The Doors

Get Lit: The Act You’ve Known for All These Years: A Year in the Life of Sgt. Pepper and Friends, by Clinton Heylin

Wayne's World 2

Standing at the Gates of Heaven

Oliver Stone is knock-knock-knockin', but he just can't get inside his latest Vietnam epic

Drunk, But Not Disorderly

Meg Ryan battles the curse of cuteness

Keiji Haino

A Japanese psychedelic rocker makes his debut performance in Texas

Jason Ward's Matagorda Island Discs

A Japanese psychedelic rocker makes his debut performance in Texas

Control

Joy Division portrait proves the exception to the rock biopic drool

Local Motion

Joy Division portrait proves the exception to the rock biopic drool

Our top DVD picks for the week of December 14

Joy Division portrait proves the exception to the rock biopic drool

The Artist Formerly Known as Nigel

More Johnny Rotten than Jascha Heifetz

Old School

MU330 makes ska as it was intended

Rotation

MU330 makes ska as it was intended

Maybe Miley Would Be Better Off Dead Like Selena, Kurt and These Others...

In case you missed it - and if you value your immortal soul, we're sure you did - Hannah Montana star/future tell-all memoir author Miley Cyrus unveiled a newer, more "mature" look last weekend at the only venue appropriate for such things: the Teen Choice Awards. Nothing says "successful transitio ... More >>

Lone Star Scorecard: "God Blessed Texas," "Dracula From Houston" and "The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)"

​ You know the drill: every week we sift through several thousand songs (mostly) extolling the virtues of the Great State of Texas to bring you three that still manage to screw it up. And whether written by native sons or godless Yankee heathens, mistakes abound. Little Texas, "God Blessed Texas" ... More >>

Texas Traveler: Galveston Ghosts

Photos by Brittanie SheyDash Beardsley starts the tour.​Dash Beardsley is a legend, both in his own mind, and in real life. The Robert Plant look-alike, owner and operator of Ghost Tours of Galveston, shows up for tours wearing a floor-length black duster, silver rings on every finger, and sun ... More >>

Dare to Be Stupid: Weird Al Yankovic Is 50 Today - 50 Years Old!

​ Weird Al Yankovic, the accordion-playing satirist who has made mockery of everything from the American diet to gangsta rap - as if he needs any introduction - turns 50 today. As Rocks Off's editor asked, "How can he be only 50?" It's a good question, because if you're anything like us, Weird Al ... More >>

Are "Folsom Prison Blues" and Jane's Addiction's "Summertime Rolls" Appropriate Lullabys for Children?

​ Despite our collective knowledge of many arcane forms of music here at Rocks Off, we have noticed that we are remarkably deficient when it comes to lullabies. This deficiency which has been compounded by our complete and utter refusal to succumb to the twisted evil that is most children's music ... More >>

Songs Rocks Off Chose for Our Buddy's Bachelor Party

In a few weeks, Rocks Off loses another friend to marriage when one of our best friends from high school gets hitched at a church in Sugar Land. Quite honestly, out of all of our best friends, the smart money was on Rocks Off to get married first while Brett was going to linger on as a swinging bac ... More >>

He Said She Said: Fire In The Earhole!, Part 2

​To be honest, She Said can't really remember the last time she stepped foot inside Mai's. It was definitely several years ago, before she left Houston and then came back again, and it was probably with this guy, probably after a show. She Said probably had some Thai curry and hot tea, but she can ... More >>

Cross-Dressing In The Women's Room? You'll Need These Songs

​ God-fearing men of Houston: Mayor Annise Parker wants to banish your micturitions back to the Stone Age: "Houston's first openly gay mayor is now being accused of opening up the women's restroom to cross-dressing men. On Tuesday morning, the Houston Area Pastors Council issued a blistering ... More >>

Godsmacked: 27 Years Of Mouthwash Buzz And Birthday Shame

​This coming Monday, Craig's Hlist enters his 27th year of decadence and shame. One year closer to 30, with no signs of getting wiser or smarter. This year we have no clue as to what to do or where to go, other than see live music and drink too much. But that's a typical weekend anyway and will mo ... More >>

