>

25 Essential Eponymous Albums

​Eponymous: (of a literary work, film, etc) named after its central character or creator: The Stooges' eponymous debut album. On this day in 1983, a young woman from Michigan who had recently given up on a career as a hard-rock singer released her first album of electronic dance-pop, an album ... More >>

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 >>

Friday Night: Dwight Yoakam At Arena Theatre

Photos by Jay Lee​Dwight Yoakam Arena Theatre July 8, 2011 Aftermath has never considered Dwight Yoakam a country artist in the general sense of the term, the way most people define country artists. In our mind, he simply rocks too hard to be lumped in with people like George Strait or Alan J ... More >>

Saturday Night: TSOL At Walter's On Washington

Photos by David Ensminger​TSOL Walter's on Washington May 7, 2011 In the dramatic, razor-sharpened lens of TSOL songs, suburbia is far from a sleepy wonderland bedecked with slick malls and coiffeured lawns. Those tracts of same-samey homes are chock-full of demons such as singer Grisham hims ... More >>

Shot In The Dark: The Ones Who Got Away (So Far)

UPDATE (3:23 p.m.): Promotional video by Monica Fuentes added after the jump. Jay LeeLittle Joe Washington at the Continental Club's 10th anniversary, July 2010​Slowly but surely, Rocks Off has been getting ready for our "Shot In the Dark" photo exhibition at Warehouse Live's Studio next Thur ... More >>

Saturday Night: NOFX At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​NOFX House of Blues January 22, 2011 See lots of pics of NOFX and friends in our slideshow. NOFX has been the Fisher-Price My First Real Punk Band of the past 25 years, with Green Day sadly coming in a close second with Bad Religion and, yes, Blink-182 bringing up the r ... More >>

Agent Orange Continues Carpet-Bombing Surf-Punk

David EnsmingerAgent Orange's Mike Palm at Rocbar earlier this year.​Rocks Off recently had the opportunity to speak with Agent Orange's Mike Palm, who founded the Southern California surf-punks in the late '70s and has remained in the trenches ever since. Agent Orange plays Fitzgerald's Sunda ... More >>

In Case You Missed It...

Marco TorresIt's a bird... it's a plane... it's... Usher!​Rocks Off knows you have had a busy week. So have we. But, we figured, what with Thanksgiving and Black Friday and traveling to and from your various other holiday ports of call, you may not have had as much time in front a computer as ... More >>

Last Night: Gaslight Anthem At Warehouse Live

Photos by Jason Wolter​Gaslight Anthem Warehouse Live October 7, 2010 Quite a great deal of press - too much, really - has been given to the similarities between New Jersey's Gaslight Anthem and that other guy from the Garden State - Jon Bon J... er, Bruce Springsteen. Both Springsteen and GA ... More >>

Los Skarnales

The punk/ska band adds New Orleans funk.

True Blood: A Sam Merlotte Sad Bastard Mixtape

Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston. ​HBO likes to give us a little break the week before the fin ... More >>

The Ultimate Sandal-Rock Mixtape

​Tonight Craig's Hlist will drive all the way out the Woodlands to see Jack Johnson, one of sandal-rock's biggest superstars. He's like the Lady the Rolling Stones of sandal-rock. He's like the McDonald's of sandal-rock. He's James Taylor for people who shop at Whole Foods. He's the Sex Pistol ... More >>

Book 'em, Danno

Constables go after HISD students' unreturned books

Don't Believe the Hype

Houston's Most Overrated Attractions

What's In a Name? Punk Rock Spirit Animals This Year's Tiger

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off, we're trying hard to decode Houston's oddest monikers in order to find a little meaning. ​ Music is inherently the search for meaning in the meaningless. It's an attempt to establish rhythm and pattern ... More >>

If You're Online, You Can Be In Vancouver, Too

​The unbridled passion. The raw emotion. The shattered dreams. The unlikely victory despite injury. The unexpected heroes. The unexplained delays in award ceremonies and ensuing bitchy commentary. The desperate tears shed after tragic, untimely crashes during downhill practice runs. The attempted ... More >>

