The Strokes

Har Mar Superstar Brings Bye Bye 17 to Mango's Tonight

Har Mar Superstar hits Mango's on Wednesday night a week before his newest album, Bye Bye 17, hits physical and digital shelves. The collection of songs are heavily-influence by vintage soul and R&B, but still have his cheeky, lovelorn swagger going for them. He recorded the album in Austin at Pub ... More >>

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Album-Cover "Controversy" Bores Me

The release of the "controversial" cover art for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' forthcoming album, Mosquito, has managed to stir up quite a bit of buzz. (Leave me alone. I like puns.) If you've somehow managed to escape the album-cover hype, I'll let you in on a little secret: you're not missing much in ... More >>

Readers Poll: What Are Your Favorite Summer Albums?

You know technically if you live in Houston, summer never really goes away. It just sort of lingers on top of the region, every now and then rousing from slumber to pound us with heat and humidity. Northern parts of the country have a firm line separating the seasons, but thankfully global warming ... More >>

Boy Bands Are Back In Fashion, But Did They Ever Go Away?

One Direction, the newest UK pop import to make it to colonial shores, announced a full-scale summer tour Tuesday, including a Houston date on June 24 up at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Pretty big venue for a group that is just now breaking in America, and the Brit-Irish boy band just sold ... More >>

Verizon Wireless Theater Now Known As Bayou Music Center

Verizon Wireless Theater will no longer be known under that name, because owner Live Nation's sponsorship deal with the communication provider has expired. The venue, which holds about 3,000 people within downtown entertainment complex Bayou Place, will now be known as Bayou Music Center. Rocks Off ... More >>

Friday Night: Tontons, Wild Moccasins, A Sea Es at Fitzgerald's

Check out pics from the Tontons' tour kickoff in our slideshow. Friday night's wonderful assortment of tasty sweet indie pop was just that -- delicious! Now, you're probably wondering if you can you have some cheese with that opening description. Why yes, you can, metaphorically, at least. Ima ... More >>

French Onion Soup & Deathbugs: Our Nine Musical Turkeys Of 2011

Danzig Shame on us for thinking that a Danzig show would go off without a hitch, and infinite shame on Glenn Danzig for the debacle that was his "appearance" at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin. We will never look at French onion soup ever again without bellowing "Mother". Lulu We're not mad at Metall ... More >>

Rocks Off's Musical 2011 Texas Football Preview

buckaroosfunnypictures.comHook 'em Horns...​You wouldn't know it from walking around outdoors, but fall is just around the corner, and in Texas that means two things: We no longer have to consume our body weight in water for shows at the Pavilion, and it's almost time for college football. An ... More >>

March Madness

At SXSW 2011, almost everything that could go wrong did — except the music.

Tax The Wolf Agrees: Velvet Underground > The Strokes

Michelle Tovar/ Tax the Wolf on Facebook​For the night before Thanksgiving, there is a lot going on in Houston tomorrow. But with all due respect to Robert Ellis & the Boys at Fitzgerald's and the LAX/Young Girls show at Groundhall - not to mention, on an entirely different scale, both Bruno M ... 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 >>

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 >>

ACL Day 3 Recap: Devendra Banhart, Band Of Horses, Other Beardos

Photos by Marco Torres​Aftermath doesn't know the bargain Austin City Limits promoter C3 Presents gets by booking both Lollapalooza and ACL, but to this dog-tired participant, this year's Zilker Park festivities ended up feeling less Austin weird and more something-something. Not that it's a ... More >>

Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 3

Marco TorresTrombone Shorty​Craig Hlavaty: News coming out of the media tent: Don Henley of the Eagles had a stent put in his heart this past week. He will be singing and possibly playing guitar, but not exerting himself on drums. This could very well be the last Eagles show for a while - if e ... More >>

Live From The Austin City Limits Festival, Day 1

Brittanie SheyThe Ettes​Brittanie Shey: Things seem incredibly crowded, and hotter than Houston, if that's even possible. The dust is already flying. Some of us here braved the bro-crowd at the Black Keys (see jump) but some of us, seeing the mile of bodies wobbling before the stage, decided t ... More >>

ACL: What Could Possibly Be Worse Than Last Year's Mudbath?