Van Morrison

​This coming Monday, Craig's Hlist enters his 27th year of decadence and shame. One year closer to 30, with no signs of getting wiser or smarter. This year we have no clue as to what to do or where to go, other than see live music and drink too much. But that's a typical weekend anyway and will mo ... More >>

Summertime Blues: Songs As Sad As The Season

"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose..." ​So reads the prologue to Ernest Hemingway's 1926 treatise on the horrors of existential dread. In the book, Jake Barnes and a band of entirely unlikeable expat misfits flit around the globe, from Paris to P ... More >>

Give Me No Man's Land: 5 Songs For The Fallen

​Today is Memorial Day, and Rocks Off would like to honor our brave and beloved dead as we honor everything - through music. At no time in American history have there not been men and women in life-threatening danger trying to protect us, whether it was a declared war or not. This is a sacrifice w ... More >>

"Summertime" From Beyond The Grave

​Today marks the 44th anniversary of Janis Joplin's first gig with Big Brother and the Holding Company. One of rock's most staggering vocalists, Joplin became another star who left us too soon on October 4, 1970, when she overdosed on heroin while recording Pearl. George Gershwin's "Summertime" wa ... More >>

The Top Five Overexposed Classical Works In The Movies

​ Have you heard of the Wilhelm Scream? Basically, it was a one-second sound bite from a bit character in a 1951 movie that somehow made its way into Warner Brothers Studios' collection of sound effects. It has since been used as a special effect in hundreds - maybe thousands - of films, from ... More >>

Three Songs, No Flash: Mark C. Austin's Life In The Pit

All photos by Mark C. AustinGwen Stefani of No Doubt in The Woodlands, May 2009​This evening, local rock photographer Mark C. Austin unveils his first exhibit of his work since he began shooting bands almost five years ago. Austin's work has appeared in print and online for the Houston Press a ... More >>

Five Great Moments In Indecent Exposure

​Recently, Florida's lame-duck governor Charlie Crist has said he's considering pardoning Jim Morrison for his 1969 indecent exposure charge, stemming from The Doors' notorious Miami concert in which a drunken Lizard King swore numerous times and proceeded to whip it out onstage. Of course, Mo ... More >>

What Is Classic Rock Today?

​What is classic rock in 2010? 15 years ago, it was was the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, anything Eric Clapton touched and every band your dad played in his car while he was making out with the girls he met before your mom. That's how we know classic rock: Big riffs, big voices, in ... More >>

Top 10 Musician Movie Cameos

Rocks Off has no idea why Mick Jagger might prefer Performance to Ned Kelly.​Over recent years, Rocks Off has been repeatedly surprised by the quality performances of musicians in films. Naturally, there are some duds in the mix; even Mick Jagger himself, who starred in 1970's Ned Kelly, disow ... More >>

Last Night: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Jonathan Tyler & the Northern Lights House of Blues February 17, 2011 For more totally tasteful pictures from Thursday, see our slideshow here. Ooh la la. Aftermath is going to be real up front here. We did not know a whole lot about Grac ... More >>

The 10 Best Rock Samples In Hip-Hop

​Rocks Off just finished reading Ian Christe's 2007 Van Halen biography, Everybody Wants Some, which chronicles the band's history from the Van Halen boys' entry into the U.S., the upbringing of David Lee Roth, and devastating, fatal 1985 crash into Mount Sammy Hagar. Sad stuff if you're a Rot ... More >>

Top 5 Albums: Duran Duran

​It's Duran Duran Day in Houston, everybody. Word has it that fans are already lining up at Warehouse Live for the band's sold-out club show, and you can bet that it will be a hot evening inside the venue until the last strains of "Rio" echo out onto the street after the lights come up. We h ... More >>

