Waylon Jennings

5 Folk Acts Who Wandered Down the Synth Road

Mandolin enthusiasts Mumford and Sons have been on top of the world the past couple of years, dominating rock-driven radio with a folk sound that apparently touches the hearts of hard-rock bros around the world. Given that they have an apparently winning formula, one wouldn't expect them to change i ... More >>

Rodeo Touches Every Corner of Pop Universe, Almost Misses Texas

I live too far away from the coasts to care about Coachella all that much, and have done far too much time in both the ACL and SXSW trenches to get too excited about anything that happens in far west Houston anymore. So instead, I have started looking forward to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo's ... More >>

Jan Hammer and the Top 10 TV Theme Songs of the '80s

Not a lot of television shows win multiple Grammys. Then again, not a lot of television shows ever sounded (or looked) like Miami Vice. The cutting-edge series perfectly captured the pastel zeitgeist of its time when it debuted in 1984, influencing film, fashion, design and music in a way that few T ... More >>

5 Great Songs by Psy Besides “Gangnam Style”

More Medical Trouble for Urban Cowboy-era Star Fiddlin' Frenchie Burke

Above: Frenchie Burke in a showbiz moment. Fiddlin' Frenchie Burke, one of the icons of Houston's "Urban Cowboy" craze of the late '70s, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurysm yesterday in San Antonio, according to information on fellow fiddler Jody Nix's Facebook page. Known for his hug ... More >>

Friday Night: Eric Church at Toyota Center

Eric Church Toyota Center September 24, 2012 Eric Church is the most curious country artist to come along in a while. He says he sips Jack Daniel's in concert and (despite my assumption) talks it up in his shows without taking a dime from the Tennessee distiller, which is a sight different from Tob ... More >>

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 >>

Ooh La La, Grace Potter

Country's biggest summer tour an alt-pop blond bombshell.

30 Seconds With Keith Moody

Rising alternative-country superstar Keith Moody has a voice like a summer rainstorm, capable of sweeping all your love away. We withstood the storm for 30 seconds to see what we could glean from the man. Rocks Off: What is the worst song in the world? Keith Moody: "Barbie Girl" by Aqua... I can' ... More >>

Musical "Holograms" We Don't Want To See Anytime Soon (OK, Yes We Do)

A lot has been made about the Tupac "hologram" at Coachella. First off, it's not really a hologram as much as it is CGI "magic" and it's nothing new, seeing that they have been doing it Japan for a few years now. But they do lots of things in Japan. It's even to get swept up in the madness because ... More >>

Billy Joe Shaver

30 Seconds With Miss Leslie

Rocks Off sat down with Miss Leslie to see what we could learn about Houston's reigning queen of country in 30 seconds. Miss Leslie on Facebook​Rocks Off: What is the worst song in the world? Miss Leslie: So many songs to choose from, but I'd have to say "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" because I l ... More >>

Billy Joe Shaver

The Five Most Texan Types Of Music

​Happy San Jacinto Day, fellow Texans and people who wish they were; i.e. everyone else. If you don't know why today is special, shame on you. But since us Texans are a friendly sort, allow Rocks Off to fill you in. On April 21, 1836, Texian forces under Gen. Sam Houston (aka "Big Drunk") lau ... More >>

Rocks Off's Fantasy RodeoHouston Lineup

Photos courtesy of Houston Livestock Show & RodeoGeorge Strait in 1996​If you walk through Reliant Center, hanging from the ceiling are banners listing almost every musical performer RodeoHouston has hosted since the '60s. The names reflect the hallowed history of country and fleeting fancies ... More >>

Marshall Chapman's Phases And Stages With Willie Nelson

​The final chapter of Marshall Chapman's new book, They Came to Nashville, is probably as close as most of us will ever get to riding on Willie Nelson's tour bus. Chapman, who has known Nelson since meeting him at a party in Nashville in 1973, hooked up with the Red Headed Stranger at a gig in ... More >>

Inside "American Pie," Pop Music's Longest Allegory

​Rocks Off has always been a fan of symbolism, hidden meanings and puzzles in general, so besides Raymond Chandler, Stephen King and Larry McMurtry, our favorite form of "lit-rah-chah" is allegorical stuff like George Orwell's Animal Farm, William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Edgar Allan Po ... More >>

