The Jesus and Mary Chain

The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1994

Over the course of the week Rocks Off will be looking at the biggest years for goth music and exactly what they meant for the genre. 1994 was a good year for a new kind of goth. Previously, for the most part the men had been sensitive artists, and even the ones who could be pretty brutal -- such as ... 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 >>

Grave Babies Want You To "F*ck Off"

Making a low-budget gothic music video is a double-edged sword. Sometimes you get stuck with the soul-crushing awfulness of Candy Apple Blue's "Graveyard," which was so bad that its very existence birthed the Gothic Council just to mock it. Other times you get Town Monster's "Bela Lugosi," which wa ... More >>

Last Night: Sleigh Bells At Warehouse Live

Sleigh Bells Warehouse Live April 18, 2012 Sleigh Bells has to be one of the most polarizing bands in recent memory. To really get a bead on a band these days, you have to go to iTunes. So I looked up Sleigh Bells. "How did this get made?" wondered one reviewer about Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller ... More >>

Last Night: Girls At Fitzgerald's

Girls, Young Man, Fanfarlo, Unknown Mortal Orchestra Fitzgerald's March 13, 2012 San Francisco's Girls kept it going strong last night, touring in support of their album Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Another vaunted acted of the Pitchfork set, they held up even better live than their 9.3 album prepared ... More >>

Last Night: The Jesus And Mary Chain At House Of Blues

The Jesus and Mary Chain House of Blues March 13, 2012 The Jesus and Mary Chain must be the definition of "acquired taste." According to my admittedly brief research - which consisted of searching setlist.fm a couple of days before the show - Tuesday was the Mary Chain's first show anywhere in pub ... More >>

The Jesus & Mary Chain

Seeking Date To Jesus And Mary Chain: Oral Service Required

The things you find on Craigslist. Rocks Off photographer and contributor Marc Brubaker passed this our way: Free ticket for JESUS AND MARY CHAIN concert March 13 in House of Blues Houston. ONLY for a sexy, adventurous, sensual woman for an evening of good music and hot fun. you need to be able to ... More >>

Upcoming: Basshunter, Escape The Fate, Gipsy Kings, High On Fire, Jesus & Mary Chain

7horse: Mon., April 9. Fitzgerald's, 2706 White Oak, Houston. Allen Toussaint: Fri., March 9. Dosey Doe Coffee Company, 25911 I-45 N., Spring. The Wheeler Brothers, The Asteroid Shop, Antonio Estevan Huerta: Sat., April 7. Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, Houston. Basshunter: Fri., Feb. 24. Rich ... More >>

The Jesus And Mary Chain Hitting Houston On March 13 During SXSW Swing

Known best for their 1985 album, Psychocandy, the Jesus And Mary Chain have been called one of the most influential British bands of the '80s. With the wall of crushing reverb, drenched in pop hookiness, their sound foretold bands like the beloved My Bloody Valentine, the cultish Black Rebel Motorcy ... More >>

10 Things You May Not Know About G N' R's Use Your Illusion Albums

For the past few weeks, the music world has been firmly entrenched in Nirvana nostalgia. Hell, even Rocks Off took a crack at it, looking up all the expensive memorabilia on eBay related to the band. But in September 1991, another album hit the store shelves that had a lot of impact too, for better ... More >>

Five ACL '11 Bands That Could Headline In 2012

Jim BrickerSmith Westerns at Fitz in February​This Thursday night, Rocks Off leaves for the 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival at Austin's Zilker Park. This year promises to be a hot one, from the killer temperatures, the constant wildfires just miles from the venue, and the mouth of Frida ... More >>

Grave Babies

2 Become 1: Musical Match-Ups We'd Like To See

​Kanye "Hitler" West and Jay-Z released their (overused music writer word alert) epic Watch the Throne album this week, to mostly great reviews. This fall the first fruits from the recently announced Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration should be on the store shelves, which still sorta weirds us o ... More >>

Turn It On, Leave It On: MTV's 10 Best Music Series

"Henry Rollins asks Kevin Shields how much he can bench on the next 120 Minutes..."​This week marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of MTV, that loud, hyper-colored behemoth that changed pop culture and the music industry forever, endlessly providing viewers with visual and mental stimul ... More >>

Rock & Roll's Top 10 Brawlin' Brothers

Note: Not real brothers. We just liked the picture.​Brothers share a link that is unique and special. Same DNA, same familial backgrounds, quirks, talents, and sometimes musical taste. They can also argue, get physical, try to overpower one another, and hold grudges over years that are hard to ... More >>

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Ghosts of SXSWs Past: Justice, Glasvegas, Monotonix...

Craig Hlavaty​This year marks the fourth year Craig's Hlist has covered SXSW in Austin for the Houston Press, from the days when we had to shoot all of our own shows, had neither Facebook nor Twitter, and slogged through the day mostly drunk. It's a far cry from now, when we are glued to our p ... More >>

Top 10 Recent TV-Show Soundtracks

​A few choice adjectives come to mind when musing on bawdy Eastbound & Down character Kenny Powers. "Inspiring" is not one of them. However, as Rocks Off watched this week's season finale of the side-splitting HBO series, we were pleasantly surprised as we heard indie troubadour Kurt Vile's a ... More >>

Summer Tours We'd Like To See: Bring Back Texxas Jam!

