The Smashing Pumpkins

Your Billy Corgan Fix for This Year

Jump-Started

Engine Room owner finds there's still gas in his tank after a long and winding road

The Whole Wide World: Toubab Krewe's Live at the Orange Peel

Toubab Krewe Live at the Orange Peel (Upstream) www.toubabkrewe.com Listening to Toubab Krewe, you'd never guess that all its members hail not from the Western African nation of Mali, but from Asheville, N.C., where the band recorded its latest disc at the Orange Peel - the same venue where ... More >>

Press Picks

Toubab Krewe Live at the Orange Peel (Upstream) www.toubabkrewe.com Listening to Toubab Krewe, you'd never guess that all its members hail not from the Western African nation of Mali, but from Asheville, N.C., where the band recorded its latest disc at the Orange Peel - the same venue where ... More >>

Sound Check

Toubab Krewe Live at the Orange Peel (Upstream) www.toubabkrewe.com Listening to Toubab Krewe, you'd never guess that all its members hail not from the Western African nation of Mali, but from Asheville, N.C., where the band recorded its latest disc at the Orange Peel - the same venue where ... More >>

Fight for Your Right

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Pollyanna for the '90s

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Matter of Importance

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Rotation

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Rotation

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Rotation

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

This Year's Model

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Pelican, with Thrice and Circa Survive

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Lollapalooza, Year Four: The bloom is back

Does the U.S. belong with the Axis of Evil?

Our Favorite Albums of 2007

Panning for gold in an avalanche of 2007 releases

Paul Oakenfold, Greatest Hits & Remixes

Greatest Hits & Remixes

Summer Concert Survival Guide

Who loves the sun?

New Bands from Old

Or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore Audioslave"

Dune, TX

Rocking out with the bare essentials

Incubus

Make Yourself; When Incubus Attacks! Vol. 1

Defending The Buzz: Does 94.5 FM Really Suck That Bad?

What with Creed reuniting, BuzzFest coming up in a couple of weeks and, hell, maybe even the swine-flu scare - As in: What's worse than coming down with swine flu? A Houston radio that only tunes in 94.5 FM - Rocks Off sure has been thinking a lot about The Buzz lately. Probably too much. I mean, it ... More >>

He Said She Said: Breakup Songs to Help You Bawl, Part 2

Ever since men and women set eyes upon each other at the beginning of time, there have been break-ups, and painful dissolutions of romantic escapades have made the best art in the world. Hell, somewhere in the world there is a probably a cave painting of a pretty young Neanderthal girl with devil h ... More >>

The Night a Well-Aimed Shoe Ended Smashing Pumpkins' Houston Goodwill

Today Rocks Off is starting a recurring series of local music urban legends; not so much 'urban legends' in the sense of oft-repeated stories that turn out to be false - though those are fine too - but actual legends: events and incidents that get talked about so much they become a part of local lor ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Golden-brown is the proper tone for any loaf of sourdough / Hollywood starlet.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where today we're bitterly sniffling at the fact that everyone else from the office is at the Austin City Limits festival. It's cool! There's lots of fun ... More >>

Listology: Gold Sounds' Top 5 Seismic Love Songs for Valentine's Day

​This weekend, starting tonight with a gig at Walter's On Washington and tomorrow afternoon's 3 p.m. in-store set Cactus Music, Houston's Gold Sounds begins properly unfurling long-gestating LP, Seismic Love. It's fitting that the album gets it's proper debut over Valentine's weekend, seeing t ... More >>

Why Is The Buzz Still So Popular?

​The only other concert in recent months to sell out at a Gaga-like pace has been the perennial Buzzfest, the semi-annual schlock-rock festival organized since 1995 by Houston's "new rock alternative," 94.5 The Buzz. The concert sells out almost every time - like it is Saturday, but you can probab ... More >>

FAIL - Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Justin Bieber, Celene Dion, Apple

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

Top 5 Bands That Should Relax For A Bit

Craig Hlavaty​Wednesday, Rocks Off got an e-mail from the Dave Matthews Band PR team saying that the group would be taking 2011 off so they could come back in 2012. Whether or not this is to hasten the coming Apocalypse that year or just to live a normal life for a bit remains to be seen. God ... More >>

The Top 10 Music-Video Riots

From Agnostic Front's "Riot, Riot Upstart"​Just like the Stones said, "Summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy." Only the best social insurrections and riots happen in the heat of the summer. It makes us wonder why Houston hasn't had more angry, heat-stoked street ... More >>

Girl Talk Toilet Paper Mash-Ups Balloons = Party!

Marc Brubaker​ Aftermath didn't think it was possible to up the ante any more at this year's Summerfest until Girl Talk took the stage Saturday night. In our estimation, it was the biggest and baddest Summerfest party to date. We might even venture to say that achieved the biggest and baddest summ ... More >>

Smashing Pumpkins

Billy Corgan's everlasting gaze

This Week In Set Lists: Pixies, Kings Of Leon, Tom Petty, Rush, Etc.

