​According to a report on Billboard.com, iHeartRadio, an online streaming service with a companion smart phone app owned by Clear Channel communications, Rice Radio (formerly KTRU) is one of 14 college radio station being added to the streaming platform in an effort to broaden the company's radio offerings.

iHeartRadio streams all Clear Channel stations and offers users the ability to mix and match stations and songs in a streaming format.

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Photo by Lynne Hawrelko

Gurf Morlix

​Part of a storied singer-songwriter scene, former Houstonians Gurf Morlix and Blaze Foley were living in Montrose during the Urban Cowboy craze but were not impressed. In fact, according to Morlix, they worked so much they "hardly ever had a night off, and if we did we certainly weren't going to drive out to Pasadena to some fake cowboy joint." Somewhat ironically, we had just interviewed Mickey Gilley moments before calling Morlix to discuss his gig and the showing of the documentary Blaze Foley: The Duct Tape Messiah at Anderson Fair Friday night. Morlix, who released an entire album of Foley covers last year, Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream, spent all of 2011 traveling with the film, usually performing a set of Foley songs after each showing. We caught up with the Grammy winner at his studio in Austin.

Rocks Off: Is the Blaze Foley phase winding down for you or does it have more legs?

Gurf Morlix: I think I'm about done with it. I devoted all of 2011 to Blaze and the film and my album, but I've got other stuff to do this year.

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Photo by Marc Brubaker

​If one understands the historical depth and context of the singer-songwriter tradition in Houston -- and it was flourishing here long before it migrated to Austin or before a few (mostly Texan) outlaws started up a movement in Nashville -- it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that two of American Songwriter magazine's Top Fifty songs were written by local natives. However, big surprise -- Hayes Carll took the top slot with "Another Like You."

Popular New West Records artist Robert Ellis came in at Number 23 with "Friends Like These."

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​Satellite radio got some new competition from a little old outfit called NASA when the government agency went live Monday with its new internet radio station, Third Rock.

The station is described in NASA's press release as "crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults." The New Rock/Indie/Alternative format mixes mostly deep tracks from new rock albums with a scant seasoning of recognizable radio hits.

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​While most of Houston only yawned when it was released, the Jonn Richardson/Rich del Grosso album Time Slips On By made Downbeat magazine's recently published Best of 2011 list.

Richardson, a monster picker who tours behind Diunnah Greenleaf and Otis Taylor, and del Grosso, a rare practitioner of blues mandolin and a frequent contributor to Blues Revue, are regulars on the local scene, playing everywhere from Shakespeare's Pub to the Big Easy blues jams.

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​Last Sunday's passing of longtime Houston radio personality "Crash" Collins and our subsequent blog about him brought in some interesting commentary from people who remembered Collins' long tenure at rock radio station KLOL-FM. Collins was one of the first disc jockeys to ditch the formalized diction and most of the other accepted disc jockey practices of the day. He literally dripped cool.

He, along with Pat Fant, who was recedntly inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, developed the free-form, no-playlist format that set KLOL apart from other radio stations in the area. Collins and the other djs were the first in the area to stop playing hits and start playing deep cuts from albums.

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Photos by Jason Wolter

Jason Isbell (left) with Amanda Shires on violin.

​Wow, Rocks Off is a huge fan of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, but Saturday night this hard-charging band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama got a lesson in Texas big beat. Isbell himself was sitting in the backstage area while James McMurtry was laying down the law according to Texas, and Isbell looked like someone who was appreciating, who was going to school.

McMurtry, known to be aloof, misanthropic and political, had the fire in his eyes from the first blistering note of "Turtle Bayou Turnaround." We hadn't seen McMurtry in a while, and while he's always been top shelf, he seems to have elevated his game to the highest levels in the past year. It doesn't hurt that he's had the same rhythm section -- bassist Ronnie Johnson and drummer Darren Hess -- for almost two decades. They had it locked in so tight all McMurtry had to worry about was tearing up his Paul Reed Smith six-string. And McMurtry put on a guitar player clinic a la David Grissom.

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​Dennis "Crash" Collins, a legend of Houston rock radio, died this morning of prostate cancer complications. He was 68.

Originally a musician who played with B.J. Thomas and the Winter brothers, Johnny and Edgar, Collins' true calling was radio. He is best know for his time at KLOL-FM when the station, with its free-form rock format, was the rock station of choice. Many who recall that period in Houston remember Collins for his on-air motto, "Crash in your dash."

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​Warren Haynes has one of the ultimate guitar player resumes, having played for years with the Allman Brothers, many tours with the Grateful Dead and offshoot Bob Weir and Friends as well as his own wildly popular jam band Govt. Mule. He's also toured with Dave Matthews.

Haynes comes to town next Friday, November 4, for a set at the House of Blues along with sacred steel warriors the Lee Brothers. We caught up with the guitarist at his hotel in Seattle.

RO: Time and again in interviews you mention the three kings, B.B., Freddie and Albert. Size those guys up for us.

WH: Well, Freddie and B.B. are the better singers. Even if Freddie hadn't played guitar I'd still be a huge fan. But you can trace where B.B. and Freddie came from, who their influences and heroes were. Albert just seems to appear out of nowhere and there's no sign of where he came from musically, it just seemed to be all him.

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Photos courtesy of Miller Outdoor Theatre Advisory Board

Brave Combo

​Accordion Kings & Queens Festival
Miller Outdoor Theatre
June 4, 2011

Timing can be everything. And it only took about ten seconds standing in the wings 20 feet from Clifton Chenier's former guitarist Lil Buck Sinegal and the rest of Corey Ledet's zydeco band as they kicked off their portion of Saturday's Accordion Kings & Queens festival to realize that these guys had just opened a can of Deep South Louisiana badass, and that something very special was about to go down.

It was also immediately apparent that Clifton Chenier's Houston-born baby, zydeco, had met New Orleans' Congo Square head on in a massive groove collision somewhere near Breaux Bridge and that all was right with the world.

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