Garage Sale Cowboy: Rod McKuen's The Sea

​Today Rod McKuen, poet, composer, and sometime singer, turns 77 years old. Most people do not remember McKuen - at least nobody born after 1980 - but for one summer he was the strangest thing to come into Rocks Off's record collection, and remains one of our favorites. It would have been th ... More >>

Save Ferris: Pop-Culture Origins Of 16 Famous Band Names

Groovehouse​This one's for the pop-culture junkies. For those who, like us, are tickled by all forms of pop media, whether it be literature, film or music... this list encompasses them all. A surprisingly high quantity of bands have named themselves after books, songs, and films; some are obvi ... More >>

Beyonce's 4 & 11 Other Numerical Album Titles

​Beyonce is not the first artist to title her album after a number. Here are 11 more - one of which B may have to unseat from the top of the charts when her fourth solo album, 4, is released next month. Chicago, Chicago III-Twenty 1 (1971-91): Chicago had a simple formula for naming albums: ... 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 >>

Out Today: Bon Iver's Bandwagon Bait, Weird Al Goes Gaga

Greetings From Bon Iver Land! Now, grab a rifle. It's almost dinner time.​In the next few weeks, you may be reading about the new Robert Ellis album, Photographs, so we are just giving you fair warning. It's a stunner through and through, and goes nicely with early morning traffic. Have you ev ... More >>

25 Essential Eponymous Albums

​Eponymous: (of a literary work, film, etc) named after its central character or creator: The Stooges' eponymous debut album. On this day in 1983, a young woman from Michigan who had recently given up on a career as a hard-rock singer released her first album of electronic dance-pop, an album ... More >>

Apocalypse Now: 2 DJs' Playlists For The End Of Days

Lee E. Wright/Sweaty. Sultry. Sandy.​Sand, surf, carnival - and the apocalypse. It sounds like a lead-in to "One of These Things is Not Like the Others" (although probably a little heavy for the Sesame Street crowd), but that was the theme of Sweaty. Sultry. Sandy., an art/fashion show held ov ... More >>

Alchemy

Agora has regained its bohemian composure from last fall's devastating fire.

Saturday Night: Stevie Nicks At The Woodlands

Photos by Jay Lee"Anybody seen my wand?"​Stevie Nicks Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion August 13, 2011 Aftermath can't help but wonder if the people who think Stevie Nicks is some kind of wand-waving white-witch faerie queen have paid much attention to anything she's done besides "Rihannon." N ... More >>

Top 5 Musical Ed Sullivan Show Controversies

theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com"You want me to sing WHAT now?"​To the right-wing conservatives, religious groups, and self-proclaimed family organizations raising hell over Chaz Bono's "assault on family values" as the first transgender contestant on Dancing With the Stars, Rocks Off asks the q ... More >>

The 15 Best Bill Graham Presents Posters And Artwork

Photo By Tony MorelliBill Graham in 1974​Twenty years ago this week, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham went to the big backstage party in the sky after the helicopter he was riding in flew into a high-voltage tower in Vallejo, Calif. Also killed in the crash was Graham's girlfriend, Melis ... More >>

Ray Manzarek & Robby Krieger of The Doors

Photo By Tony MorelliBill Graham in 1974​Twenty years ago this week, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham went to the big backstage party in the sky after the helicopter he was riding in flew into a high-voltage tower in Vallejo, Calif. Also killed in the crash was Graham's girlfriend, Melis ... More >>

Top 5 Songs About Whiskey

Photo via peaceuvmine.com​Whether it's rye or bourbon, straight or blended, Irish, Scotch or Canadian, rock, country or classical, whiskey and warblers go way back. Even Stravinsky was quoted as saying "My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey. ... More >>

Low Down: Do Bands Need Bass Players Any More?

Photo by Jeff BalkeSlappin' da bass, mon.​Growing up in the '80s, there was a concern on the part of drummers that they would be replaced by drum machines. No one thought that every drummer in every band would be swapped out with a box, but spots in all sorts of projects normally reserved for ... More >>