Mark C. AustinCan't WAIT to go back!​In exactly one week, Rocks Off will be broadcasting live from the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin's Zilker Park. This will be our fourth spin around the grounds since 2007, and every year we swear we won't fall in love with a bartender in the me ... More >>

Austin City Limits Festival Releases Preshow, Aftershow Lineups

​This morning C3 Concerts, the folks behind the Austin City Limits Music Festival, announced the schedule for the pre- and after-show gigs surrounding the festival. As with this past March's SXSW, those without official credentials aren't totally being shut out of the fun. Starting Wednesday ... More >>

ACL Fest Releases Schedule; Adds Black Lips, Silversun Pickups

black-lips.com via FlickrBrand-new ACL 2010 adds The Black Lips​The Austin City Limits Music Festival released the schedule grid for this year's gathering in Zilker Park Oct. 7-9. The festival also added several bands, including Atlanta garage-punks (and recovering exhibitionists) the Black Li ... More >>

Matt & Kim, Jonathan Tyler Sign On To Music Awards Showcase

myspace.com/mattandkim​Today Rocks Off is pleased to announce that we have two special guests for this year's Houston Press Music Awards showcase, all day Saturday, August 7, inside and outside along Washington Avenue. After the locals do their thing, we have indie duo Matt & Kim and Texas boo ... More >>

Which ACL Headliners Will Play Houston?

www.eaglesband.comWho knew the Eagles shot their publicity stills for The Long Road Out of Eden at ACL 2005?​When the Austin City Limits festival lineup is released every spring, one of Rocks Off's favorite parlor games besides wondering what sort of Biblical weather-related calamity God will visi ... More >>

Acts We Think - OK, Hope - Are Playing ACL Fest This Year

​By this time Tuesday, we will all know who is playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in October. Damn, it seems like we have speculating about the line-up since, well, we got the last of the "Dillo Dirt" out the middle of our toes after last year's muddy and rainy ACL weekend. Tuesday brig ... More >>

Aftermath: Wild Moccasins Hit The Highway At Full Speed At Walter's

Photos by Chris Gray​ It's no longer acceptable to call the Wild Moccasins "cute." The Houston quintet still does cute things, like toss wads of paper back and forth with the crowd and shower them with Silly String during their set, but they no longer have to get by on charm and enthusiasm alone ( ... More >>

Take Har Mar Superstar Seriously or Not? Your Call.

This guy has nothing on Har Mar Superstar. The R&B singer and Ron Jeremy lookalike has worked the pink-manties look for the better part of this decade. He is, after all, a self-styled lover. Fresh off his cameo as a rival roller derby coach in Whip It (and his excellent cover of "Never My Love" ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: Phoenix, Robyn Hitchcock and Them Crooked Vultures

Photo by Matthew Taplinger​The quality of the grass at ACL on Charles Attal's apparent birthday blow out (if projections for "Feliz Cumpleanos" were to be believed) was nothing to sniff at. The great lawn of Zilker Park was emerald and ready to absorb the dance steps of a sold-out crowd with h ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Tax the Wolf

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to introducingliston@gmail.com. Several weeks ago, we saw ... More >>

Little Joy

Young Mammals Wrapping Debut CD... Today

Some exciting news for fans of Westside indie-rockers Young Mammals, of which Rocks Off understands there may be a few out there in Houston (including himself). The Strokes-ish quartet is wrapping its debut full-length, begun way back when the band was still known as the Dimes, today and already a ... More >>

Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 6

Silver Jews, Walter's on Washington, September 18: "[Silver Jews frontman David] Berman strode around the stage with confidence; you wouldn't know he's still getting used to playing live. At times, he looked so loose that he might slump to the floor had he not been leaning on the mic stand." (Troy ... More >>

Little Joy

Aftermath: The Walkmen, Little Ones and Young Mammals at Walter's on Washington

A Classic-Rock-Free Morning

Yesterday Afternoon: Westheimer Block Party at Numbers, Mango's and Avant Garden

Reverberations: The Rippers, Thee Exciters and Brimstone Howl

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

You wanted the best — you got the best: Guitar Hero III

Re: Explain Your Most Played

Fly Like an Eagle

Jesse Hughes proves too sexy for his band, too sexy for his band

That '70s Band

Want big, sweeping songs? Take a visit to Spain

Rogue Bosoms, Bouncing Booties and Pac-Man Raps

Looking back on the '04

Fresh Produce

With underground hip-hop or mass-appeal club records, RJD2 is a stickler for details

The Libertines

The Libertines (Sanctuary)

The Hives

Tyrannosaurus Hives (Interscope)

The Evolution Control Committee

Plagiarythm Nation (Creations/Seeland)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Fever to Tell (Interscope Records)

Best Concert Poster Artist

Jermaine Rogers

Masta Ace

Saturday, July 13

Moby Pick

Beaumont's Barbara Lynn lucks out with a song that almost died

Pop Goes the Bastard

Unlike the UK, Houston resists the urge to commit plagiarhythm

Brian Jonestown Massacre

Friday, February 8

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Wednesday, December 5