Reminder: Tickets for Lady Gaga's Toyota Center show next year go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m.​ Summer concert season doesn't last as long as hurricane season, and leaves somewhat less damage in its aftermath, but at least it gives us something to look forward to during those long, hot months. This ... More >>

UK Web Site Shines "Unsigned Spotlight" on Houston's Watermarks

myspace.com/thewatermarksThe Watermarks at Warehouse Live, September 2009​ ​When Rocks Off wrote about Houston electro-rockers the Watermarks' Thoughts Like Bombs back in May, we said a song or two off the quintet's five-song EP - still available as a free download on the band's Web site - remin ... More >>

Werewolves Got Fingered: The 5 Worst Movies (Besides Twilight: New Moon) With the Best Soundtracks

​Good news, all you fans of condensed screen versions of self-indulgent Mormon vampire pseudo-erotic clit-tease fantasies: Twilight: New Moon is being released in only eight days. Rocks Off, accustomed to scorn from literary snobs for his steadfast support of the Harry Potter series, actually pick ... More >>

Westheimer Block Party Listology: Flowers to Hide Chooses the Saddest Songs In the World

All this week, Rocks Off is previewing Saturday and Sunday's Westheimer Block Party by asking WBP performers to fill out a list from Lisa Nola's Music Listography book we're so fond of. Next up, Jesus and Mary Chain-y alt-rockers Flowers to Hide tell us the saddest songs in the world. claudiabelle†... More >>

Aftermath: An Exuberant Pre-Halloween Show With The Factory Party, Ringo Deathstarr and Springfield Riots at the Mink

Photos by Adam P. NewtonThe Factory Party​In Aftermath's opinion, there are few things more enjoyable than spending an evening together with friends at the beloved haunt that is the Mink. We're able to toss back a drink or four, catch up on each other's lives, and hopefully hear some really great ... More >>

"MMMBro": Hanson And Other Rock And Roll Bands Of Brothers

Back in the summer of1997, one couldn't walk out of their house without hearing someone humming, blaring, or damning to Hell that juicy nugget of pop rock that was Hanson's "MMMBop". Depending on your age and gender, you either understood the hooky genius of the song or you were just in love with t ... More >>

The Horrors

Ghosts of Washington Avenue

Noise goes whistling through the scenester artery's music venue graveyard.

MP3 of the Day: Morgue City, Not Metal But Still Plenty Dark

​Rocks Off was sure that Houston's Morgue City was a metal band - it's a perfect metal name, that's for sure. Not quite. The Houston duo, descended from bondage-loving former HPMA Best Industrial winners Bozo Porno Circus, plays a brand of "noiz" not far off from KMFDM or My Life With the Thrill K ... More >>

MP3 of the Day: Flowers to Hide

Here's a nice little Friday-afternoon rocker for all you clockwatchers out there. It's "503," a snappy account of touring life by Houston's Flowers to Hide, the opener of the quartet's 2008 EP Down the Stairs. The lickety-split pacing and brazen guitars reminds Rocks Off of beloved '80s nightwatchme ... More >>

Aftermath: Gene Loves Jezebel at Meridian

Photos by Daniel Kramer/ click here for a slideshowEvery so often, a show that might otherwise be just OK becomes something much cooler when there's hardly anybody there to see it. Aftermath isn't talking about some fresh-out-of-the-box band playing its first show in front of friends and fami ... More >>

This Week in SXSW: Katy Perry Kisses the "Lake of Fire"

There's now less than a month to go until we here at Rocks Off throw sobriety and sane living to the wind at this year's SXSW festival. This past week we learned of a boatload of new stuff about the weeklong liver-damaging voyage in March, so here goes... The list of bands keeps growing and gro ... More >>

Glasvegas: Glasvegas

Were These Really the Best Songs of 2008?

The Gutter Twins Maybe Rocks Off spent a lot of 2008 with his head in the archives, but he was paying attention to new stuff too. Occasionally. It's as easy as satellite radio, channel 47's (Ethel/Alt Nation) weekly new-music hour Submission/Transmission. Monday night, S/T happened to be playing ... More >>

Election Eve With Fred

Venue Shuffle: Rise Against, Tek9 Cancel; Alkaline Trio, Thrice Moved to House of Blues

Tonight: The Sian Alice Group, Also at Walter's on Washington

SXSW Day 1: Tricks of the Trade

Psychedelic Horseshit

Columbus threesome offers up dancey, non-crappy, shoegazer rock

Hearts of Animals

One-woman band mixes up for shoegazers

Drenched In Blog: Scarlett Johansson Teams Up with Dave Sitek, Is Totally Hot

Retro Active: 1987, Here We Come

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Monday, March 6, Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-629-3700

A Witch of a Show

The Raveonettes

Pretty in Black

Playbill

Dreamfest

Saturday, April 24

Singapore Sling

Sunday, November 9

The Kants, with Groceries and Drillbox Ignition

Saturday, December 14

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Wednesday, December 5

Live Shots