The Sword

The Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Black Angels, Soundgarden, Hall & Oates, etc.

The Black Angels Fitzgerald's, May 24 Austin's Black Angels, with a band name pulled straight from the Velvet Underground's catalog, and a high-contrast image of Nico splayed across their logo, are unapologetic in their admiration of the prophetic NYC rock band. The Angels, though, have carved out ... More >>

Slip Slidin' Away: My Life as a Rock Journalist With the Houston Press

I had a hernia operation in the early summer of 2006, and had nothing to do all day but hobble around with cool cane a borrowed from Grandpa Hlavaty and play on the Internets for two months or so. I had developed the injury while working at Domino's, but it was cool because their insurance helped ... More >>

Top 20 Things We Need to See at SXSW Next Week

Next week the Rocks Off Action Team goes to Austin for Ess Ex Ess Dubya for another four days of fun, sun, eavesdropping, and live music. And swag, of the free kind, not the kind that Justin Bieber is still trying to make happen. This year at SXSW we're looking forward to many, many things, includ ... More >>

Upcoming: BuzzFest XXX, Bad Company, Queensryche, Clutch, Digweed, Metric, etc.

Baauer: With Danny Brown., Tue., April 9, 8 p.m., $20/$22. Fitzgerald's, 2706 White Oak, Houston. Bad Company: With Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Stone Cherry., Thu., July 11, 7 p.m., $21.00-$100.50. Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Drive, Spring. Benoit Pioulard: With IDYL, Marshall Wal ... More >>

The Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend

Down Warehouse Live, January 11 Long-running sludge daddies Down are still riding high from last year's six-song EP, Down IV Part I - The Purple EP, and rightfully so. The effort was one of 2012's best releases, making it onto plenty of year-end lists and satisfying Down fans' hunger for new materi ... More >>

Roky Moon and The Kiss Goodnight

Last Night: The Sword at Fitzgerald's

The Sword, American Sharks, Gypsyhawk Fitzgerald's December 18, 2012 I'm glad that bands like The Sword still exist to lead impressionable metal kids down endless paths of boogie and stoner-rock. Since they started coming to Houston -- playing the now-shuttered Walter's on Washington, mostly -- I h ... More >>

The 5 Best Shows In Houston This Week: December 17-20

Marina & the Diamonds, Icona Pop Warehouse Live, December 17 Somewhere between Katy Perry and Lana Del Rey on the 2012 girl-pop scale, the Welsh-bred Marina & the Diamonds make big-budget icy synth-pop that you can afford, without the candy-coated gimmickry. Perry comparisons will abound, but singe ... More >>

The Sword

The Biggest Surprises From the Texas 30 Ballots

Perusing the final ballots for the Texas 30 with a few highlighters this past week was a blessed odyssey into the past three decades of all things Texas music. For as many no-brainers as there were, there were plenty of head-scratchin' exclusions. Rewind: The 30 Best Texas Albums (cover story) Sl ... More >>

The 10 Best Metal & Punk Albums Too Rough for the Texas 30

So, the Texas 30 has been revealed at last. And it's a good list, too: Well-considered, fair and complete. Even if a lot of the records that got picked tend to be a little... well, pussy, I guess is the word I'm looking for here. Rewind: The Texas 30 (cover story) Slideshow: The Texas 30 album co ... More >>

The Texas 30: The Second Runners-Up, Albums 50-41

On our computer, Rocks Off has been looking at that damn Texas 30 spreadsheet so long our eyes are frosting over. Monday we said about 400 different albums were spread across the ballots we received from almost 25 music-media wags across Texas. We looked at the sheet again after that and it was actu ... More >>

Saturday: The American Heist, Venomous Maximus Rawk Dallas' Riot Fest

Riot Fest Gexa Energy Pavilion, Dallas Saturday, September 22 See "The People of Riot Fest 2012" in our sister paper Dallas Observer's slideshow. If you couldn't get enough of Rise Against and The Gaslight Anthem the other night -- and were willing to drive four hours up to Dallas -- the first Tex ... More >>

Venomous Maximus, American Heist Barrel Into Dallas' Riot Fest

This week our sister paper the Dallas Observer and their music blog DC9 At Night talked to Houston's own Venomous Maximus -- namely lead singer Gregg Higgins and guitarist Christian Larson -- for their "My First Show" series. Rewind: Venomous Maximus Head Out Onto the Highway For Summer Tour Roc ... More >>

Upcoming: Dethklok, The Jealous Sound, Of Montreal, R. Kelly, Steve Winwood, Etc.

The 71's: Sat., Sept. 15, 1 p.m., Free. Cactus Music & Video, 2110 Portsmouth St., Houston. 95.7 Boo Bomb with Karmin, Olly Murs, Sammy Adams, Austin Mahone, Marina & The Diamonds, The Wonder Girls: Tue., Oct. 23, 6 p.m., $25/$30. House of Blues, 1204 Caroline, Houston. Against Me!, Fake Problems, ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest Releases Daily Schedule

This morning Fun Fun Fun Fest organizers released the daily schedule for November's three-day orgy of booze, denim, and loudness in the middle of Austin's Auditorium Shores. The color-coded stages -- black, yellow, orange, and blue -- are set up according to genre and size of the act. Last year th ... More >>

Who Are the Greatest Metal Bands In Texas Music History?

When I asked our friends on the Rocks Off Facebook wall who they thought were the greatest heavy metal bands in Texas music history, the response was larger than I thought it would be. I assumed five of you would say Pantera, deadhorse and King's X and go back to sleep, but no. You stepped up and g ... More >>

Down With the Kings: Rick Ross' "3 Kings" vs. Slim Thug's "3 Kingz"

One of my favorite stories as a kid was Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table. Or The Sword In the Stone, if you liked things animated. Had everything you really wanted in terms of inspiration -- kid always picked on, thought to be of no use to the world then gets courage from a few people, push ... More >>

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2012: A$AP Rocky, De La Soul, PiL, Santigold, X, Turbonegro, Etc.

This morning Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest, the best music festival in Texas that isn't Free Press Summer Fest, announced their full 2012 lineup after months of teasing us and leaking a handful of names at a time -- and then hip-hop legends Run-D.M.C Tuesday morning. Scheduled for November 2-4 at Audit ... More >>

Curated Festivals and the Changing Face of Summer Entertainment

While most Texans are spending their Friday counting down to ACL or speculating about the Fun Fun Fun Fest line up, I find myself thinking about a festival north of our fair state. We're halfway through June and that means that the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial should be dropping any da ... More >>

The Sword

Oh My, A List!: 7 Tips For Free Press Summer Fest Newbs

This will be the Rocks Off team's fourth Free Press Summer Fest outing since the festival began that summer of 2009. I remember it well: The small stages, the blistering August heat, The Sword, rolling in the grass with Hippie Mike, all of it. The main stage headliners were Of Montreal, Explosions ... More >>