Subject: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

• Reverberations: Bellrays, Power-Pop and Chevelles

  May 28, 2008

• We Now Present... Steroids, The Musical

  June 4, 2008

• Midday MP3s: Twotenanny Edition

  July 26, 2008

• Tom Petty Day, Part 2: TP&HB Videos

  August 29, 2008

• Aftermath: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Steve Winwood at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

  September 2, 2008

• Election Eve With Fred

  November 4, 2008

• Can't Get It Out of My Head: "Shadow of a Doubt"

  It may come as a great shock to regular readers that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' Damn the Torpedoes has been in Rocks Off's heavy rotation lately. Or maybe it won't. Either way, the entire album could pretty much apply to Can't Get It Out of My Head. "Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)" was a tough call over power-pop treasure "Century City" and absolutely heartbreaking country ballad "Louisiana Rain," but this performance (which appears to be from Japanese TV from around the time

  December 18, 2008

• R.I.P. John Byrne (Count Five)

  Count Five, "Psychotic Reaction" Here comes sad news that will bring down us dancing drunken fools who make our way up to Boondocks every third Saturday for Reverberation. John Byrne, lead singer of Nuggets mainstays the Count Five, has passed away at the age of 61. The San Jose-based band's biggest hit, 1966's "Psychotic Reaction" is now a garage-rock staple, a real dance-ready harmonica freak-out. Anytime someone makes a definitive '60s garage compilation, you can count on this track making

  December 30, 2008

• Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 5

  King's X, Meridian, August 19: "[dUg] Pinnick's bass was very much the lead instrument, negotiating the distance between the complicated vocal harmonies and searing chainsaw riffs with a low-to-the-ground, almost nonchalant assurance." Masters of Metal, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, August 23: "Dilettantes contented ourselves with their screaming (for vengeance) renditions of metal mainstays 'Breaking the Law,' 'Electric Eye' and an absolutely insane 'Painkiller,' which closed the main se

  January 2, 2009

• Even the Normal (Get Lucky Sometime)

  April 13, 1995

• Rotation

  December 12, 1996

• Wanted Man

  August 28, 1997

• Rotation

  July 2, 1998

• Rotation

  March 11, 1999

• The Year in Albums

  December 25, 2008

• Making Sense of a Trying Year

  December 11, 2008

• Rock The Bayou Is a Bust

  September 11, 2008

• Who Stole the Roll?

  August 28, 2008

• Locals Only

  July 24, 2008

• Never Go to a Party in Friendswood

  Where does your town rank in the Houston-area good-taste stakes?

  February 2, 2006

• The Black Crowes

  Thursday, April 21, at the Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas, 713-230-1600.

  April 21, 2005

• Rock Death in 2003

  Exhuming and scoring last year's pop-music demises

  January 1, 2004

• Brown Suga Suga

  Roots reggae, doo-wop, Tom Petty -- and bales of ganja -- fuel Baby Bash's Latin rap

  October 2, 2003

• Mauled Eagles

  The hipster’s First Commandment: Thou shalt not dig the Eagles

  June 12, 2003

• Grand Pops

  Bob Dylan and Paul Simon tour together

  September 16, 1999

• Rotation

  July 11, 1996

• End Game

  This is the way the year ends, this is the way the year ends, this is the way the year ends, not with a bang but a ... year-end roundup

  December 23, 1993

• Tennessee Pushers

  Old Crow Medicine Show's new CD of original material as rough-edged as their traditional covers

  May 7, 2009

• Can't Get It Out of My Head: "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around"

  Jay Lee Rocks Off would wholeheartedly like to wish Ms. Stevie Nicks a very happy birthday today; since she's the epitome of a rock and roll lady, we'll refrain from revealing her actual age. At Fleetwood Mac's Toyota Center concert earlier this month, Nicks seemed to be walking with a limp, and her voice was noticeably raspier than on record, but her performances of "Gypsy," "Sara" - during which she walked over to embrace Lindsey Buckingham near the end, a clearly unrehearsed and utterly movi

  May 26, 2009

• Slideshow on Demand: You Make the Call

  chemistryland.comRocks Off loves to put together musical slideshows, and if the response to a few of our recent ones is any indication (hi, Digg!), you like them too. Album covers are an almost inexhaustible resource that are always fun to look at and can be grouped together any number of ways. So last night Rocks Off was sitting around listening to Sirius XM's Classic Rewind channel and decided there's really no reason for him to hog all the fun. Just for a laugh, for five songs in a row he jot

  June 9, 2009

• Soul Power

  June 25, 2009

• Our Favorite ZZ Top Covers: QOTSA, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Tina Turner and... Rapeman?

  [Note: Now with added Ministry.] Counting down to Friday's ZZ Top/Aerosmith show in The Woodlands is starting to feel like the week Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers played there last year: a steady build of anticipation and antsiness, until Friday we're flat-out squirming to get out of the office. By the way, if all you think Rocks Off does is sit around listening to classic rock, we'll have you know that Monday we blasted brand-new albums by the Dead Weather - that's yet another Jack White pro

  July 14, 2009

• OK, Maybe the Eagle Does Play Some Black People

  As we usually do when we get into work, Rocks Off tuned into Dean & Rog on the Eagle and lo and behold, they were talking about our suggestions to improve the station we posted here Tuesday. D&R especially seemed to enjoy the part where we said it wouldn't kill the Eagle to play some more people of color - if you missed this morning's show, it was probably your only chance to hear Lou Rawls and Gladys Knight & the Pips on the station, like, ever. In the interest of fairness, Rocks Of

  July 22, 2009

• 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 horns and a tail drawn on her in disgust. The entire blues genre is based on the fact that men and women generally can't get along. That, and various demonic possessions of said females. Love lost is a

  August 11, 2009

• Live From ACL: Buckets of Rain, and a Bright Spot or Two

  Photos by Chris GrayThis photo was NOT taken Saturday. Trust us.​ The streak is over. In eight years, Austin City Limits has seen plenty of days of unbearable heat, but hardly any rain. The most significant time was during Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' headlining 2006 set, but even that was more of a lighting show than an actual shower.All that ended Saturday, to spectacular (and disgusting) effect. It started raining in Austin before noon, but the heavens really opened up around 3 p.m.,

  October 3, 2009

• Feel a Whole Lot Better: For His Birthday, Five Great Non-Petty Tom Petty Songs

  Tuesday just happens to be the 59th birthday of Rocks Off's personal hero, role model and by all accounts someone who smokes even more weed than we do, Thomas Earl Petty. Speaking of, it's also Snoop Dogg's birthday, which means 10/20 deserves to be a NORML holiday even more than 4/20 does. But until that happens, here's our choice for the best Tom Petty songs either written by or credited to someone else. Mudcrutch, "Orphan of the Storm" (Mudcrutch, 2008): Of course, this had to be first - it'

  October 20, 2009

• Drive-By Truckers

  October 29, 2009