Woodstock

No Fences: Garth Brooks & the Fuzzy Math of 10 Mega-Concerts

Fifteen years ago this week, the greatest country music artist of all time, Garth Brooks, made history by playing a free concert to a massive crowd in New York's Central Park. Now, not just anybody gets to play Central Park, but Brooks had the megawatt stroke in the entertainment biz back then to ma ... More >>

Fanning the Flames: The Top 10 Performances at Woodstock 99

This week marks the 13th anniversary of Woodstock 1999, the iconic festival's much-maligned third iteration that kinda dissolved into rape and looting towards the end. As 200,000-strong anarchic gatherings go, everything went off rather pleasantly for much of the festival, but the bonfires, looting ... More >>

A Few Things I Learned at Electric Forest

The Best Music of Electric Forest 2012 My story of this past weekend is one to tell. I went to Electric Forest, with no expectations whatosever in my head. I wanted to be open-minded. I just knew there were certain artists that I had to see. To my surprise, it wasn't all about the music. Don't get ... More >>

Start the Revolution! 10 Songs About Historical Events

If you ever look at music throughout time, along with a history book -- they kind of complement each other. Some of the greatest songs in rock, R&B and rap have chronicled history both social, major news events, sports, entertainment and political. In my opinion, many times, the song is about what ... More >>

Top 10 Most Outrageous Onstage Incidents, Antics & Meltdowns

Everyone has their meltdown moments, no doubt about it. We make mistakes and, most of the time, we try to correct them. We have them because we are all human. Unfortunately, though, when you are in the spotlight, your hurts, tantrums, mistakes and meltdowns are all magnified for all the world to se ... More >>

Crazy Times: 5 Festivals That Need DVD/Blu-Ray Box Sets

Music festivals have played an indefinite part of pop culture history. From the various Woodstock festivals, Us Festivals, and even Lollapalooza - they have played a part in defining their generations. Unfortunately some of these amazing festivals have only seen the light of day in the form of eit ... More >>

All Retro Everything: This Week In Houston Rap Videos

Ah, rappers and music videos. Some are vehicles for self-promotion, others are tools used to promote a message, a gaggle of asses or some good ol' wholesome debauchery. In the case of the Houston rap class, music videos are always eye opening glimpses into the future, either telling what a talent co ... More >>

Not Average Joe: Six Rock and Roll Joes on the Day "Hey Joe" Turns 45

​Despite the fact that he never really had a major "hit" (Electric Ladyland reached number one as an album but he never had a single go higher than 20 in the US) and was terribly under appreciated while he was still alive, Jimi Hendrix is one of the giants of rock and roll. His songs and his g ... More >>

BestFest Finalizes Lineup, Releases Schedule

​As much as Rocks Off has been talking about it, planning it, and writing about it these past two months or so, it doesn't seem possible that our first-ever Best of Houston® BestFest is only 10 short days away. By the time we finish coughing up all the dust from our trip to the no-smoking Aus ... More >>

Saturday Night: Santana & Spearhead At The Woodlands

Photos by Marco Torres​Santana, Michael Franti & Spearhead Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 10, 2011 Timeless. Classic. Legend. OG - all classifications that tend to be distributed loosely in the music industry these days. Yet for Carlos Santana, the skinny Mexican kid who played at ... More >>

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenaged Blockhead

Coming Back for More

The Best Concert Movies Of All Time

​A quick note before CHL starts this hlist. We define a concert movie as a flick that documents one or more shows on a tour. More narrative-oriented rock flicks like D.A. Pennebaker's Bob Dylan mash note Don't Look Back, Charles Peterson's grunge chronicle Hype!, and of course the lighthearted ... More >>

Top Eight Notorious Concert Disasters

Daniel R. Davidson via WikipediaThe Station fire in West Warwick, R.I., 40 seconds in​Recently, indie-rock juggernauts Arcade Fire were prevented from playing a gig in Portugal by NATO, which is having a summit on the same date. Arcade Fire offered to play a day ahead of time, but NATO decided ... More >>

The 10 Most Fun Musical Instruments To Destroy

​A company in Japan is making disposable guitars expressly made for smashing. At around $60 a pop, you won't be too terribly sad about hacking up the stage with it or clocking your bastard bassist or dullard drummer over the head at the end of the gig. Hell, at these prices you could open the ... More >>

"Whatever was Splendid: New American Photographs"

Walker Evans and the Great Depression, Part II

Guitar Zero: Played It 'Til My Fingers Bled...

No, this song is NOT about the year of Woodstock and the Moon Landing. It was the summer winter of '69 2010. Robert told me to come up with five songs I wanted to learn how to play (on guitar, in case you weren't keeping up). The Wife, seeking to maximize the parental utility of my music lessons, h ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Other TV Moms That Might Be Lesbians

I was all set to continue riding the Tiger Woods gravy train for one more day. I even had an idea for the Fallen One's eventual triumphant comeback -- not to give too much away, but the training sequence from Rocky III figured prominently.But then the Meredith Baxter story hit, and I realized the po ... More >>

ACL 2009 Day Two: Who'll Stop the Rain?

