T-Bone Burnett

Artopia Band Poor Pilate: "We Sleep... Sometimes"

The Houston Press' annual art party and hobnob mecca Artopia returns for another round of well-dressed, well-heeled revelry at Winter Street Studios. Each year we line up a handful of local acts who are too hip for words, and this time around Artopia presents the hirsute, burly Poor Pilate, icy indi ... More >>

Behold the Texas 30, Plus Albums 40-31

At this point, hopefully you know what the Texas 30 is and why Rocks Off is counting down to the Top 30 Texas albums of the past 30 years, as determined by a statewide panel of professional music writers. The short answer is, of course, because we can, and because it was a great excuse to listen to ... More >>

Peter Case: Ex-Plimsoul Heads Back to San Francisco's Beatnik Nights

Old-school punk impresario, power-pop godfather, and singer-songwriter extraordinaire Peter Case (The Nerves, The Plimsouls) continues to thrive on the weary road, armed with a sense of honesty and history in the newfangled digital era. Rocks Off spoke with him recently before he arrives in Houston ... More >>

Ryan Bingham: "It's Tough to Be That Vulnerable All the Time"

Talking to Ryan Bingham, you get the impression he's just as soon not carry around the official title "Academy Award Winner Ryan Bingham" the rest of his life. One clue is where he keeps the Best Original Song Oscar he and T-Bone Burnett won in 2010 for "The Weary Kind," but we'll get to that a litt ... More >>

Meet the 2012 HPMA Showcase Nominees: Nathan Quick

Rocks Off reached out to the artists playing this year's Houston Press Music Awards showcase Sunday, August 5, and asked them to introduce themselves. Here's what they sent back. Catch up with the other showcase nominees and see the rest of our HPMA coverage Rocks Off: When and where was your firs ... More >>

Unscripted: Top 10 Actor/Musician Collaborations

Johnny Depp and Marilyn Manson have been hanging out a lot lately. The actor joined the antichrist onstage a couple of weeks ago at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in L.A., and played guitar on "Sweet Dreams" and "Beautiful People." Depp also collaborated with Manson on a cover of Carly Simon' ... More >>

Counting Crows Headlining SXSW? Seriously?

Rocks Off has long since made our peace with the massive inconvenience SXSW can be. Even after our recent medical difficulties, we're even looking forward to going next month. We had a good time last year, mostly because we finally got to see OMD and Men Without Hats live. The bucket list got a litt ... More >>

Los Lobos

From The Sky Down: U2's "Bittersweet Song Of Disunity"

What was the last great U2 album? Now, before you go and get your snotty Henry Rollins quotes lined up, recall that there was a period in the mid- to late 1980s when the Dublin foursome were both the biggest and most critically acclaimed band on the planet before veering off into sonic experimentat ... More >>

Arcade Fire, Civil Wars, Taylor Swift to Pen Hunger Games Songs

You may or may not remember a week ago when we told you about how the head of the largest musicians' union in North America ripped into Lionsgate for farming out the score for the upcoming film Hunger Games to Europe despite the film's Appalachian setting and decidedly American style of music. Well ... More >>

Top 10 Texas Movie Soundtracks

​This weekend, as the rest of the world catches Harry Potter mania for (perhaps) the final time, Houston gets a serious dose of Urban Cowboy nostalgia. Theater Under the Stars' production of the Tony-nominated 2003 musical - which The New York Times called "a conclusive demonstration that it's ... More >>

The Wanderer

Never idle, Steve Earle returns to his old stomping grounds with a new album and novel.

Top 10 Songs Famous Because Of A Movie

​Wednesday night, surf-guitar hero Dick Dale played to a packed Continental Club, in what Rocks Off's buddy Lonesome Onry and Mean and several others have since said was one of the best shows they've ever seen. The song that sent everyone home with their ears ringing and their fingers on fire ... More >>

Last Night: Willie Nelson At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Mark Britain​Willie Nelson & Family Verizon Wireless Theater April 28, 2011 See Willie Nelson's extended Houston family in our slideshow. There are few times you don't want the Rolling Stones in your head. A very few. But on your way to a Willie Nelson show trying to fight off the ... More >>

Out Today: Steve Earle Is Alive, Bootsy's Aged Funk, And The Late Poly Styrene's Last Disc

​Yep, it's the third week now that we have been listening to the new Foo Fighters album, Wasting Light. We even acquired it on vinyl this weekend, so we are doubly screwed. Now we just need it on cassette tape and one of those toothbrushes that play music in your skull like you are schizophren ... More >>

