The Beatles

Any Beatles Fan's Bucket List, Now In Easy Book Form

100 Things Beatles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die By Gillian G. Gaar Triumph Books, 256 pp., $14.95 It's a good thing that we are living longer these days as a human species, because given the glut of books about movies to see, music to hear, art to view, books to read, and places to visit w ... More >>

Back In the U.S.S.R.: The Obsolete Beatles

The next time someone who's too "cool" to "get" the Beatles asks what makes them so important, ask that person what's so great about his or her nose. First, if you're lucky, you'll be treated to an entertaining look of befuddlement. Then, when you're done being amused by that, avoid launching into a ... More >>

The Five Best Songs That Sample the Beatles

Pop and R&B superstar Frank Ocean has recently opened up to MTV News that he's been on a Beatles and Beach Boys binge when seeking inspiration for his upcoming second full-length record. While it's not exactly surprising to hear of a young artist gorging himself on Beatles classics for ideas, it is ... More >>

Why Greatest-Hits Albums Matter, and 10 Greatest-Hits Haikus

A solid album, to me, is what I have dubbed a "Front-to-Back." I have two definitions for Front-to-Backs: 1) albums that are structured to listen to as an entire piece of artwork (like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, or Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea); and 2) alb ... More >>

Recreating the "Lost" Beatles Songs on YouTube

The Beatles is my favorite band. Not because of their albums, but because they are the greatest urban-legend generators in rock and roll. All around them, stories sprang up that sounded possible but were anything but. I even made a quiz out of it if you'd like to test your credibility-meter. My abs ... More >>

5 Stories We Should Be Talking About Instead of Kimye's Unborn Child

Future generations may eventually read the words "watercooler moment" and have no idea what the phrase means. Why wait to talk to your coworkers when you'll already be friends with them on a social network and can share your comments on news as it happens? If you have Twitter you see this future at ... More >>

Why the Beatles Never Go Out of Style

Imagine one of those tween magazine quizzes, one that is supposed to show what your favorite music says about you by asking you cute questions about your musical taste. Except in return, this one would provide you with some stone-cold harrowing insight into your soul as to specifically why you may p ... More >>

25 Million Drops In the Bucket: Why Adele's Continued Success Matters For All of Us

According to @chartnews, last week 27,772 people either visited their local record store or went online to purchase Adele's 21. Even though the album came out here in the states on February 22, 2011 there will still 27,772 people out there who decided last week was the week they were finally going t ... More >>

Here Are 10 Free Beatles & Paul McCartney Flicks to Watch On YouTube

The day is finally here. The stage is set inside Minute Maid Park. The ticket scalpers are getting ready. The oldsters are reminiscing. The youngsters are getting excited. The critics, bloggers, and nerds are brushing up on their Beatlease, and crossing their fingers for their faves. That's rig ... More >>

Let It Be: How Many Beatles Books Are Enough?

From where I am sitting, I spy at least three Beatles books that were released in the past year alone: A gigantic LIFE job on the Fab Four, a nine-pounder on John Lennon, and another just on the boys' post-Fab solo career work and best singles. All three are great additions to any Beatles library, e ... More >>

Paul McCartney Tickets On Sale Now, Minus $350 Service Fees

Rewind: Who Is Paul McCartney? Rocks Off Tells You 1965: Remembering Houston's Summer of Beatlemania Tickets for Sir Paul McCartney's November 14 concert at Minute Maid Park, the once and future Beatle's first show in Houston since 2005, are now on sale at Ticketmaster. Right now. And just to ma ... More >>

The Beatles' Rotted Apple Records Ripe for Rediscovery

Strange Fruit: The Beatles' Apple Records Chrome Dreams, 162 mins., $19.95. While the Beatles' formation of their Apple company had roots in a tax dodge, the foursome really did (at least originally) seek to create a haven where creative types across different genres from art and film and design to ... More >>

The Weirdest Beatles Reference Ever

The Beatles are the greatest rock band of all time. Some people say it's the Rolling Stones, but those people just think it sounds cool to be wrong. Being an act that was a legitimate worldwide phenomenon, it's not at all uncommon to find bizarre places that they have inspired homage. Granted, some ... More >>

Is Revolver The "Best" Beatles Record Ever?

Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll By Robert Rodriguez Backbeat Books, 256 pp., $19.99. While popular consensus and mainstream pop culture holds that Sgt. Pepper is the "best" Beatles album (as if it were a quantifiable title...), a dedicated and growing chorus holds that its predec ... More >>

The Best & Worst-Case Scenarios For The Future Of Musical Holograms

Like most night owls, I spent early Monday morning watching YouTube clips of a holographic Tupac Shakur playing Coachella with his friends Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg nearly 16 years after his death. It was at once creepy and crass, but altogether interesting no matter how you sliced it, and not just bec ... More >>

From Fan Clubs To Militarys: 40 Years In The Evolution Of Fandom

The Beatles had a problem. They were getting up to 400 pieces of fan mail every day. Not a bad problem to have, but consider the math: That's 2,800 letters a week, 12,000 letters in a short month, and up to 146,000 letters in a year. Even with four members answering their share of the letters, that' ... More >>

Introducing...The Beatles: Celebrating Their First Ed Sullivan Performance

Lonesome, Onry and Mean didn't get in much trouble in school. So his parents were a little disturbed to find the eighth grader in the principal's office on the afternoon of February 10, 1964. He and his best friends, Mike Clowdus, Brad Rutledge, and Larry "Suitcase" Simpson, had been written up and ... More >>

20 Albums To Leave Your Children Plus Five To Grow On...

It started as a simple question: What albums would you leave your unborn children, if you knew you were on borrowed time and may not be around to show them the way. At first I asked for albums for sons, but then it grew broader, not out of needing to pacify the PC-thug in me, but to make sure everyo ... More >>

2011 Rewind: Concert Tickets From An Alternate Universe

This originally ran on June 8, but seeing that the year is coming to an end, we are looking back at some of our favorite blogs we gave to you these past 12 months. One of the best dreams we ever had was of covering a Clash show for Rocks Off. Yeah, dreaming about work isn't something to brag about ... More >>

The Jayhawks

10 Things You May Not Know About The Beatles' Revolver

​First released in the UK on August 5, 1966, the Beatles' Revolver was born into tumultuous times for the band. The "Bigger Than Jesus" debacle was reaching its height in the United States, as some fans who took John Lennon's flippant remark about his band's popularity as heresy burned Beatles ... More >>

Carry That Weight: The Best Bands Pegged As The "Next Beatles"

Laugh now, but remember when Definitely Maybe came out?​How much pressure must it be to have someone, probably some flacky music journalist running out of metaphors and superlatives, call your band the "Next Beatles" just as you start your rock career? That's like being called the next Jesus C ... More >>

Zoo Station: A Noah's Ark Of 75 Animal Songs

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee ... More >>

Ukuleles: Suddenly The Hippest Instrument Going

​Trends in music can be as prevalent - and subsequently fleeting - as they are in fashion. Though the eagerness to join trendy-indie bandwagons can be puzzling, music's most recent instrumental trend, the ukulele, grabbed our attention, especially after SXSW. Among the dozens of SXSW-related ... More >>

Multi-Tracks, One By One: An Aural Autopsy

​This past weekend Rocks Off hung out with a producer buddy, listening to multitrack recordings of some of the biggest acts in history, including the Beatles, Queen, Beastie Boys, and Van Halen. For someone who spends his entire life trying decipher recorded music as it is released and later p ... More >>

Straight-To-DVD Music Sequels Soon To Come

​If you're a struggling writer, musician or filmmaker trying to work up the nerve to kill yourself, have we ever got good news for you! Your morale may have been damaged or even crippled by seeing bad music, bad movies and bad stories dominating the upper echelons of their respective fields, b ... More >>

10 Beatles Urban Legends: True Or False?

​When you're a band like the Beatles - who first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964, 47 years ago today - tall tales and urban legends spring up all around... mostly because when a band is a worldwide cultural phenomenon, anything can seem possible or even plausible. Some of th ... More >>

Top 10 Beatles Parodies And Mashups To Date

​The Beatles' entire catalogue is finally on iTunes and racking up the sales, and we're sure everyone involved at Apple, both the software company and the record label, are happy with the results. The Beatles are cracking the Top 40 again in the United States, and "Hey Jude" is currently the N ... More >>

Top 10 Double Albums That Should Have Stayed Single

​Not all double albums should have been double albums, just as some albums had to be double albums in order for their point to be made. Each case is different with each band or artist. The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia had to be double albums to tell their stories of teenage wastelands and po ... More >>

The Beatles: Eight Ways To Spruce Up Their iTunes Catalog

​In what was undoubtedly momentous news to the hundreds of music fans out there who haven't already a) copied their CDs of Rubber Soul and Revolver onto their hard drives, or b) illegally downloaded their entire collection, Apple made the entire Beatles catalog available on iTunes yesterday. ... More >>

The Beatles: Are They Too Late For iTunes?

