Son Volt

Son Volt's Travel Guide to Five Bizarre Tour Stops

Son Volt is heading down the highway with a new album in tow, Honky Tonk, but instead of lamenting still waters and beatnik poets, Jay Farrar and company have gone strictly Bakersfield, even naming a track after the legendary country-music mecca. Yep, Farrar has gone back to his roots mixing steel ... More >>

The Best Shows In Houston This Week: Rihanna, Suzanna Choffel, Wavves, etc.

Rihanna Toyota Center, April 15 Rihanna has combined her athletic stature, formidable vocals, down-for-whatever attitude and some alarming life choices to become a flashpoint pop star, a lightning rod for controversy that even Lady Gaga would have trouble rivaling these days. Musically, the Barbado ... More >>

Surely Galveston Can Do Better Than "Galveston"

Notwithstanding the recent Galveston-based Carnival cruise liner whose faulty engines landed its passengers in a world of hurt (and national headlines), the island is again throwing its arms open for the upcoming summer season. Last week the Galveston Island Convention & Visitors Bureau announced th ... More >>

Seven Spring Music Festivals In Texas That Beat Staying Home

SXSW is officially over, thank the sweet baby Jesus. Now music fans have already begun to fan out to the four winds, seeking sunshine, swimsuits, alcohol, easy hookups and all the tunes they can handle until it gets ridiculously hot. Texans: you have about three hours. It's already begun over in Mi ... More >>

The Old 97's Rhett Miller: "We'll Play Our Hit Twice"

Rewind: The Old 97's Rhett Miller: "Then the Stage Gets a Lot Bigger" Streets of Where I'm From (music feature) When Nirvana upended the music business in the early '90s, the major record labels saw dollar signs in every dive bar and honky-tonk in the lower 48. That extended all the way to Texas, ... More >>

The Mastersons

Last Night: Old 97's at House of Blues

Oh, dutiful journalism, the places I will go in your name. Last night, one of those places just had to be House of Blues. It's always a pleasure to watch Old 97's and I would put up that good fight to keep my spirits high in what is arguably my least favorite venue in town. But enough with the pouti ... More >>

The Jayhawks

Happy Hour Scene: Char Bar

"Hey, I can call my ma from up here."​The Place: Char Bar 305 Travis 713-222-8177 The Deals: $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon The Hours: 5 p.m. to close Wednesdays The Scene: We've only been to Char Bar a couple of times, but each time there were always at least a few women present. Wednesday after wor ... More >>

Centro-matic Scratches A Very Specific Itch At Fitz

Photos by Jason Wolter​Unless there's no way to avoid it, the one night of the week Rocks Off does not like to review shows is Friday. After five straight 10- to 12-hour days (at least), our brain is usually in tatters and all we want to do is limp home or to a preferred watering hole and shut ... More >>

Houston Gets Over-The-Air Country-Music Channel

​Believe it or not, some of us get by just fine without cable or satellite TV. When Rocks Off goes home at night - the odd evenings we stay home, that is - not only do we enjoy the finest network television has to offer, but the cornucopia of choices across the digital-TV spectrum: B- and C-mo ... More >>

Two Cow Garage

Live with Me

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

American Central Dust: The Americana Class of 2009, Part 1

​We spent 2009 sorting through piles of folk and Americana releases, revising this list in our heads till the bitter end and failing repeatedly to understand the hype behind the Avett Brothers in the process. While a year of listening brought no shortage of pleasant surprises, our hands-down favor ... More >>

2009 Concert Rewind, February: Killers Kill, Annuals Amuse, Hammered at Hank III, Spewing Slipknot and More

Mark C. Austin​ The Killers, Verizon Wireless Theater, February 2: "The general knock on the Killers is that they've achieved their relatively lofty position by standing on the shoulders of giants, which may well be true. But Monday night they showed that in reaching for the stars, they have yet t ... More >>

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

2009 was definitely a year, we'll say that much.

The Way He Sees It

To Raphael Saadiq, music is music and Yeasayer is all right with him.

