Vampire Weekend

Depeche Mode, The Cure, Kings of Leon, Phoenix, Lionel Richie Head 2013 ACL Fest Lineup

Moments ago, Depeche Mode, The Cure, MUSE, Kings of Leon, Atoms For Peace (featuring Thom Yorke and Flea), Lionel Richie, Phoenix, Wilco, Vampire Weekend, The National, and Eric Church were announced as the headliners of the 2013 Austin City Limits Music Festival, which plans to expand to identical ... More >>

The Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Blake Shelton, Tegan & Sara, etc.

Blake Shelton Reliant Stadium, March 15 After more than a decade of climbing country music's ranks to become one of its most successful and charismatic male vocalists, Blake Shelton found himself taking a little heat not long ago when comments he made about certain "old farts" clinging to country's ... More >>

Coachella 2013 Takes It Back to the '90s

Coachella, the Only Music Festival That Matters (or so we're told), announced its 2013 lineup late Thursday night, no holograms or Rolling Stones included. Instead, two beloved '90s UK acts whose popularity in the U.S. is spotty at best, Blur and the Stone Roses, headline the first night of the tw ... More >>

Locals Grandfather Child, Le$, Tontons, Killa Kyleon Added to SXSW 2013 Roster

Houston acts Grandfather Child, The Tontons, DJ Buddha, Beat King, Hoodstar Chantz, Slim Thug, Z-Ro, Killa Kyleon, Branzil, Le$, Lucky Luciano, and Essay were among the artists added to the SXSW 2013 lineup today. Previously announced were Young Von and The Linus Pauling Quartet. As it stands now, ... More >>

The Top 10 Weirdest U.S. No. 1 Hits

It's not often that the pop charts will surprise you. After all, the average consumer in most countries doesn't have time to delve too deep into an artist's catalogue. They don't often pick up on songs that will stand the test of time. They like the ephemera record labels tell them is hot right now. ... More >>

Big Yellow Taxi: Six Songs About Taxicabs

For poor kids, like myself growing up, a ride in a taxicab is a foreign adventure, particularly in Houston where it's not an especially necessary form of transportation like some other large cities such as New York. For us, it's the closest we could probably ever get to having a chauffeur, other th ... More >>

Last Night: Delta Spirit At Fitzgerald's

Delta Spirit Fitzgerald's April 12, 2012 I am concerned that younger bands these days are not learning the proper value of restraint. It's not even a generational thing, really. I had very little appreciation for or understanding of restraint myself until fairly recently, but a heart attack at age ... More >>

10 Rom-Coms Even Guys Will Watch

Can you smell it? Either love is in the air or the Chick-fil-A has started using chicken-scented billboards. Yes, Valentine's Day is coming to give all men night sweats over what to do on the most romantic of the Hallmark holidays. As we were searching around for entertainment suggestions, we were t ... More >>

iceage

More Local Music News Than People Asking Us For Summer Fest Passes

It's Friday, June 3 - do you know what that means? That's right, Free Press Summer Fest is a scant day away. In mere hours the city shall be frolicking to the Satanic call of rock 'n' roll, getting sunburned and dehydrated, tripping on Lord knows what, and having a grand ol' time. Until then, howeve ... More >>

SXSW: Hunx Shows Off His Junk At Red 7

Craig Hlavaty​It's a proud day when we can write a headline like that, especially for a band as fun as Hunx & His Punx, who played a cherry mid-evening set as Red 7 on Saturday night. During a SXSW so far which has seen us walk out of many venues after hearing way too many Vampire Weekend and ... More >>

Surfer Blood

Against Me!

Things We Never, Ever Want To Hear Again

​Editor's Pick: Vampire Weekend's "Holiday." Everything I hate about indie rock (cloying, fey, highly irritating) and car commercials (they're car commercials) in about 15 seconds.. Repeated seven or eight times a fucking hour. Marc Brubaker: "Check us out on Twitter!" or anything else Twitt ... More >>

Friday Night: The National At House Of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​The National House of Blues October 8, 2010 Houston crowds like to party. The National does not. These two seemingly indisputable musical facts led Aftermath to imagine all sorts of nightmare scenarios for the Brooklyn band's visit to House of Blues Friday night, from t ... More >>

ACL Day 1 Recap: Vampire Weekend, More Strokes & Sonic Youth, Sulking

Photos by Marco TorresVampire Weekend​ For lots more pictures from Friday, see our slideshow here. Friday night at ACL began with Aftermath charging our phone up until 6:45 p.m., then sulking because the Internet was down in the media tent (duh), and then stocking our man-satchel with cans o ... More >>

Last Night: Vampire Weekend And Beach House At Verizon

Photos by Mark Britain​Vampire Weekend, Beach House Verizon Wireless Theater October 7, 2010 It's hard to quantify a show featuring two of the darlingest indie darlings the indie-darling machine has ever invented back-to-back in a non-festival setting. These events don't happen often, because ... More >>

Vampire Weekend

Cage Match: Steven Curtis Chapman Vs. Vampire Weekend Vs. Witness To The Fallen

No, this is not Vampire Weekend.​Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight a battle will be waged for your musical souls. Three opponents, each personifying an aspect of rock and roll - though for some that such a designation may be kindly inappropriate. In this corner, with his guitar and a somewhat pec ... More >>

What Does Katy Perry Taste Like?

