Photo by Marco Torres

Fat Tony (center) onstage at Fitzgerald's, August 2012

Anthony Obi has always been a humble and gracious Houstonian. Better known to the public as rapper Fat Tony, this week he drops Smart Ass Black Boy, his first retail album. It's been a long journey from his first LP RABDARGAB, which was inspired by an H.I.S.D. campaign to get children to read.

The acronym stood for "Read a book, do a report and get a buck," except Tony wanted fans to listen to his album and write a review about it. As his profile has increased, of course Tony often gets that he isn't a "typical" Houston rapper. but those stereotypes mean little to the Third Ward native.

Recently Rocks Off got the chance to have a chat with Tony from New York before Smart Ass Black Boy, which was highlighted on NPR's "First Listen" last week, drops tomorrow:

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When the Texas town of West was rocked by the April 17 explosion at a nearby fertilizer plant, a few on the Texas country/Red Dirt scene were affected as well.

While no one in his family was hurt, singer/songwriter Wade Bowen has ties to the community.

"West is pretty much a second home town to me," says Bowen, who performs tonight at Mo's Place in Katy. "I played my first gig there, I used to work at a pizza place there, my sister married into a family there. I've got a lot of connections with that little bitty town, and I just wanted to get a first hand glimpse of what they were going through and dealing with, and man, it's pretty rough."

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Photo by Mary Bruton Keating/ Courtesy of New West Records

Glen Clark (left) and Delbert McClinton

At 72, Delbert McClinton has been about everywhere and done about everything you can do: hung out with the Beatles; worked as a sideman for Bruce Channel where he played harmonica on a national hit, "Hey, Baby;" wrote a No. 1 hit for Emmylou Harris, "Two More Bottles of Wine"; dropped four albums that made it to No. 1 on the blues charts; had hits in both country, pop, and blues charts; and operates the highly successful annual Sandy Beaches blues cruises.

But when you get him on the phone, he's still that Lubbock-raised, Fort Worth-seasoned good old boy he's always been. Here's more of our conversation with him about his career and (drum roll) Houston women.

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Photo by Seven Fields of Aphelion

Imagine my surprise when, last fall, at a late-night gig after Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, I discovered that the falsetto-voiced singer of a new favorite band, Black Moth Super Rainbow, was a male, not a female.

To be fair, Thomas Fec (who also goes by the moniker "Tobacco"), the band's brainchild, sings through a vocoder, which means half the time he doesn't even sound human. This gives BMSR a weirdly lo-fi psychedelic space vibe, which you'll be able to experience for yourself at Fitzgerald's May 29.

BMSR is touring in support of the band's fifth EP, Cobra Juicy, an album that almost wasn't made. A few years ago, Fec was approached to do a remix of a female singer's album. He won't name the singer, only to say he'd never heard of her before.

"I didn't want to make music at the time," he says. "I wanted to take a few years off."

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Fat Tony

Houston is home to many talented rappers, and one of the most appreciated things about local hip-hop is the unity among peers. But another great thing is that, after living in Houston for a while, the Southern hospitality engulfs you so much it becomes a second home.

Queens-born and raised Easy Yves Saint, MC of popular local crew the Niceguys, can attest to this. Recently he and Houston native Fat Tony, both of whom have new projects dropping this summer, sat down together to discuss a few things they like, a few things they don't, and what they have been working on lately.

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Photos courtesy of Big Hassle Media

Mikel Jollett understands what it's like to have a no-good, very bad week.

As the front man for L.A.'s The Airborne Toxic Event, he's known for his serious-man's lyrics and moody, oft-brooding subject matter. The heaviness of his lyrics have roots in reality, though.

In his former life, Jollett was a writer and novelist, taking the leap into musical mastermind only after a series of life fuck-yous hit him one after the other. From learning of his mom's cancer diagnosis to facing his own health crisis in the same week -- a diagnosis of an immune disorder that sparked a struggle with alopecia and vitiligo, coupled with the demise of a relationship -- Jollett found himself facing one struggle after another, and feeling totally alone during the process.

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Note: Not actual author.

My last official day at the Houston Press is tomorrow, so these past two weeks I have been sifting through my body of work here at Rocks Off, almost seven years of words. I've been gleefully overdosing on nostalgia here at my desk, and I have (almost) no regrets. I'll have some more words on my departure on Friday, including a rundown of all the concerts I covered.

While I was compiling this blog of interviews I have undertaken for the Press, I got sad, because I started thinking about the ones that got away, the ones that I couldn't do because of time constraints or scheduling conflicts: Dave Grohl, Merle Haggard, Ozzy Osbourne, Dickie Peterson, Slash, Marilyn Manson, Joe Walsh, Willie Nelson, Jim James, Ronnie James Dio... the list is long and annoying.

Then there are the interviews that went horribly. Sometimes both parties, myself and the subject, were rushed, agitated, or otherwise mentally checked out. Sometimes the artist was really not into being interrogated while in a bumpy tour bus or smelly van, and it came out in the copy.

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Hey, so you can cancel those drum lessons with the guy who teaches out of his parents' basement. Ryan Moran, Slightly Stoopid's resident drummer animal, is ready to take over those teaching duties.

No, I'm not fucking with you. Those lessons exist, and are yours for the taking. Slightly Stoopid, with their mellow reggae-punk stoner roots, might have drum lesson-ed their way into becoming the most fan-friendly band out there.

From easily accessible free downloads to those badass live drum lessons -- conducted via Skype -- these guys are dead-set on making sure their fans feel connected, despite the distance between them.

In anticipation of Friday's Houston show at House of Blues, Rocks Off spoke with Ryan Moran, or RyMo, as he's known within the band, to wax poetic about cookouts, Cypress Hill, and just how the hell these drum lessons came to be.

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While other bands at the time may have had more fans, sold more albums, or spent more time on television, time has proven what many of us suspected at the time: Deftones were the best band to come out of the nu-metal scene of the late '90s.

They may not have played arenas like Korn, sold a million records in a week like Limp Bizkit, or once topped TRL like P.O.D., but they did do something more important: they wrote the best songs.

While many of the bands from that era have been reduced to trend-hopping (Korn going dubstep), tabloid fodder, or playing the Scout Bar circuit, Deftones roll into town Saturday night to play a sold-out show at Bayou Music Center. They may not be the last band standing, but they are the ones that have aged the best.

One could point to many reasons for why they've managed to remain popular into the '10s, but for the band it's actually very simple.

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Zack Arias/Shore Fire Media

If you haven't smelled Blackberry Smoke in a while, they might have been at sea.

The Atlanta Southern rock/outlaw country (whatever) band has been on so many cruises it's a little surprising the quintet's long hair isn't braided and beaded. When Rocks Off caught up with lead singer/guitarist Charlie Starr a few weeks ago, he was in the middle of packing for the band's first-ever foray on Kid Rock's Chillin' the Most Cruise.

That would have been the cruise on which BBS was scheduled to perform alongside Shooter Jennings, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Band of Heathens, '80s rappers Whodini (of "Friends" fame) and of course Kid Rock himself on a sunscreen-soaked voyage between Miami and Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas.

"I'm sure it'll be the naked-people cruise," Starr says by phone.

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