"iPad"? Really, Steve? Here We Go Again

Photo by Alexia TsotsisClick here for a slideshow of iPad photos​Steve, Steve, Steve, Sigh. Stevie - darling, sugar, baby! We hate to say it, but we've had this conversation with you before. Remember your pussy fetish and the resulting "Snow Leopard" fiasco? Cluck, cluck, cluck. So do we. ... More >>

A Few of Music's Biggest Tattoo Enthusiasts - Besides Rocks Off, Of Course

Don't act so surprised... As we can fatefully attest, rock and roll and tattoos go hand in hand. The first time Rocks Off saw a grizzled punk rocker walk by at Fitzgerald's back in the '90s with two sleeves full of tattoos and a chest full of nautical-themed art, we mentally pointed at him and said ... More >>

Surprise Someone IRL. Via the Internet, That Is

​"Looks like there's gonna be an engagement party for you after all!" "There is? Not that Nate or I know of." "Was it supposed to be a surprise?" "I have no idea. I don't know what you're talking about." "Well, I got a Facebook invite from Cynthia, your co-worker." "I honestly don't kno ... More >>

Overkill? No Such Thing

Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister has never been one to mince riffs — or words.

Ghosts of Washington Avenue

Noise goes whistling through the scenester artery's music venue graveyard.

"Snow Leopard," Steve? Couldn't You Do Better?

​Dear Steve Jobs,Ugh.  You really think you're so damn cute, don't you?  Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard?  Seriously, what's the deal with naming your operating system releases after big pussies?  Like society has some sort of obsession with cats or something.  Pffft.  Yeah, Ste ... More >>

Aftermath: Blue October and Its Mystifying Cult at Verizon Wireless Theater

Chris Gray​ Friday's sold-out Blue October show at Verizon left Aftermath wondering one of the most vexing, troublesome things any reviewer can: "What is it about this band," the voice in our head kept asking over and over again like a car alarm, sometimes even threatening to drown out the band it ... More >>

Aftermath: Green Day at Toyota Center

Mark C. Austin​ During "Minority," the motorized 2000 Celtic-thrash mash-up that closed Green Day's main set Saturday night, Toyota Center's video screen became a collage of flyers from the group's early days, before the platinum albums, roadies, Grammys and extra live musicians (there were four S ... More >>

Summer Stock

Houston's Rememberances of Warped Tours Past

For the past 15 years, the Vans Warped Tour has been barreling through city after city across the globe creating punk rockers out of boy scouts and riot grrls out of band geeks. The traveling punk, hardcore and emo road show has been coming to Houston since 1995. The first taste local punks got of f ... More >>

Flannel File: The Descendents

One hot morning in August of 1997, my little brother and I hopped on MARTA (Mom wouldn't let me use the car) and moseyed on down to the Lakewood Fairgrounds in Atlanta for the third-ever Warped Tour. Should the writer of a column about experimental music be ashamed of having gone to the Warped Tour ... More >>

Touring with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Get on the bus, it's a family affair.

Playing Favorites

Drive-By Truckers, A to Z

Alabama Ass Whuppin'

Reverberations: Clarences, Flamin’ Groovies, Scott Deluxe Drake and Liverpool Five

Vinal Edge Now Selling Hunter Ward’s T-Shirts, Vinyl

The Axiom

Remembering the Axiom, 20 years later

Last Night: Against Me! at the Meridian

Social Distortion

Social Distortion appears Sunday, November 5, at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel. Call 713-225-5483 for more info.

The Whole Package

Medicine Show is packed with talent, youth, and charm

Local Rotation

Local Music Reviewed

All Nessed Up

Looking for Billy Zoom

X was the West's great punk hope. But now they're finding more fun in their new worlds.

Songs and Sickness

That's what it's about with D Generation, man

Grunge Puppy

Paw from Lawrence, Kansas: modest Midwest guitar desperation