Like to go out? Want to get paid for it?

Of course it's not quite that simple. But the Houston Press has an opening for a bar/nightclub columnist effective immediately. As of this week's column, our now-former Nightfly, Shea Serrano, is moving on to greener pastures and better hours. And another kid, his third.

Shea estimates that in his four and a half years as Nightfly, he wrote some 136,000 words. He went any place we wanted him to go, hit his deadlines (mostly), did not develop a crippling alcohol addiction and only made his editors want to throttle him once in a while. (Kidding.) He's a small dude, but those are big shoes to fill.

More >>

Cover image by Monica Fuentes

Things have been quite noisy since Houston's new noise ordinance became law.

In this week's cover story, Houston Press examined the effects of the citywide sound ordinance, which Houston City Council passed on October 10.

While a Houston Police Department officer is confident that the noise ordinance task force (who isn't required to carry a decibel meter) is doing a good job, critics think the law is framed in a language vague enough to allow enforcers wide latitude in interpreting "loud noise."

More >>

This week's Houston Press cover story, "Playing For Keeps," dives into the world of vinyl records, with interviews with local collectors and shop owners who are helping keep the medium alive in the Bayou City. Research for this cover story took me as far north as Dallas, where I visited with A&R Records' Stanley Getz II, who showed me around his record pressing plant.

Our trip to A&R was highlighted by getting to see the Flaming Lips' Record Store Day release The Flaming Lips And Head Fwends -- which was pressed and completed at the Dallas plant -- before all 20,000 copies got ready to be shipped to record stores all over the country.

More >>

Jason Wolter

Texas Johnny Brown at The Big Easy, August 25

Rocks Off would like to congratulate one of the stars of this week's "Old School" cover story, Texas Johnny Brown, who will receive a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail this weekend.

The monument for Brown, 83, will be dedicated at 4 p.m. Saturday in downtown Ackerman in Brown's native Choctaw County. Brown and his Quality Blues Band will perform a post-dedication concert after a "meet Texas Johnny Brown" reception at the Choctaw County Economic Development Foundation office. Hope the weather holds out.

More >>

Lightnin' Hopkins marker photo by Matthew Keever

It was a real pleasure for Rocks Off and Lonesome Onry and Mean to bring you this week's Houston Press cover story, "Old School," but it was also bittersweet. Not to put too fine a point on it, but none of these people are getting any younger - although the men and women of "Old School" have exhibited a remarkable amount of stamina and longevity, illness, infirmity and old age in general have already claimed many of their peers.

That's why it was also nice to report that Houston may finally be overcoming its notorious allergy to saluting its rich musical past. Within the past year, enterprising individuals and nonprofits were able to secure (read: raise the private funds necessary to pay for) Texas state historical markers for country-blues immortal Lightnin' Hopkins, historic Third Ward venue Eldorado Ballroom and seminal Fifth Ward R&B label Duke/Peacock Records.

One of the more intriguing ideas on the table is creating a blues-themed "Walk of Fame," a series of plaques or markers patterned after the Mississippi Blues Trail and, of course, all those stars on Hollywood Boulevard. Two possible locations that have been mentioned are downtown around Discovery Green and the streets of Midtown around the Continental Club compound.

More >>

Rocks Off sent reporter Matthew Keever to last week's "Old School" cover shoot at The Big Easy. His assignment was to talk to as many musicians as he could, and have them finish the sentence "Blues is..."

Video by Francisco Montes

Little Joe Washington: "The blues is music. Music is blues. Your experiences, whatever. Blues, just like classical or ballroom dancing, is music. Like jazz, you don't know what you're going to play when you play the blues. The blues is music."

More >>

Photos by Jason Wolter

Tha Lady D

In this week's cover story, "Old School," Rocks Off Sr. and Lonesome Onry and Mean highlight some of the personalities that have kept Houston's traditional blues scene strong even as the music's popularity has waned in all but a few other major cities (and Europe).

Houston's appetite for blues remains ravenous, though, and as Rocks Off has previously reported, one of the major reasons is the no-cover jams sponsored by the Houston Blues Society. Held at The Big Easy on the last Thursday of every month, lately the HBS jams have been growing to mob-scene proportions. This past Thursday proved no exception, as dancers thronged the floor and tipplers kept the bartenders scrambling until the wee hours.

But by any usual standard, this one was special.

More >>

The Ian Moore Band today (L-R): Ian Moore, Chris White, Bukka Allen, Michael Villegas

Ian Moore had both the good fortune and misfortune to be a young, good-looking Austin guitar hero who came to prominence shortly after Stevie Ray Vaughan's death created an opening for the position. Joe Ely drafted the native Austinite for the recording and touring cycle behind 1992's Love and Danger, after which the eponymous group Moore founded with bassist Chris White, keyboardist Bukka Allen and drummer Michael Villegas became one of the top draws at legendary venues such as Steamboat and Antone's, rooms Vaughan had trod himself not too many years before.

That was enough to pique Capricorn Records' interest, and the Georgia-based label added the Ian Moore Band to a roster that, at one time or another, also included the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, Cake and 311. Capricorn released two albums, 1993's Ian Moore and '95's Modernday Folklore, both of which got heavy rotation on stations such as Austin's KLBJ and Houston's KLOL, sending a handful of songs ("How Does It Feel," "Nothing," "Muddy Jesus") into Billboard's Mainstream Rock Top 25. Soon the band found itself sharing stages with the likes of Bob Dylan, ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones.

But Moore never wanted to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan. Fiercely intelligent and equally strong-willed, he had always been interested in power-pop and roots-rock, and when those sounds dominated the third album he handed in to Capricorn, Walden hit the roof. As Moore told Rocks Off in this week's print issue, the musician and the label owner even came to blows. That was the end of Moore's tenure on Capricorn, as well as the Ian Moore Band itself.

More >>

Robert Knight

Saucy rockers Cake and Houston's own alt-country insurgents Buxton are the first two acts confirmed for the inaugural Houston Press Best of Houston® BestFest, or "BestFest," the two-day festival scheduled for September 24 and 25 at the Midtown "superblock" between McGowen, Main, Travis and Anita streets, near the McGowen light-rail stop.

Timed to coincide with the 23rd edition of the Houston Press' Best of Houston® issue, due on newsstands September 29, BestFest will also feature several past Best of Houston® food winners displaying their wares, as well as graffiti artists and face painting. And plenty of beer.

Dripping with sarcasm and locked into a laid-back groove, Cake uncorked a long string of modern-rock hits from the mid-'90s to the early '00s, including "Rock & Roll Lifestyle," "The Distance," "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" and a chart-busting cover of Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem "I Will Survive."

More >>

Fatal Flying Guilloteens, left, in 2007 and their descendents Weird Party (right) at Summer Fest 2011

Thursday is the fourth anniversary of the Live Earth concerts, which Rocks Off remembers today less for any of the music - Madonna and Gogol Bordello is the only thing that readily comes to mind - than because they were on TV in the background while we began packing up our Austin apartment in preparation to move to Houston.

When we got here, we found a music scene (or scenes) at low tide. Rap, Houston's calling card to the rest of the world for the past decade or so, was beginning to stall both creatively and commercially; the indie scene, for lack of a better word, was in turmoil. This week in print, Rocks Off attempts to sum up the past four years in about 1,200 words and it's our pleasure to report that, give or take a hiccup or two, in our eyes the scene is much better off.

Naturally it's a little hard to cram four years of anything into a single page, let alone everything that's gone on here. That's where the Internet comes in handy.

More >>