Photo by Mark C. AustinThe Scabs​That was the question on Saturday, when downpours tested the drainage properties of the newly laid Zilker Park sod to test. Curiously, with the air still warm, the crowd seemed to take the growing swamp in stride, but you have to guess that with all the muddy-b ... More >>

ACL Fest Preview: Five Outdoor Music Festivals That Could Have Gone a Lot Better

The 2009 Austin City Limits Festival kicks off Friday, and many of you are no doubt devising parking strategies and grappling with various permutations of 'How will I make it from the [a] set at [b] stage in time to catch [x]'s set at the [y] stage?' It's a serious dilemma, as ACL always puts toget ... More >>

The Forgotten Festival

The 1969 Texas International Pop Festival

Crosby, Stills & Nash

Ruining Woodstock

Who knew three days of peace & music would oppress us for 40 years? (Plus: this movie)

Jimi Hendrix Covers: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (P.S. John Mayer Still Sucks)

This week marks the 39th anniversary of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, which is famous for a couple of reasons. First, it was such a financial disaster it put the kibosh on any further Wight fesivals for the next 32 years. Second, and more importantly, it marked the penultimate performance of one ... More >>

Aftermath: We Were Wolves and Satin Hooks, Born to Be Wild at the Mink

Photos by Chris Gray​ It's been false-starting for a couple of years, but that grunge revival may be right around the corner - if it ever went anywhere in the first place. Beaumont's We Were Wolves plugged into the Mudhoney machine at the Mink Tuesday night, crafting sludgy sheets of guitar noise ... More >>

Dirty, Dirty Hippies Were the Least Odious of Woodstock's Many Shameful Legacies

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, as if you needed us to remind you. Documentaries, feature films, tours and boxed CD sets have been rolling out all summer in order to wring still more cash from the corpses of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and - to a lesser extent - Country Joe McD ... More >>

For Woodstock: The Five Lamest Hippies In The Movies

Forty years ago this weekend, hundreds of thousands of unkempt youngsters descended on the town of Bethel, NY for an advertised "three days of peace and music." Woodstock has since become etched into our country's history, not just for symbolizing the 1960s, but also for unleashing the continuing th ... More >>

Z

The murder of peace activist Gregoris Lambrakis retold

Summer Fest Snapshots: Hippie Mike and the Paint Kids

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ If you attended this weekend's Summer Fest in Eleanor Tinsley Park, you may have found yourself as enchanted as Rocks Off was with "Mike." The skinny hippie child of Asian decent could be seen all over the grounds at the most opportune times. Sunday, our day began by meeti ... More >>

Joe Cocker

Remembering 1969, Part 1: Altamont, Rosemary's Baby, Santana at Woodstock and More

1968 might have been - at least politically - one of the most turbulent years of the '60s. Students rioted left - specifically, the Left Bank in Paris - and right against the war in Vietnam, while back home racial tensions escalated, especially after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The po ... More >>

Playbill: Matisyahu & Les Claypool Tonight at the House Of Blues

Fans of the 1990s funk-metal band Primus can't forget that famous Woodstock '94 footage, where the band's resident bass god, Les Claypool, dexterously covered Metallica's "Master of Puppets," slapping out the guitar part on his signature Carl Thompson. To top it off, he then brought out legendary gr ... More >>

Les Claypool

Summer of Salvation

The Terminator is back. Plus lots of other movies we can't wait to see this season.

Things To Look For At The Obama Inaugural

You know where you could be right this moment, which is about 7:30 in the morning Houston time?You could be waiting in FREEZING Washington, DC, getting on line to go through security checks so you could wait for hours and hours to watch Barack Obama's inauguration from a half-mile away.On the one ha ... More >>

Musicians Don't Have W. to Kick Around Anymore... So Now What?

Now that Lil' Bush has shuffled off the Presidential coil - or will in a couple of hours, anyway - and heads off into some Dallas burg to write his memoirs and reflect on his two wild and strange terms as Commander in Chief, it seems that the writers of so many protest songs can call off their guns ... More >>

Richie Havens, Still Looking Forward

The Old Balladeer

Slow Food in San Francisco

Baby Boomers, Did You Not Hear Me Tell You To Suck It?

Gimme Shelter

See the Rolling Stones’ wildest concert ever

Michael Winslow

The man with ten thousand noises comes to Houston

Maker Faire Is Coming to Texas. And No, It Has Nothing to Do with Ren Fest, Although That Extra "E" Did Throw Us for a Sec.

Hawg Stop Blues Fest

Sunday, September 3, 11335 Sheldon, 281-456-7867

Rebel with a Cause

Dimebag lives on in these new recordings

Canned Heat, with Diunna Greenleaf & Blue Mercy and the Daddylongnecks

Saturday, April 9, at the Hawg Stop, 11335 Sheldon, 281-456-7867

Rock of Ages

Mayor of the Sunset Strip presides over pop

Rave Rules

No one over 25 should be in attendance, but if you are, here's the game plan

Playbill

Coming This Week

Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Have a Pepsi

Country Joe's still politically correct (sort of)

Alternative Notion Lollapalooza doesn't say much about its generation, but the music's fine

y Brad Tyer