In Dreams: 15 Songs For Mr. Sandman

Rocks Off Sr. is curious why Rocks Off Jr. chose a picture of Christina Hendricks for an article about dreams.​For some reason, Craig's Hlist has been sleeping way too much lately. Blame the booze, fear of the sun, or just plain lack of giving a rat's ass about the daylight. With sleep comes d ... More >>

Aftermath: Keith Urban, Peculiar Superstar And Musician's Musician

Photos by Dave Rosales​ Keith Urban is a peculiar superstar. Take away the rugged good looks, and you'd still be left with a talented guitarist who, Tuesday night, gave every impression he'd be just as content jamming in the studio as headlining the rodeo before almost 60,000 adoring, possibly hyp ... More >>

Lonesome Onry and Mean: Songwriting Scholar Steve Young Blasts Nashville's "Yuppa-billys"

For Lonesome, Onry and Mean, they don't come much taller or wiser than Steve Young. Young has been in a love/hate relationship with Nashville and the major labels since he came to town in the early Seventies. Along with Billy Joe Shaver, Young wrote the major anthems of the Outlaw movement that tip ... More >>

How Texas and Alabama Match Up... Musically

​ For once, Rocks Off is grateful for this sinus-splitting headache (thanks, Mike Stinson!), because it gives us something to focus on besides the fact that we are crawling out of our skin waiting for kickoff tonight. At this point, sports pundits have analyzed the Longhorns and Crimson Tide to wi ... More >>

Artist of the Week: Country Store Buffalo on Breast Implants, Beer-Drinking Bison and That Old Devil Cocaine

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.​ You are in the enviable ... More >>

Steve Young

Twice-Told Tales

How Houston's Justice Records came to release a spooky, sexy Love & Rockets tribute album.

Jesse Dayton - Sorry, "Captain Clegg" - on Rob Zombie and His Role In Halloween II

Jesse Dayton's star just keeps rising. You have to give the former Beaumont lad credit, he works at it steadily, and these days has his finger in writing, performing, producing, and acting as well as operating a label. As anyone who checks Facebook knows, Dayton posts something about every twenty m ... More >>

Aftermath: Jimmy Webb at the Dosey Doe Coffeehouse

Rich Connelly​ Jimmy Webb was a one-man hitmaking machine back in the 1960s, cranking out an incredible number of long-remembered songs in a three-year period. He's never replicated that success (possibly no one could), but he's continued to write songs, musicals, a book and tour with a one-man sh ... More >>

Jimmy Webb

Papa Was a Rolling Stone: Songs for Father's Day

Fathers often get a bad rap. Even though most Dads work every bit as hard as Mom for their families, they get overlooked very easily, because praise and thanks aren't supposed to matter to Dads, they're simply expected to act the way a Dad is supposed to. To help make up for the thanklessness so of ... More >>

Tonight: Jubal Lee Young at Pappasito's Sugar Land

www.myspace.com/juballeePappasito's Cantina in Sugar Land begins a two-month long Thursday music series tonight with Jubal Lee Young. Young has been in the area a week now, having opened for Carrie Rodriguez last week at Conroe's First Thursday series. He'll do an instore at Cactus Records on ... More >>

Playing Favorites

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 >>

Just How Texan are Hayes Carll and Miranda Lambert?

Jubal Lee Young

Last Night: Sean Reefer & the Resin Valley Boys at Boondocks

Introducing…Lonesome Onry and Mean

The Houston 100: From Scarface to Robert Earl Keen

Shake Russell

The singer/songwriter still packs ‘em in

Another Bump

Ten of the best coke anthems, plus a shortlist for the Cocaine Hall of Fame

Vagina Music Roundup

A scintillating survey

Rock Floozies Write

Wack peruses some doozies in the groupie tell-all canon

Songs Of Freedom

Perhaps the candidates running in the 2004 election could use some help selecting their campaign music

The Dirty Thirty

The worst songs of all time from Texas

Endless Boogie

Former Squirrel Nut Zipper Jimbo Mathus gets back to basics

Choo Choo Ch'boogie

The Derailers get back on track with a major-label deal

Local Rotation

Local Music Reviewed

New Year's Eve Blastoff

Rotation

All-Terrain Vehicle

Rock, country, punk, pop: Freewheeling Old 97's don't discriminate

Bite This!

Sink your teeth into the 1997 Houston Press Music Awards

Sound Check