The Sopranos

Street Knowledge

The Geto Boys MC is also Rocks Off's brand-new advice columnist.

Five Songs You Should Be Evicted for Playing

Here's a news story you may have missed recently: a man in the UK was so utterly obsessed with the Spice Girls song "Viva Forever" that he played it over and over and over again, until he pissed off his neighbors and landlord so much that they kicked him out of his apartment. I've heard of people lo ... More >>

Not Fade Away Soundtrack Offers Up a Fistful of Blues, Stones

Not Fade Away, Director David Chase's period piece about a burgeoning rock band in the '60s, is still playing on limited screens in New York and Los Angeles, but this week preview copies of the soundtrack hit mailboxes. It is a sprawling double-disc, double-LP collection featuring vintage Rolling St ... More >>

David Chase Achieves His Rock-'n'-Roll Dreams

How the Mafia Helped Your Mama Do the Twist

Peppermint Twist: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the '60s By Joel Selvin & John Johnson, Jr. with Dick Cami Thomas Dunne Books, 304 pp., $24.99 As far as dance crazes go, the Twist might go down (swiveling, of course) as the best known of all time. In 1961 and 1962, the sligh ... More >>

Kevin Nealon

How Andre Johnson's "Death" Turned into a Mere Dislocated Finger

Secondhand news​There's a scene from Season 5 of The Sopranos just after Tony Soprano got into the car accident with the smoking hot Adriana (who happened to be Tony's insane nephew Christopher's fiancée) late at night on a rural in Dover, New Jersey. Word broke about the accident and the So ... More >>

Pop Rocks: We Take Our Television Seriously

The TV! The TV!​Hey America, what did you think of the season finale of The Killing? - S U C K S! Not wasting another minute watching or thinking about this show! - I want 13 hours of my life back! - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me - A cheap, crappy cop-out. Whoa. That ... More >>

2011 NBA Draft -- A Reminder of the Rockets' Purgatory

NBA Draft: Do Rocket fans have anything to look forward to?​In the second season of The Sopranos, after getting shot in the abdomen and nearly dying, Christopher has dreams while in a coma about going to a place where people die every day the same painful way they died on earth. Convinced that ... More >>

White Rappers & The N-Word Conundrum: 4 Case Studies

"You're talking to the wrong white man, my friend. My people were the white man's nigger when yours were still painting their faces and chasing zebras." - Herman 'Hesh' Rabkin (Jerry Adler), The Sopranos Yes, that was their name.​Freshman year of college. One of my good friends was a white ki ... More >>

Pop Rocks: 5 Lead TV Characters We'd Rather Kill Than...That Other Guy

Up against the wall, Arliss.​Last weekend on [that show we won't name here because we've been writing way too much about it] there was a pretty shocking development: one of - if not *the*- main character of the series was killed off. Offing a beloved television figure isn't an uncommon tacti ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Twilight vs. Harry Potter And 9 Other Geek Throwdowns

Still the only crossover I'd pay to see.​Anyone watch the MTV Movie Awards? Anyone? I didn't think so, mostly because I suspect the majority of Hair Balls/Art Attack readers are over the age of 12. And while I have no intention of revisiting the whole "'Music?"Television line of jokes, I did ... More >>

Top Five Songs About Horses

​Rocks Off's regular readers presumably know by now that we love few things more than offbeat anniversaries, and recently we came across one of the oddest yet. Thirty-two years ago Monday, on Feb. 28, 1979, the "actor" who played the original Mr. Ed in the 1960s TV show passed away. Yes, we're ... More >>

Brett Favre's Sister Would Do Anything for Meth (MUGSHOT ALERT!)

Yes, Brett Favre's sister is named Brandi​In Season Five of The Sopranos, Tony is dealing with a lot of shit. In addition to the usual set of headaches -- little things like RICO statutes and wondering each day if that would be the day that the New York crew decides to off him -- Tony was d ... More >>

The Week In TV: Louis C.K. vs. Mississippi

The same face we made when trying to comprehend why people would voluntarily live in Mississippi.​The weather's terrible, I'm living off DVR'd episodes of Community, and it's possible this is all just a dream. This was the week in TV Land: • AT&T reached a deal with Rainbow Media last week ... More >>

For Inception: Bad Dream Sequences In Good Movies

Inception is getting good reviews as a dream-based thriller, but there are plenty of examples of perfectly good movies or shows being ruined, or at least temporarily harmed, by dream sequences.Among them:1. The Sopranos with that damn Kevin Finnerty Tony gets shot and then the wheels come off. We g ... More >>

The Week In TV: Boardwalk Empire And Bravo, Two Ends Of A Spectrum

This guy has to be stopped.​The Cup is upon us, the spring season is definitely behind us, and I'm warning you: Don't tease the panther. This was the week in TV Land: • So, the World Cup started the other day. I was with friends at a Mexican restaurant when the USA-England game began, whic ... More >>

Remember K-Rino's Book Number 7?

Houston's history is dotted with albums that, fairly or not, have been swept aside. We'll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. K-Rino Book Number 7 (Black Book Int'l, 2007) ​We have written at length about the brilliance of K ... More >>

Lil' Keke's 11 Favorite Gangster Movies

Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we'll examine a recent bit of music news and, albeit sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. We'll incorporate the number five in there somewhere. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. ​As research for an upcoming music feature, we met up w ... More >>

Game Time: If You Want To Hear Richard Justice Getting Fired, Click Here

​If you are a celebrator of Christmas, you know what I mean when I say "that Christmas morning feeling" -- the giddy sensation when you wake up on December 25th, knowing that you made it through the 362 day grind since the last Christmas morning and today is the day that you get to open your p ... More >>

All The Taste And Style Of Tony & Carmela Soprano Can Be Yours

Photos courtesy HAR​A tipster has informed Swamplot that the Memorial mansion up for sale on the Houston Association of Realtors site belongs to none other than Vincent Palermo, who came to town under the Witness Protection Act a while back.KPRC broke the story last year that "Vincent Cabella," ow ... More >>

Suicide Notes Movie Sneak Peek Party

So, the deal is I'll be dead but really famous?

Game Time: The 10 Greatest Sopranos Episodes Of All Time

​The Sopranos is the greatest television show of all time. I know that sentence right there will be enough to start plenty of discussion, tweets, and emails, both in support of and in disagreement with that statement.It's funny, with sports expansion breeds mediocrity. The more teams that get ... More >>

An Intimate Evening with Lauren Bacall

Bogie’s Baby hosts a screening of her most famous film

A Few Rejected Inaugural Ball Theme Songs

Eminem feat. Dr. Dre & 50 Cent, "Crack A Bottle" The Good: Many bottles will be popped during tonight's festivities, we imagine, if not quite as many models. Also, the ongoing partnerships between this trio of rap titans says something about the present state of race relations in this country, ... More >>

Q&A: Little Steven Van Zandt

Margot at the Wedding, American Gangster: Unrated Extended Edition, Lust, Caution, Excellent Cadavers

Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week

Festa Italiana

Party Parmigiana style

Roman Scandals

The HMNS looks at the turmoil and traditions of Ancient Rome

Our top DVD picks for the week of November 9

Hollywoodland

Showbiz noir investigates TV Superman's real-life tragedy

Whodunit High

For the Children

Vagina Music Roundup

A scintillating survey

Rock Radio (and Rock Romano) Redux

Bo knows good rock when he sees it. Do Houston radio programmers?

Drop Everything

"Funk Jazz Fridays" get rolling at Cafe Brasil

Vanity Fare

Ray Liotta wants to know why he loses roles to...Owen Wilson?

That's Better

What's to Analyze? De Niro still delights, even in a slight sequel

Pasta, Wine and a Fake Leg

Wannabes can become mobsters for a night at The Soapranos

Back To Basics

Steven Van Zandt is dedicated to garage rock

Net Loss

The government killed TV, and Hollywood's begging it to revive the corpse

TV or Not TV?

That's no longer the question for visionary Stephen J. Cannell, who now lives the novel life

Best Custard

Kohr Brothers, Marq*E Entertainment Center

Los Gringos Locos

Julia Roberts's and Brad Pitt's performances go straight south in The Mexican

Hell Phone

Some diners would like to bite into cellular telephone users at upscale restaurants

Mickey Mouse

Go hide. Hugh Grant's in a gangster movie.

Couch Capo

De Niro's comedic mob mastery excels in Analyze This