We've Been Had: The Enduring Wisdom of Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne

Anodyne: Noun. Anything that relieves distress or pain. (dictionary.com)​When Son Volt goes onstage tonight at the Continental Club (we've heard around 11 p.m.), there's an outside chance the band might pull out Doug Sahm's "Give Back the Key to My Heart" - we are in Texas, after all. Otherwise do ... More >>

Dust in the Wind

Son Volt's latest album is steeped in Midwestern musical history.

Ghosts of Washington Avenue

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

I Wanna Be Your Dog: Michael Vick's Entrance Music

Keith Allison​The mystery of whether or not Michael Vick would be picked up by an NFL team was solved pretty handily last week, when the Philadelphia Eagles signed him as a backup for Donovan McNabb. The Eagles were able to look past Vick's history of...questionable behavior because they need a re ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Blacktop Gypsy and Shurman

Two fine bands who don't come through much are playing just blocks apart tonight. Dallas's Blacktop Gypsy will be knocking the audience out with their amazing harmonies and the virtuosity of fiddler Heather Stalling (wife of Max Stalling) and former Lake Jackson resident Rodney Pyeatt. Stalling was ... More >>

Back to the Dead

Black Leather Jesus's Richard Ramirez resurrects the Dead Audio Music Festival.

Aquarium Drunkard (Snarkily) Remembers the Fabulous Satellite Lounge

Deron NeblettThe Hollisters at the Fabulous Satellite Lounge, circa 2000For a solid decade, Washington Avenue's Fabulous Satellite Lounge was Houston's go-to spot for roots-rock, alt-country and pretty much anything else that might get covered in the late, recently resurrected online No Depression m ... More >>

Monday MP3s: Two from LL Cooper's Tucson

When it comes to salt-of-the-earth working-class roots-rock, groups (especially around Houston) don't come much more solid than LL Cooper, the semi-eponymous band led by Houston/Austin roots vet Larry Cooper. "For my money, very few acts sound better accompanying a round of Lone Stars in a smoky bar ... More >>

Tonight: The Magpies at the Continental Club

[A review from the Magpies' January Continental show is here.] Chris GrayMy son, a guitar plunker raised on huge doses of Rockpile and Joe Ely, tipped me to the Magpies. He saw them at Hayes Carll's Stingaree Festival about a year ago and pronounced them the hardest-rocking band of the whole ... More >>

Aftermath: Son Volt at the Continental Club

Photos by Jay Lee"Now and then it keeps you runnin', never seems to die..." The opening line to Son Volt's soothing elegy "Windfall," which closed out Tuesday's main set at the Continental Club - just like almost every other SV set since the band's 1995 debut Trace - goes a long way to explain ... More >>

Son Volt

Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 9

[Note: This is the final installment of Aftermath's survey of memorable 2008 concerts - the ones he attended and reviewed (mostly, but not always, by him) anyway; kudos to Valient Thorr, Ice Cube, Dr. Dog, Son Volt, Journey/Heart, Wilderness, the HPMA showcase and many other ... More >>

The Magpies

Johnny Falstaff: Honky Tonkin' Daddy, John Evans Band: Lucky 13, Kanude: Kanude

Home for the Holidays

2007 Music Year in Review

Prodigal Players

Houston Radio Still Sucks

David Sadof shares his dream station with Racket

Son Volt

Son Volt performs Sunday, May 6, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899.

If It's Not Scottish, It's Crap!

Wack puts this whole Franz Ferdinand thing into context

Young Gun

Collin Herring hits somewhere between Merle Haggard and Hüsker Dü -- and that's a good place to be

The Litmus Band

Is Wilco still trying to break your heart, or has it done so already?

Califone, with Clem Snide and Scattered Pages

Friday, October 10

Chasmatic

Kicker Wisdom (Self-released)

Rotation

The Jayhawks -- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

More Blues Than You Can Use

Rotation

Rotation

Spit and Polish

Utmost Blue

Rotation

Rotation

Sound Check