Whitesnake

Danger Zone: 5 Great Tony Scott Film Soundtracks

Tony Scott, one of the greatest action directors of all time, committed suicide by jumping off a bridge near Los Angeles this past Sunday. He was 69 and thought to have an inoperable brain tumor. Many of Scott's films also had great soundtracks, due in part to Hans Zimmer and Harold Faltermeyer. S ... More >>

Girls, Girls, Girls At 25: Anatomy Of A Strip-Club Classic

Mötley Crüe, those depraved kings of '80s sleaze, took a major step toward strip-club immortality 25 years ago this week when the band released its fourth album, Girls, Girls, Girls.. Glossy, debauched heavy metal ruled the charts in the summer of 1987 -- Whitesnake, Ozzy, Bon Jovi and Poison all ... More >>

Five Cool Songs Carmine Appice Drummed In Honor of His 65th Birthday

​Carmine Appice (pronounced "uh-pees" despite his brother Vinny claiming it is "a-puh-see" -- weird) is one of rock music's most recognized (and not just for the Fu Manchu 'stache) and longest tenured rock drummers. He also happens to be a somewhat polarizing figure. Despite being a contempora ... More >>

Friday Night: Def Leppard & Heart At The Woodlands

Photos by Groovehouse​Def Leppard, Heart Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 23, 2011 Like so many of their 80s hard rock brethren, Def Leppard has always straddled the line between serious musical territory and the self-parody that threatens all bands associated with that era. On one ... More >>

MTV's Early VJs: Where Are They Now?

vegastripping.comMTV's original VJ crew (l-r): J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Martha Quinn and Alan Hunter​When it comes to the attention spans of teenagers, entertainers are on borrowed time. Which might explain the turnover rate of MTV's Video Jockeys, or VJs for short. Currentl ... More >>

Deep Purple Rises, Repeatedly, From Its Own Hard-Rock Ashes

​Deep Purple Phoenix Rising Eagle Vision, $14.98 DVD, $19.98 DVD/CD, 142 mins. Deep Purple has been through so many different lineups that fans and hard-rock historians often measure then in "marks," abbreviated "Mk." While Purple's Mk II incarnation is the one casual fans remember most and h ... More >>

Saturday Night: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds At Jones Hall

​The Houston Symphony feat. Susan Calloway Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy Jones Hall July 16, 2011 Rocks Off scrambled like a mad bastard last year in order to catch Final Fantasy Distant Worlds at the Houston Symphony. This year, we were only marginally better prepared, but no less ... More >>

Last Night: Rock of Ages At Hobby Center

Ed. Note: This is the second half of Rocks Off's "reviewer exchange program" with Art Attack. Dan Lippitt/Theatre Under the Stars​Rock of Ages Hobby Center June 7, 2011 Hair metal makes for great show tunes. That's what we left with last night when Rocks Off went back to a "sexier time" of " ... More >>

Rock Of Ages: Big Hair, Big Fog, Big Cliches

Ed Note: Rocks Off and our sister blog Art Attack are conducting a "reviewer exchange program" for the '80s musical Rock of Ages. One of our "rock and roll" people will review the show soon, but the visiting team bats first. Dan LippittThe cast of Rock of Ages​The Setup: '80s Sunset Strip roc ... More >>

Last Night: Bon Jovi At Toyota Center

Photos by Groovehouse​Bon Jovi Toyota Center May 17, 2011 Keep the faith with Bon Jovi and their hordes of Houston fans in our slideshow. It's no easy feat to emerge relatively unscathed from the ruins of the '80s metal boom. Bon Jovi's more glam-oriented contemporaries can no longer hope to ... More >>

Children Tackle Hair Metal, Awkwardly, In Monster Ballads

​In our usual mail haul this morning, Rocks Off received an invitation to a porn store's grand re-opening (natch), a copy of the brand-new Fucked Up album, David Comes To Life, and the anxiously awaited Kidz Bop Sings Monster Ballads that we have been anxiously awaiting since its creation was ... More >>

Houston Responds to Space Shuttle Shun.

Shot In The Dark: How The Whole Mess Started

Mark C. AustinKings of Leon at Verizon Wireless Theater, October 2008​Just a couple of days now before Rocks Off - the person and the blog - proudly presents Shot In the Dark: Houston Press Concert Photography, our first-ever exhibit of live pics we've collected in about three and a half years ... More >>

Play Ball, Baby

A new season for the Astros, and hopefully a new team.

Friday Night: Blue Oyster Cult & Marshall Tucker Band At Arena Theatre

Photos by Bob RuggieroMarshall Tucker Band​Blue Oyster Cult, Marshall Tucker Band Arena Theatre March 18, 2011 An odd co-headlining bill on the surface had the Marshall Tucker boys opening Friday's show. Though only singer Doug Gray remains from the classic lineup, the rest of the group are a ... More >>

Top 10 Recent TV-Show Soundtracks

​A few choice adjectives come to mind when musing on bawdy Eastbound & Down character Kenny Powers. "Inspiring" is not one of them. However, as Rocks Off watched this week's season finale of the side-splitting HBO series, we were pleasantly surprised as we heard indie troubadour Kurt Vile's a ... More >>

FAIL: Morrissey, Scott Weiland, Whitesnake, Conspiracy Theorists

​Morrissey Loves Animals So Much It Makes Him Racist: Morrissey has been one of the biggest ambiguously snarky pussies in all of rock music for some years now, popular among 15-year-old bisexuals of all races and creeds. Sometimes, however, the former Smiths frontman likes to make a straightf ... More >>

Last Night: Ratt At Warehouse Live

Photos by Groovehouse/ See a slideshow​Ratt Warehouse Live July 22, 2010 Must have been a slow night at the strip clubs Thursday. Sorry, cheap shot. Actually, Ratt deserves a lot of credit. In a summer where tours are wilting right and left and every day seems to bring another "rescheduling" ... More >>

TUTS Will Cum On, And It Will Feel The Noize

​TUTS has announced its selections for the upcoming season, and there's a bit of a surprise.No, we're not getting a Sondheim show. You know better than that.But among the shows is Rock of Ages, which is a campy -- and loud -- salute to `80s hair bands. (At the Tony Awards, Bret Michaels joined the ... More >>

No, We Didn't Realize There Were This Many Songs About Groundhog Day, Either

​Today is Groundhog Day, and it's easy to forget - after listening to your co-workers droning "Phil? Phil Connors!?" all day - the reason for this special season. After all, isn't this day supposed to be about the groundhogs? Trouble is, there's not a lot of musical material out there about Marmo ... More >>

Wine Me Up: Houston's Top 5 Cougar Dens

​There are few things in this life that young Rocks Off loves more than a gang of cougars on the town spilling wine on the ground and trying to light the wrong end of a borrowed cigarette whilst slurring in our direction that she likes our tattoos before drunkenly pawing at us. We think it's a men ... More >>

2009 Concert Rewind, July: Beyonce, Coldplay, Aerosmith/ZZ Top, Judas Priest, Rod Stewart... and the Trae Day Gunplay

Craig Hlavaty​ Wooden Birds, Other Lives, Walter's on Washington, July 2: "This is Andrew Kenny's latest project away from American Analog Set. That band is currently on hold while Kenny and the rest of the group go off to pollinate elsewhere. The Birds don't fall far from the AmAnSet tree at all, ... More >>

(Don't) Book 'Em, Dano: 42 Artists Who Have Absolutely No Business Touring Together

​ When Rocks Off received word last week that indie duo The Big Pink was embarking on a 2010 tour with NYC's A Place to Bury Strangers, our initial thought was, "Cool," followed closely by, "Ew." For once, there's a promo poster we really have no desire to see. But then our next thought was, "Coul ... More >>

Eyeballin': Deep Purple: History, Hits and Highlights 1968-76

[Ed. Note: Throughout the holiday season, Rocks Off will be bringing you our picks for recent DVDs, CDs and other musical wares that might be just the ticket to help fill out that pesky shopping list. Enjoy.] ​Though they never achieved the popularity of Zeppelin or Sabbath, and are still not in t ... More >>

The Dong Show

Here at Rocks Off, we do a lot of research for our wildly popular and intellectually enlightening album cover slideshows. As part of that research, we've found many of those albums to be highly concentrated on the male goinrular area. So at long last, and just in time for the weekend, we've compiled ... More >>

Aftermath: Judas Priest and Whitesnake at Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Eric Sauseda​Rust never sleeps, and metal never ages. Not when it's being worked over by Judas Priest's hammer and tongs, anyway. Friday night at Verizon, the Birmingham blacksmiths smelted a sold-out, juiced-up, colors-sporting crowd - metal bands always have the best merch - with ... More >>

Inquiring Minds: Judas Priest's Rob Halford

 Tonight, Judas Priest, led by the inimitable metal god Rob Halford, hits the stage at Verizon Wireless Theate less than a year since the leathermen last graced Houston. They came to the shed out in the Woodlands last August, headlining the "Metal Masters" tour with Motorhead, Testament and Hea ... More >>

Behind the Metal

Revealed: Everything you wanted to know — or didn't — about Canuck headbangers Anvil.<

Summer Sounds

Enough shows to keep concertgoers busy all season long

Got Live If You Want It

Our Spring/Summer concert preview, part deux

The Summer of Our '80s Youth in Adventureland

Great America

Classic Rock Corner: Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy Interviewed

www.getreadytorock.com Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott (l) and Scott GorhamWhen L.A.-based guitarist Scott Gorham flew to England in the early '70s, he was just hoping to score an audition with the band his brother-in-law had joined, Supertramp. That gig never materialized, and after kicking around ... More >>

Rock The Bayou Is a Bust

Soul and Blues Festival

Betty Wright, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Willie Clayton headline a mega-jam

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

The Toyota Center

Vinyl Heads

They're turning to needles, looking for purity

Cavatore Italian Restaurant's

Cavatore's Coffee

Walk Away, Walk Away

And we will follow as local music figures recall tales of U2

Yngwie Malmsteen

Friday, March 5

Will to Power

Mr. Ferrell comes into his glory in Old School

Bah, Humbug!

The glut of holiday CDs kills the Christmas spirit