System of a Down

Keith Morris Talks OFF!, Politics & Touring In 2012

Next Thursday night, punk legend Keith Morris comes to Warehouse Live for his second Houston visit in a year with his group OFF!. The band is made up of Morris, Steven McDonald of Redd Kross, drummer Mario Rubalcaba, and guitarist Dimitri Coats, also front man of Burning Brides. OFF! was birthed o ... More >>

10 Heavy Metal Double Albums That Make Us Want to Buy a Turntable

This week, one of our most highly anticipated albums of the summer was released: Baroness' Yellow & Green. We were already looking forward to hearing whatever came next from the Georgia rockers after the success of their epic Blue Record in 2009, but we got especially excited when we found out that ... More >>

The Lotus Effect in Transition

Houston prog-rockers change course after losing their drummer.

Curated Festivals and the Changing Face of Summer Entertainment

While most Texans are spending their Friday counting down to ACL or speculating about the Fun Fun Fun Fest line up, I find myself thinking about a festival north of our fair state. We're halfway through June and that means that the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial should be dropping any da ... More >>

A Showcase Of Inappropriately Dubbed Puppet Musicians

I spend an unfortunately large amount of time on two activities. No. 1, I am paid under the table by the felt lobby to promote puppet music. No. 2, I have an irresistible compulsion to ruin children's entertainment. It's not that I'm a bad person; it's that I'm a horrible person who must ruin all t ... More >>

Avengers Assemble Soundtrack Butt-Rocks into the Future

Time was in the '90s that every big summer action movie came prepackaged with a great hard-rock soundtrack. As the industry went through growing pains it died off a bit, reducing a soundtrack to maybe one or two free downloads from a middling band close to the project. The heady days of hard-rock d ... More >>

Dir En Grey

Libra Soul: The Singing Voice Of The 99 Percent

Photos courtesy of Aiton Extea/Libra Soul​Around this time last year, Rocks Off told you about a man named Aiton Etxea and his quest to find "reason-filled musicians" for the purposes of forming a band. His use of the term "reason-filled" caught our attention because we were regular trollers o ... More >>

Happy Birthday, Nintendo: 6 Awesome Retro Game Covers

​Today is the 122nd anniversary of the founding of Nintendo. Yes, you read that right. Nintendo is older than the automobile, Dracula, and the country of Iraq. In a just world, we would brave an abandoned warehouse haunted by tentacle monsters in order to win a cache of steampunk video-game ha ... More >>

No Love, No Hope: Converge's Jane Doe Turns 10

​This next week is full of big musical anniversaries. Saturday marks 20 years since the release of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single, Genesis' ABACABturns 30, and System Of a Down's Toxicityand Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft" all hit the decade mark. And one of the most significant cultu ... More >>

Top 10 Nu-Metal Fashion Violations

dedica.la​Life is filled with ups and downs, and music is no exception. Just as the rock and roll renaissance of the '60s and '70s gave way to the mindless era of disco, the depth and fury of the punk and grunge movements eventually degenerated into the watered-down genre commonly referred to ... More >>

Purple, Possessed & Pervy: Rock's Top 10 Houses

harleyslist.blogspot.comJohn Lennon and Yoko Ono in a happy pose in front of their home (and future site of Lennon's assassination).​Celebrity homes will always be a source of fascination, offering a glimpse at the intimate, private side of those who live their lives in the public eye. And it' ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Music Videos Of All Time

​It's hard to fathom a time before music videos, and it's even sadder to remember when channels like MTV and VH1 were wall-to-wall music videos. In between there was a golden age, when with every clip that you watched could spark a revolution in you, or at least change your fashion sense. It's ... More >>

Primus

Ten Years After: Our Favorite 2001 Albums

​This hlist is kind of funny now, seeing that the dearly departed White Stripes are smack-dab in the middle with White Blood Cells. We swear this final hlist was made Tuesday afternoon, before Wednesday's breakup announcement. Funny how the band has actually been on the tips of our lips for a ... More >>

Twilight Eclipse: Five Questions From A Newbie

So this is about Frankenstein or something?​Tonight, at midnight, it begins. Another round of Twilight madness.Teens, tweens, moms who are the female equivalents of old dudes going to Hannah Montana movies, all will be there. For the premier of Twilight: Calypso.Set in the bouncy Caribbean and fea ... More >>

Summerfest Short Cuts: Mix Master Mike, Kid Sister, Miniature Tigers, Etc.

Marc BrubakerSpain Colored Orange​Spain Colored Orange: Although technical difficulties with one ticket scanner caused an enormous line of hot and restless festival-goers outside one gate, Spain Colored Orange started its set at 2:05 p.m. on the dot - before the gates had even opened. SCO informed ... More >>

Aftermath: Another Round Of Bands Watching Bands At SXSW Overflow Fest

The Extraordinaires, debating a late night or early start. Videos by Matthew Keever Two days had gone by since we last visited the SXSW Overflow Fest at Super Happy Fun Land, and the number of people in attendance seemed to have quadrupled. Tuesday night, the bands had much better luck than those w ... More >>

Stuck In a Moment You (Still) Can't Get Out Of: Remembering 9/11 In Music

Just as none of us will ever forget where we were the morning of September 11, 2001, Rocks Off will never forget what he was listening to most of the day of the terrorist attacks. Sadly, he admits it was System of A Down's Toxicity, which had come out just the week before. For us the album conveyed ... More >>

My Ding-a-Ling: Iggy Pop, Tommy Lee and Rock's Other Dirk Digglers

This album isn't called Fore! because Huey Lewis likes to play golf...​So the other day, Rocks Off wrote briefly about Huey Lewis in regards to the Back To The Future soundtrack, not even thinking to chime in just a little bit about his reportedly huge male member. You know that certain part of th ... More >>

The Soundtrack of Our Lives: Local Musicians Pick a Love Song

For every relationship, both failed and successful, there's a song that reminds you of that special (or not-so-special) person whenever it plays. Not to be used with the more cliched "our song," which is picked by both parties and can, most of the time, be repeated out loud with some pride. For the ... More >>

Mastodon

A Look at SXSW Band Names

From Steaming Wolf Penis to Holy Shit!

Radical Chick

You can't tell Natalie Maines to Shut Up & Sing

Buckethead

Sunday, March 5, Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-629-3700.

Between the Cracks

Profiling local bands

Let There Be Rock

Ten albums that make it easy to avoid fretting about your old-fashioned, Rockist ways

Down Is Up

System of a Down is rock's least likely success story

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Potty Mouths

Tamales overhead, beer cans underfoot, drug references and cussing from the stage — it's the return of the Westheimer Street Festival to its old home

Unloco en la Cabeza

Joey Duenas checks his head after a disastrous year

Cold Relief

Radio wild card Coldplay struts in from the UK with plenty of attitude

System of a Down

Steal This Album (Sony)

Sorrow's Child

Atom Egoyan tells a personal story of the Armenian genocide in Ararat

Sum 41

Friday, November 1

Fenix*TX Rising

Betrayal! Blink 182! Boobies! The Houston band has lived to tell all.

Men in Black

Method Man and Redman have a Blackout, tour with Family Values