The Beatles

This Just In: We Are Doomed

Drenched In Blog: Seeking Help! from the Beatles

Get Lit: Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America, by Jonathan Gould

Reverberations: Beatles, Stones, Dirtbombs and Fleshtones

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 >>

Static

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 >>

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 >>

Static

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 >>

Static

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 >>

Tino Ortega's Matagorda Island Discs

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 >>

Pete Best

Pete Best performs Friday, June 29, at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar, 1031 E. 24th St., 713-862-8707. Kozmic Pearl opens.

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

Pete Best performs Friday, June 29, at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar, 1031 E. 24th St., 713-862-8707. Kozmic Pearl opens.

Stove Blow

Locals lean on video games for instrumental inspiration

Letters to the Editor

Locals lean on video games for instrumental inspiration

Old Folks Rock

McCartney doesn't pretend to be anything but a sap. And Jagger still acts like he's God's gift to sexdom.

Various Artists

This Bird Has Flown

Jet

Get Born (Elektra)

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Meet the Beatles... Again: Live From the Sam Houston Coliseum, August 1965

​ More Beatles for you (and more to come). While researching the group's Texas history, Rocks Off stumbled across this gem: a live recording of the Beatles' one and only Houston appearance - though they played a matinee and evening show - at the Sam Houston Coliseum on August 19, 1965. Listen to t ... 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 >>

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 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 >>

Museum Of Fine Arts Screening Rare Beatles And Bob Dylan Footage This Weekend

​It's an odd thing to think about, but imagine seeing the Beatles on American television for the very first time. Imagine how different they looked from any other musician making popular music in the early 1960s. Or think about Bob Dylan, going electric at Newport, how scandalous it would have bee ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 bra ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

10 Awesome, Awful & Odd "Hey Jude" Covers

​This week in 1968, The Beatles inaugurated their Apple Records label in a most auspicious fashion, releasing "Hey Jude" as a 45. The B-side was "Revolution." Written by Paul McCartney and employing a 36-piece orchestra, "Jude" did nothing to dispel the perception that Paul was the "soft" Beat ... More >>

The Jayhawks

​This week in 1968, The Beatles inaugurated their Apple Records label in a most auspicious fashion, releasing "Hey Jude" as a 45. The B-side was "Revolution." Written by Paul McCartney and employing a 36-piece orchestra, "Jude" did nothing to dispel the perception that Paul was the "soft" Beat ... More >>

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles

​This week in 1968, The Beatles inaugurated their Apple Records label in a most auspicious fashion, releasing "Hey Jude" as a 45. The B-side was "Revolution." Written by Paul McCartney and employing a 36-piece orchestra, "Jude" did nothing to dispel the perception that Paul was the "soft" Beat ... 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 ... More >>

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

Courtesy Jacksboro HighwayL-R: Pete Best, John Lennon, Delbert McClinton, Bruce Chanel, Paul McCartney, George Harrison​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 F ... More >>