GroovehouseKings of Leon, Toyota Center, October 2009​Rocks Off has been both eagerly anticipating and dreading this week for months now. Anticipating because several of our all-time favorite bands are playing within the span of a few days, as are a couple of our favorite newer bands (though n ... More >>

Billy Corgan: Still A Smashing Pumpkin, But No Shrinking Violet

Kristin Burns​A couple of weeks back, Rocks Off spoke with the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan for our print edition about the state of the music world, who excites him now and the indie-rock "shell game." The initial interview was only scheduled for 15 minutes but we ended up chatting for a h ... More >>

Last Night: Smashing Pumpkins At Warehouse Live

Photos by Marc Brubaker​Smashing Pumpkins Warehouse Live September 21, 2010 See photos from last night's jam-packed show. Tuesday night's nearly sold-out Smashing Pumpkins set at Warehouse Live should have been a greatest-hits affair, at least in the eyes of most people who haven't been keep ... More >>

Top Five Musician Twitter Feuds So Far

​The times they are a-changin'. Gone are the days of musicians airing bad blood toward one another behind a lyrical veil a la Neil Young vs. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dandy Warhols vs. Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ice Cube vs. N.W.A. In our brave new world, Rocks Off has succumbed to the instant-gratific ... More >>

Hurt: Concert Injuries In And Out Of The Line Of Duty

Marco Torres​About ten days ago, my parents and brother came into Houston for Sunday dinner, and I noticed my brother - whom we'll call "John," because that's his name - was limping something awful. It turns out John decided to take a spin in the mosh pit at the end of the Bad Religion show I ... 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 >>

Smashing Pumpkins, Jimmy Eat World

​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 >>

Last Night: Smashing Pumpkins And Jimmy Eat World At Verizon

Photos by GroovehouseStill bleeding: Jimmy Eat World​Buzzfestivus with Smashing Pumpkins, Jimmy Eat World Verizon Wireless Theater December 5, 2010 Ringing in the radio-friendly holiday spirit, 94.5 The Buzz welcomed Jimmy Eat World and Smashing Pumpkins to the first night of its annual "Buzz ... More >>

Top 10 Non-Traditional Christmas Songs

"Baby Jesus, born to rock..." ​Amidst the time of year when we're bombarded with cliché holiday tunes and trite Christmas-carol covers, Rocks Off will now take time to appreciate a few original nontraditional takes on festive songs. Whether they're dismal adaptations of holiday malaise, tale ... More >>

1991: Best Music Year Ever?

Rocks Off Sr.'s choice for 1991's best album.​1991 was one of the biggest years in modern music. It was when metal went pop, radio country ruled, grunge went mainstream, and rap began its climb to chart dominance, even if it was spearheaded by a white candy rapper from Dallas. There were man ... More >>

Lost '90s Songs Houston's The Zone Should Play

​A few weekends back, Craig's Hlist spent his whole weekend driving around town running errands listening to 106.9 The Zone, Houston's newest "alternative gold" radio station. In those 48 hours, our entire adolescence flew into our ears, reminding us of most every good and bad moment, at least ... More >>

Top 10 Musician WTF Hobbies

Zazzle.com​Musicians are weird. Well, the good ones, at least. It's a little-known, beloved factoid. While artists' news, drama, and private lives are sometimes aired to the point of over-saturation, it becomes more interesting when we learn relatively kept insight into their rockers' offstage ... More >>

The 25 Most Influential Bands Of The '90s

Trent Reznor, you know, before the Oscar and all the weightlifting. ​As a music writer, we are asked constantly to compare the new with the old, to decipher the periphery where modern bands' influences come from to understand where we are going and what we are seeing. We can hear everything Ke ... More >>

The Best Summer Movie Soundtracks Of The '90s

This movie is old enough to drive.​Summer is officially here, even though it's been ball-dripping sweaty since at least early May. This is also about the time that we are already steeped in big-budget Hollywood summer would-be blockbusters, the kind of movies that have fast-food promotions and ... More >>

Top 10 Most Underrated Music Video Artists

The Material Girl. The King of Pop (and his sister). The Chili Peppers. Mr. West. Very few artists have become the musical equivalent of the two-sport athlete: Making memorable music and monumental videos. When those people had a new video to premiere, it wasn't a just a video, it was an event. I ... More >>

Happy International Youth Day: 6 Songs For The Young

Kenneth Freeman​Rocks Off has become obsessed lately with finding playlists to celebrated some of the more obscure holidays on the calendar, and thankfully the United Nations is just great at providing those. Today is International Youth Day, a holiday that started in 2000 and is designed to b ... More >>

Baby's Cryin': Rockabye Baby Sends Us Lullaby Renditions of Van Halen

Yep. ​The folks at Rockabye Baby! remake hard rock from the likes of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Tool, and the Smashing Pumpkins into baby-friendly jams with "soothing mellotrons, vibraphones and bells," replacing all the things that made those bands perfect for well, making rock and roll babies. Thi ... More >>

The 11 Best Female Rock Bassists of All Time

seanyseult.com​While there are and have been so many notable women in rock-and-roll, and we'd like to honor them all, we've chosen the specific starting point of recognizing rock's best female bassists. As a bassist, I looked up to nearly each and every one of these women as I learned the bass ... More >>

5 Bands Your Musician Friends Love...But You Don't

austinpost.comYep. Robert Plant "copped everything" from this guy.​In a 2005 interview with Esquire, Johnny Depp discusses the unwavering authenticity of Hunter S. Thompson, and likens his late friend to another great, often-troubled mind, saying: "...like Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elev ... More >>