​This morning the Beatles and Apple announced, rather quietly, that the band was officially on the iTunes roster of artists, joining millions of others with their thirteen albums. In a statement to the press this morning, Apple chief Steve Jobs said, "We love the Beatles and are honored and ... More >>

Rolling Stone's 25 Worst Cover Misfires

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more. The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film H ... More >>

The Ten Worst Beatles Songs Of All Time

​Rolling Stone is about to release a special issue counting down the magazine's choices for the 100 best Beatles songs of all time, and previewed the list by posting the Top 10 on rollingstone.com. Maybe it's just that Rocks Off doesn't have quite the encyclopedic knowledge of the Fab Four as ... More >>

Leah White: The Houston Zoo Muse's Eight Favorite Animal Songs

See the video for "Beautiful Day" here.​Rocks Off does not have children, nor do we anticipate doing so anytime in the forseeable future. Frankly, the thought of being responsible for another living creature around the clock both terrifies and confounds us - just ask our cat, Neko. However, w ... More >>

What If The Beatles Broke Up After Revolver?

​Thursday is the 44th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' pivotal Revolver, an album that continued their growth away from their boy-band roots and into something stranger, better and far more complex. 1965's Rubber Soul had started the transformation with its multiple psychedelic influ ... More >>

Get Lit: Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin

​Rocks Off understands that this effort is meant for a more general audience and not a Beatles obsessive like himself who owns a bookcase stocked with 93 Fab-related tomes (we counted). And on that level, A Life is a fine if surface summation of the life and career of Sir Paul. Much of Carlin's na ... More >>

Five Unfairly Underappreciated Beatles Songs

Between the early bubblegum pop of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the epic sentimental balladry of "Hey Jude," the Beatles were always about much more than just the songs you hear on the radio. Even the biggest band there ever was has a few high-quality little gems that the masses aren't aware of a ... More >>

Art Rock: The Fab 40 Does Abbey Road at Discovery Green

[Note: Rocks Off will resume posting non-Beatles-related entries...eventually.] ​

When We Was Fab: Rocks Off's Beatles: Rock Band Night Was a Smashing Success

[Update: Click here for a slideshow.] The Pi Studios "blackshirts," sitting on a corn flake... Hate to quote Nickelback, but what the hell: We all wanna be big rock stars, live in hilltop houses and drive 15 cars. Rocks Off is still working on the hilltop house and 15 cars part, but we got a little ... More >>

Get Your Beatles Rock Band On Tonight With The Houston Press

​If you're a Beatles fan -- and who isn't? (Besides me, and maybe that's just because I've heard the music too much, although I've never gotten into Sgt. Pepper, and some of the early stuff is really...but I digress) -- tonight's the night to show your chops.The Houston Press has its hands on a Be ... More >>

Five Direct Beatles Connections to Texas

Four postcards included in the limited edition of The Beatles: Rock Band​ Looks like Beatlemania 2.0 is in full swing. Rocks Off may have mentioned how excited we are to play The Beatles: Rock Band at Coffee Groundz tonight, with prizes, drink specials and much laughter as we try to gnash our way ... More >>

Not So Fab: Five Songs You Won't Find on The Beatles: Rock Band

​Sorry, Joe Strummer, but "phony Beatlemania" hasn't bitten the dust yet, not with the release of both the remastered Beatles catalogue and The Beatles: Rock Band this week. Rocks Off knows this all to well, having flung down the gauntlet of challenge to all those who would test their video-game c ... More >>

HPMA Aftermath: Glenna Bell, Beetle, Fat Tony, Free Radicals and Plump

Photos by Brandon K. Hernsberger​ A good way to kick off the HPMAs is to see a musician who makes you daydream about cheese grits on a holiday, preferably one that takes place in wintertime. Or reminds you of riding a horse at sunrise alongside your best friend John Denver. Glenna Bell, you made i ... More >>

Nerd Alert: Trailer for "The Beatles: Rock Band" Debuts

After almost two years of programming and tinkering, the developers of the Beatles edition of the "Rock Band" videogame have released a trailer for the game in advance of its release in the fall. The visuals in the trailer are faithful to the boys from Liverpool, down to every detail. We were as ... More >>

Free Tickets for Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and G.G. Allin... Sort Of

It's a veritable tribute band meltdown at the House of Blues this weekend, and we have a handful of free tickets up here at Rocks Off HQ to get you into three sure-to-be drunken shows starting this evening. Come pick 'em up at the front desk at 1621 MIlam, Suite 100, until 6 p.m. On the bill tonight ... More >>

It Was 45 Years Ago Today...

If you're more than about 50 years old, today is most likely the anniversary of one of your most powerful memories. In the early evening hours of February 9, 1964, more than 73 million people sat glued to their televisions as the course of American pop culture was altered forever. It a ... More >>

Get Lit: Beatles for Sale by John Blaney

Another Beatles book? Doesn't the world already know everything it possibly can about the Fab Four, from the nickname of their favorite Hamburg pill dealer to the mustache style of the cab driver who took George through the streets of Rishikesh? Well... no. And as long as interest in the band ... More >>

Tino Ortega's Matagorda Island Discs

Reverberations: Beatles, Stones, Dirtbombs and Fleshtones

Whodini, Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee, Willie D