John Mellencamp

Texans Have Down Year In Grammy Nominations

​Texas artists, or artists with Texas roots, scored fewer nominations than usual when the Recording Academy announced its choices for the 53rd annual Grammy Awards Wednesday night. Perpetual nominees Beyonce and George Strait were nominated for residual tracks from I Am... Sasha Fierce and Twa ... More >>

Bob Dylan Rolls With The Thunder In Shelter From The Storm

Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Years By Sid Griffin ​Of the many different periods in the career of Bob Dylan, the years 1975-76 were particularly productive on a variety of fronts: the recording of Desire, two Rolling Thunder Revue tours, filming of Renaldo & Clara, and ... More >>

Robert Plant & Band of Joy, Bettye LaVette

Acts We Think - OK, Hope - Are Playing ACL Fest This Year

​By this time Tuesday, we will all know who is playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in October. Damn, it seems like we have speculating about the line-up since, well, we got the last of the "Dillo Dirt" out the middle of our toes after last year's muddy and rainy ACL weekend. Tuesday brig ... More >>

Robert Plant Plays The Woodlands - Finally - On July 24

​ Robert Plant remembers Houston. In September 2008, the former Led Zeppelin singer and Allison Krauss were scheduled to play the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion behind their multiple Grammy-winning (and downright spectacular) Raising Sand album, but Hurricane Ike had other ideas, severely dam ... More >>

Misery and Gin

Country music, faded stardom, liquor, and age in Crazy Heart.

Plenty of Passes Left for Tonight's Crazy Heart Screening

Sig's Lagoon (3710 Main) has plenty of passes left for this evening's preview screening of Crazy Heart, the Golden Globe-nominated film starring Jeff Bridges as a hard-luck country singer who finds... wait for it... One Last Shot At Redemption when he meets kind-hearted journalist Maggie Gylle ... More >>

George Jones

Complete List of Texas' 2010 Grammy Nominees

​Rocks Off was pretty sure we missed a few Texas (or Texas-connected) artists in Thursday's writeup of the 2010 Grammy nominees, and it turns out we were right. We don't even remember scrolling past some of these categories over at Grammy.com, to be honest, but thanks to the Texas Music Office's C ... More >>

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas, Part 2: "Trinity"

[Note: This week Rocks Off is looking at the musical heritage, highs and lows, for each of the five possible states that might result should Texas secede from the U.S. like Gov. Rick Perry wants it to. Yesterday we began with the Panhandle/West Texas "Palo Duro" territory; today it's northeastern qu ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: My Son, the Guitar-Slinger

William Michael SmithLance Smith (left) and Mike Stinson​ LOM grew up in the oil patch, made a good living in it, saw the world because of it. So it made sense to want our son, Lance, to grow up to be a petroleum engineer. Alas, it was not to be. Now he's a guitar player. Two years into the petrol ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: R.I.P. Stephen Bruton

Photos courtesy New West Records Stephen Bruton, one of Austin's great pickers, songwriters, and good citizens, died Saturday of throat cancer, which he had battled for years, according to a press release by his label, New West Records. The 60-year-old Bruton came out of the school of influential Fo ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: "Killing the Blues" with Plant and Krauss

Led Zeppelin shouter Robert Plant and country/pop vocalist Alison Krauss seem like a highly unlikely duo. When I heard they'd made an album together called Raising Sand, the pairing seemed so odd I didn't really even want to hear it. I thought their two voices would clash like Lucinda Williams and R ... More >>

The Year in Albums

Texans Score 30 Grammy Nominations

Allison Krauss, Robert Plant and T-Bone Burnett (far right) Texas artists landed 30 nominations in 20 categories when the contenders for the 51st annual Grammy Awards were announced today, including all five nominees for Best Tejano Album and four of the five Best Norteno Album contenders. All of ... More >>

B.B. King

B.B. King

Fred Eaglesmith: Tinderbox

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Only a Week Until Robert Plant/Allison Krauss

Sam Phillips: Don't Do Anything

If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Raising Sand

Brandi Carlile, A Fine Frenzy

The Edge of the Spotlight

Trouble for "Texas Troubadour" Chris Knudson

Playbill

Suth'n Comfort

The Coens score big with Ladykillers -- thanks to Hanks

Nashville Star

The voice that wooed George Clooney comes to town

A Mountainous Achievement

Cold Mountain sets the new standard for Civil War drama on-screen

Banjos on the Bayou

Ralph Stanley and company come down from the mountain

Age-Old Axiom

The Axiom can't seem to shake its past

Simply Direct

Gillian Welch heeds roots music's high, lonesome call

Rotation

The Road from College

Dallas, and SMU, favorite Jackopierce gets a call to the big leagues, and answers