​Last week when we gave Kesha a bloggardly shellacking, we compared her and other female pop stars of her ilk to burritos. You may remember we said she was a gas-station burrito and Miley Cyrus was a Big Mac wrap. It was either a stroke of genius or the starved ramblings of a music writer subs ... More >>

What Does Katy Perry Taste Like?

​Last week when we gave Kesha a bloggardly shellacking, we compared her and other female pop stars of her ilk to burritos. You may remember we said she was a gas-station burrito and Miley Cyrus was a Big Mac wrap. It was either a stroke of genius or the starved ramblings of a music writer subs ... More >>

How Is Houston Doing ACL-Wise?

Marco TorresThe Eagles have flown, at least as far as Houston is concerned.​If you have even bothered to venture out of doors during these days of 105-degree heat indices and "Unhealthy" air-quality advisories, you may have noticed that things have been a little light on the roadshow front lat ... More >>

Top 10 Celebrity Music-Video Cameos

​Ratt, "Round and Round" Thursday night, Ratt hits up Warehouse Live with what passes for their original line-up. At their peak, the band was a gritty and decadent alternative to bands like Poison, skewing closer to Motley Crue in terms of excess and drug abuse. ​The band managed to ... 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 >>

Post-Apocalyptic Videos, Rap Cartoons And Plenty Of Punk History

Catastrophic Skies (extended cut) from Chase Rees on Vimeo. • Pale, the mainstream-y dark rock band from Houston, has a new video out for their song "Catostrophic Skies," featuring a high-concept post-apocalyptic motorcycle gang. It's kinda goofy. But hell, look at those production values. • L ... More >>

5 New Pop-Star Sitcoms We'd Like To See

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of <>The Monkees winning an Emmy for Best Comedy Series, making them the first musical act ever to win that award. 1967 also marked a transitional period for the band, which was moving toward creative freedom on the television show in which they started out as ... 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 >>

2010 ACL Line-Up Goes Live And (Early) By Surprise

The line-up for the 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival went live at the fest's website at midnight this morning while the rest of the world was snoozing. Luckily we are up and stirring to bring it to you. No Pavement and no Soundgarden, but we do have the Strokes down. More commentary coming in ... More >>

Houston 2020: The Future Is Unwritten

But hey, that's not stopping Noise.

Come Party With Rocks Off and Lego Rock Band at Khon's

Next Tuesday over at Khon's (2808 Milam), Rocks Off is throwing a free Christmas party for Houston, with our new copy of Lego Rock Band. You do remember the drunken scene at our Beatles: Rock Band shindig in September at Coffee Groundz, right? We wish we did, but we're pretty sure that they may hav ... More >>

Aftermath: Surfer Blood, More Than the Poor Man's Vampire Weekend, at Mango's

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ One can sit around all day and wax faux intelligent about where a band gleams their influences from. It's armchair quarterbacking for the kind of folks who wake up in the middle of Sunday afternoon and could give a good goddamn about 100 yards and monied monoliths of bro. ... More >>

Local Rotation: Young Mammals' Carrots

Young Mammals Carrots www.myspace.com/youngmammals Carrots is the former Dimes' first full-length, and first physical product of any kind since 2006's Animal EP netted the quartet a slew of Houston Press music awards and set the local indie-rock community's hearts atwitter long before a ... More >>

Digitalia: Microsoft Songsmith Corrects Artists' Glaring Oversights

Billy Idol, "White Wedding"... sort ofMicrosoft Songsmith, a music-making computer program, has already racked up plenty of Internet accolades based on its eerily terrible commercial, wherein normal, everyday people dealing with normal, everyday problems - such as being tasked to write an ad campa ... More >>

Annual Pazz & Jop Results Released

Congrats, TV on the Radio! This morning our sister paper in Manhattan's Cooper Square, the Village Voice, released the results of its annual Pazz & Jop poll, where hundreds of music writers and editors rank their favorite albums of the past year in what has to be an absolute nightmare for th ... More >>

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. in Song

In the Name of Love

Were These Really the Best Songs of 2008?

The Gutter Twins Maybe Rocks Off spent a lot of 2008 with his head in the archives, but he was paying attention to new stuff too. Occasionally. It's as easy as satellite radio, channel 47's (Ethel/Alt Nation) weekly new-music hour Submission/Transmission. Monday night, S/T happened to be playing ... More >>

Afropop Arrives

Motherland music hit a fever pitch with U.S. bands this year

ACL: Sunny Sweeney Yes, Vampire Weekend No

XM Nation: Catching Up and Moving On

Islands: Arm's Way

Juneteenth Revisited

Two arts organizations attempt a new spin on an old event

Has ACL Festival Jumped the Shark?

British Sea Power, with Film School, Colour Music and the Watermarks

Local Motion at Cactus Music

SXSW: Carbon/Silicon, Ting Tings, Santogold, MGMT, The Cribs, White Rabbits, Supersuckers and Robyn

SXSW: Tomorrow's It Band: the Virgins

SXSW: Lessons Learned from Drenched in Blog's Craig Hlavaty

Local Motion at Cactus Music

Local Motion

Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend