Courtesy Jacksboro Highway

L-R: Pete Best, John Lennon, Delbert McClinton, Bruce Chanel, Paul McCartney, George Harrison

​Lonesome, Onry and Mean didn't get in much trouble in school. So his parents were a little disturbed to find the eighth grader in the principal's office on the afternoon of February 10, 1964. He and his best friends, Mike Clowdus, Brad Rutledge, and Larry "Suitcase" Simpson, had been written up and sent to the office by Mr. Stephen Haynes, the eighth grade honors algebra teacher.

The infraction? Combing our hair like the Beatles.

More >>

Photos By Craig Hlavaty

​Last week while this member Rocks Off was in Dallas for the 48th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and our annual trek to Dealey Plaza, we stopped in to the Eight Track Museum in the Deep Ellum district of the city.

The opening rumblings of the small museum, located in the back of store front in Big D was heavily covered by our sister paper the Dallas Observer, with a line of blogs and ink was just beckoning us to swing on by. The Huffington Post also weighed in on the collection, with glowing praise.

We aren't really devotees of eight-tracks -- we only have a handful of Stones eights -- but music mania and collecting is our life, so it was a must. The crates and crates and numerous boxes of wax and compact discs in our house should start paying rent. Plus, a chance to see a trove of Rutles eight-tracks was worth the drive alone.

Bucks Burnett's baby is a one-of-kind journey back to a nearly-hidden chapter in music history, when cassette tapes were still a few years off, and portable recorded music was still in it's infancy. Of course, vinyl was always king, and even today as it continues it's reign over our bank accounts. But eight-tracks are something special and dear to Burnett.

More >>

​Today one of the greatest rock albums of all-time, Led Zeppelin IV, turns 40 years old, and it's still a vital, nasty, stanky, and heavy LP. Released on November 8, 1971, it cemented the Zeppelin legacy with cuts like, well, the whole damned thing. It's all good, and no doubt you can hear at least one song from it each hour on your radio dial.

Go ahead and flip on that old radio in your home, car, or office, we'll wait. It was probably "Stairway To Heaven," huh?

As far as Zep albums go, it's the first that most young rock fans latch onto, the second being 1973's Houses Of The Holy, or 1975's Physical Graffiti if they are lucky to have an aunt with a cool record collection hanging around them, like Rocks Off did. We got heavily into IV around senior year in high school, when these things are supposed to happen. It betrayed our punk-rock ears but we took to it instantly.

More >>

Photo by Steve Harris/Compadre Records

Hayes Carll before he was old enough to shave... not that he ever has.

​The other day, one of the Rocks Off Crew was rummaging around in the Houston Press office and came across a bunch of publicity stills for various musicians.

Allow us to explain what those are: They're photos, usually 8X10, that artists' management and publicity teams would send in the mail in case the paper needed it for an article, calendar listings, etc. In order to do that, these photos had to be scanned into a computer by the paper's art or production department, then they were tossed aside and usually forgotten about.

Any paper of any size probably has a file cabinet or two of these things sitting around, we're sure. (Even we're not sure how they went from photo stock to newsprint in the days before scanning.) A sure sign the publicity shot's day has come and gone is that they are now considered collectibles - for a while, Sig's Lagoon had a huge stack by the counter selling for about 5 bucks a pop.

More >>

Photos by Groovehouse

​The Go-Go's, Girl In a Coma
House of Blues
August 27, 2011

See more of these five beauties and their big beat in our slideshow.

With bands like the Go-Go's, it's not about the hits. The hits sell tickets, maybe, but then again, if all you wanted to hear was "We Got the Beat" or "Vacation" Saturday, you could have just cued up your Fast Times at Ridgemont High DVD or dug out that Ultimate '80s Vol. Whatever CD. It's a lot cheaper than a night out at House of Blues.

The hits are going to be there, and they were - "Vacation" opening the night with that bold melody, one of the best of the '80s; "We Got the Beat" closing the main set as a left-side/right-side cheer-off; a chipper "Head Over Heels" sending everyone home happy not long after (and well before midnight). What made the show interesting, and worth going, is what else the Go-Go's chose to play.

More >>

​Here's the thing about Muppets: The Green Album, a new collection of classic Muppets tunes performed by some of today's most adored indie and folk artists: We are incredibly happy that no one attempted or butchered Big Bird's "Easy Going Day" from 1985's Follow That Bird. Seriously, that song brings tears to Rocks Off's eyes 26 years since we first heard it. Big, manly, nostalgic tears.

Beyond that, the Green Album is only middling, with the highlights few, and the head-scratching legion. We wish we could say that we were moved by Rivers Cuomo and Hayley Williams of Paramore's "Rainbow Connection," but the original can't be trifled with. The ballad, written by Paul Williams - there's a name you should all know - and sung by Mr. Kermit the Frog, is easily a classic on par with "Bridge Over Troubled Water and "Over the Rainbow," but that's just Rocks Off saying that.

Kids' music in the '70s and '80s was damned sad.

More >>

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 "musical debauchery and decadence" at the Rock of Ages performance at the Hobby Center.

Aftermath isn't an expert on the theater, so we're going to walk you through the plot as best we can. The story is set in L.A, specifically at The Bourbon Room and a strip club on the Sunset Strip: how every good story begins, no doubt, with bourbon and strippers.

Ex-American Idol contestant and now Broadway star Constantine Maroulis plays the male protagonist, Drew, an aspiring hair-metal rock star from Detroit who is stuck doing janitorial work at the Bourbon Room until he gets his big break. He meets his love interest, Sherrie, when she moves to L.A from a small town in Kansas to pursue an acting career.

Keep the italics in mind, it'll all come together at the end if it hasn't already.

More >>

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 Lippitt

The cast of Rock of Ages

​The Setup: '80s Sunset Strip rock venue Bourbon Room is slated for demolition from an evil German developer. Sweet horny rock mavens sit around and do nothing while sweet young ingénues who dream of being stars, fresh from Kansas or someplace like that - it really doesn't matter because you've seen this a gazillion times - fall in love, fall out of love, and, miraculously, after extraneous scenes of careers as strippers and pizza delivery guys, fall back in love and save the club.

Hey, wait a minute, no they don't! It's the gay guy - although he's not really gay, he's just German -and the kooky Berkeley protest girl who save the... oh, sweet Axl Rose, it doesn't matter at all, just shut up and squeal to the remembered hits dredged up from Casey Kasem's 8-track by Aerosmith, Pat Benatar, Starship, Twisted Sister, Poison, Bon Jovi, Journey, Quarterflash, Whitesnake, and other big-haired guys and gals.

More >>

2. Rick Springfield is a stone cold sex fiend...

​In recent years, many musicians have put down their instruments (at least temporarily) and picked up the computer keyboard to produce some pretty revelatory memoirs. And in one case, perhaps too revelatory - Billy Joel recently pulled the plug on his completed autobiography just months before publication date, returning his huge advance rather than have justify his dancing in the "Uptown Girl" video. In addition to tomes by Keith Richards, Sammy Hagar, and Steven Tyler, look for volumes coming up by Pete Townshend, Gregg Allman, AC/DC's Brian Johnson, and Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi.

Rick Springfield, who plays Arena Theatre this Friday, joined the ranks of musical memoirists with last year's Late, Late at Night. And while Rocks Off feels that the accomplished singer/songwriter/guitarist has always been unfairly categorized as a teen idol or actor-turned-singer, even our eyes were singed by some of the revelations in the book. Here's just a few of them.

14. His real name isn't Rick Springfield: It's Richard Springthorpe; an early bandmate felt that moniker didn't sound rock and roll enough and rechristened him. His mother wanted to name him "Howard," but dad disagreed since it could be rhymed with "coward" (as if "Rick" couldn't be rhymed with...oh well).

More >>

​One of the saddest side effects of the digital music explosion in the late '90s and early '00s was the decline of the made-for-television compilation. Nevertheless, companies like Razor & Tie and Time Life still continue to put out monstrous collections of music for you to order online and by phone, full of pop memories and hidden gems.

In 2011, you are likely to see video compilations for sale, like the Midnight Special box sets than ones filled with music you could just as easily download for cheaper, or - gasp - for free. And once you found those songs, you can burn them to your own disc, and leave out songs you don't want, like possibly John Waite's "Missing You" if it bothers you or reminds you too much of Spring Break '85.

More >>