Uncle Tupelo

The First Alt-Country Record? Flatlanders Rediscover The Odessa Tapes

A lot of stellar music came out of that flat land known as West Texas. Bob Wills, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Terry Allen, Guy Clark, and the Sparkles are just a few artists who found something in the wind, the dust, the heat, the cactus, the mesquite, the sandstorms, the blizzards, t ... More >>

RIP Jim Marshall: Twitter Honors The Man Who Redefined Loud

Jim Marshall, who created an amplifier known as much for its sleek, slightly ominous-looking design as its ear-splitting volume, died in London Thursday morning at age 88. He had cancer and had suffered several strokes, his son Terry told the Associated Press. Marshall's hefty amplifier was introdu ... More >>

Horseshoe

Sgt. Pepper & Three Other Bum Albums By Rock Icons

​It was 40 (four) years ago today - in the UK, and tomorrow in the U.S. - that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, history stopped, the Summer of Love began, and critics freaked the fuck out. When the Beatles released their LSD-soaked counterpunch to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in June 1967, K ... More >>

Friday Night: Wilco At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Jason Wolter​Wilco Verizon Wireless Theater May 6, 2011 Jeff Tweedy's kind of an asshole. But it's okay, because we're familiar with the type:The guy who grew up a snotty punk-rock kid in the '80s, went on to form a band that just happened to become one of the most critically laude ... More >>

Charlie Louvin, Country Music Hall Of Famer, Dies At 83

​Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie Louvin, who with his brother Ira ranked with Ralph and Carter Stanley as one of the greatest duos in bluegrass history, passed away overnight. Louvin, 83, had been receiving experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer. Nashville-based entertainment ... 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 >>

Rocks Off's Favorite Non-2010 Music Of 2010

Editor's Pick: It was probably Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne, same as last year. So how about Nirvana's In Utero, which I dragged out of mothballs when we did our article about Nevermind's anniversary in September. In Utero fried my hair all over again, and then got me thinking about the band's cover of ... More >>

Last Night: Blitzen Trapper At House Of Blues

Photos by Jason Wolter​Blitzen Trapper House of Blues October 12, 2010 Because Aftermath only found out former KLOL morning DJ Mark Stevens had died a few hours before Blitzen Trapper went onstage at House of Blues Tuesday night, we couldn't help thinking about that while the Portland six-pie ... More >>

Glee: We're Gonna Keep On Rockin' Forever...Forever

​The theme this week was the loss of the glee club's voice -- both literally (Rachel has laryngitis) and figuratively (Puck gets a haircut, followed by a corresponding loss of mojo). Will asks everyone to solo in front of the whole group with a song that represents where they are in in their l ... More >>

Glee: We're Gonna Keep On Rockin' Forever...Forever

​The theme this week was the loss of the glee club's voice -- both literally (Rachel has laryngitis) and figuratively (Puck gets a haircut, followed by a corresponding loss of mojo). Will asks everyone to solo in front of the whole group with a song that represents where they are in in their l ... More >>

Songs We Play When We Play With Guns

​After almost 27 years, Craig's Hlist has found himself immersed in gun culture. It's not so much a masculine phallic thing (believe us, we have questioned it), as much as it is a family bonding experience. It's easier to go to a gun range with our family out in Pearland on a Sunday afternoon than ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Shadowy Depression-Era Roots of Modern Country and Bluegrass

As LOM promised in last week's blog about bluegrass, here are some precursors to that art form. These are some wonderful tunes to listen to on your boom-box or iPod while tending your illegal still. Charlie Poole: Charlie Poole is the iconic model for every hard-drinkin', guitar-plunking, Appalachi ... More >>

We've Been Had: The Enduring Wisdom of Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne

Anodyne: Noun. Anything that relieves distress or pain. (dictionary.com)​When Son Volt goes onstage tonight at the Continental Club (we've heard around 11 p.m.), there's an outside chance the band might pull out Doug Sahm's "Give Back the Key to My Heart" - we are in Texas, after all. Otherwise do ... More >>

Lucero

With or Without You: Memoirs of a U2 Adolescence and Young Adulthood

...I may regret this.​So there was a time, not long ago by geological reckoning, that I was a U2 fan. Growing up during the pre-Internet late 70s/early 80s in a town where the only place to buy music was a Camelot Music in the mall limited your options somewhat. Nevertheless, the Edge's loud, ring ... More >>

Monday MP3s: Two from LL Cooper's Tucson

When it comes to salt-of-the-earth working-class roots-rock, groups (especially around Houston) don't come much more solid than LL Cooper, the semi-eponymous band led by Houston/Austin roots vet Larry Cooper. "For my money, very few acts sound better accompanying a round of Lone Stars in a smoky bar ... More >>

Two Tons Of Steel

Aftermath: Son Volt at the Continental Club

Photos by Jay Lee"Now and then it keeps you runnin', never seems to die..." The opening line to Son Volt's soothing elegy "Windfall," which closed out Tuesday's main set at the Continental Club - just like almost every other SV set since the band's 1995 debut Trace - goes a long way to explain ... More >>

Can't Get It Out of My Head: "New Madrid"

Wilco, "New Madrid," live at the Fox Theater, Boulder, Colorado, May 1995 Rocks Off is never really not on an Uncle Tupelo kick, but it sure came flooding back after he heard "New Madrid" on Fred Imus' Saturday-morning Trailer Park Bash satellite-radio show last weekend. Even among such fut ... More >>

Macon Greyson’s 20th Century Accidents

The Axiom

Remembering the Axiom, 20 years later

Magnolia Electric Co.

Terry Allen

Retro Active: 1987, Here We Come

Scott Faingold Listens to Everything

The man continues to randomly listen to every promo CD sent his way, regardless

Partners in Rime

People Under the Stairs fix the leak

Lucero

Thursday, November 3, at the Engine Room, 1515 Pease, 713-654-7846.

The Knitters

Thursday, August 25, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899.

Lucero, with the Honorary Title and the Glass

Friday, July 29, at Mary Jane's Fat Cat, 4216 Washington Avenue, 713-869-JANE.

Macon Greyson

Friday, April 29, at the Firehouse Saloon, 5930 Southwest Freeway, 713-977-1962.

The Litmus Band

Is Wilco still trying to break your heart, or has it done so already?

Elf Rock

The Decemberists bring their magic-realist, Picaresque new album to town

Take the Skinheads Bowling All Over Again

Camper Van Beethoven hates this part of Texas. Just kidding, maybe...

Two Cow Garage

Sunday, July 27

Cry Uncle

For Uncle Tupelo fans, there's No Depression in reissue heaven

Sons of Sahm

Missouri's Bottle Rockets resurrect the Texas Tornado and rediscover themselves

Sympathy for the Angel

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and the scourge of great art

Real Deal

Tupelo's Curse

Static

Spit and Polish

Rotation

Rotation

A Whole Lot Country

And quite a bit rock and roll add up to No Depression music

Rotation

Critic's Choice

Appalachia Calling

The Country of Rock and Roll

From the ashes of Uncle Tupelo springs Wilco, genreless and great

Kicking the Genre Habit

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