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​This will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but Rocks Off enjoys an adult beverage now and then. Sometimes we even enjoy more than one.

And every once in a while we just might happen to, say, spend an entire Sunday drinking champagne on a patio and wake up the next morning fully dressed and clutching a half-eaten breakfast taco we have no recollection of ordering. And that's how we came to spend the better part of Monday hiding from the searing light of day behind dark sunglasses and baggy clothing, fighting back a stomach-full of stale sparkling wine threatening an acidic encore at any moment.

Suffice to say our condition did not improve upon receiving a recorded message from the Kroger meat department instructing us to destroy a package of recalled ground turkey we'd purchased the week before - information that would have been slightly less unnerving had we not been staring at the remnants of the aforementioned bird on the plate in front of us. Wanna know what's worse than a champagne hangover? Salmo-fucking-nella, that's what.

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The less antisocial among you know that talking about music is one of the best icebreakers there is. To get to know our staff a little better, Rocks Off will periodically be asking them to share a few songs that helped to shape their musical tastes - and character. We start with our youngest member, Fall Music Intern and U of H Print Journalism major Charne Graham, born in 1988. "I'm more than grateful that I grew up in the 90's," she says. "These songs will always bring me back to that exact moment."

​15. The Jackson 5, "Enjoy Yourself" (1977): My father played this song when I would visit him on weekends as a child. This song always made me laugh because of the stalkerish chorus: "Enjoy yourself with me, you better enjoy yourself, you better enjoy yourself..."

14. Big Pun, "It's So Hard" (2000): This song came out in 2000 and I was 12 years old. It was the first single on Big Pun's album Yeeeah Baby, released a few months after his tragic death. I remember very clearly visiting family in Houston when I purchased the album at Best Buy on Richmond, and I played it from start to finish repeatedly. I still have the CD today.

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"My ride's here."

​Rocks Off has never died, it's true. Though we sometimes find ourselves dying in small doses day to day when we spy an old man clip his toenails in the nude at the gym, or we open up a dozen emails from record label PR folk touting a five-date national tour.

Living humans are obsessed with dead humans, and our own deaths are built up in our heads to be these grand, painless things, full of friends and family surrounding us in a bed, as we drift off into...well, we have never died so we aren't too sure what happens.

Being huge, monstrous music fans, like you no doubt are if you are reading Rocks Off, you may have thought about the perfect music to soundtrack your final few minutes here on Earth. When Joey Ramone was saying his farewells to the world in April 2001, he was listening to U2's "In a Little While," from All That You Can't Leave Behind, released the year before.

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straightpinkie.com

​Blame it on the humidity, but there's something about Houston that makes women go off the deep end. In fact, the Bayou City is home to three of the past decade's most notorious female-perpetrated crimes.

There was Dr. Clara Harris (2002), who responded to the news of her husband's infidelity by running him over with her car. Three times. Or Susan Wright (2003), who claimed "battered wife syndrome" as a defense for stabbing her husband 193 times. And, our personal favorite, astronaut Lisa Nowak (2007), who drove straight across five states - in diapers - to abduct her romantic rival at the Orlando airport.

The crimes are shocking, but the intensity of a woman's wrath is nothing new, having been played out in song time and time again. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially one in cowboy boots. After all, revenge makes for a much sexier music video than crying in the fetal position over a gallon of ice cream.

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Butch Vig making the donuts.

​Today is Butch Vig's 55th birthday. The acclaimed record producer and sometime musician has been at the helm of some of the best grunge and indie records of the past 25 years, and his production style has made him one of the most sought-after sound architects in the industry.

From his earliest works behind the boards for bands like Killdozer and Die Kreuzen to recent jobs with Muse and Never Shout Never, Vig has been one of music's most adventurous producers when he wasn't helping build sounds that would move mountains.

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Monica Fuentes

​In country music, fathers are either saints with strong hands capable of spinning wonder and magic, or grim drunks who want nothing more than to beat their wives and children and induce general misery. After spending a lifetime listening to some of these songs, some bringing tears to our eyes (screw you, Conway) we can only hope that one day our own kids will write about us in a glowing twang, remembering the time we killed a bear with just a can opener while landing a passenger jet blindfolded.

This Sunday is Father's Day, a day to honor all of our fathers who worked so hard to make sure we were brought up clothed, fed and reasonably content. Craig's Hlist's own father is a lucky guy, seeing how his birthday was last weekend and this coming weekend holds Father's Day. It's like two straight weeks of love, hugs and presents.

He got a new rifle last weekend.

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​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.

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Whoever he is (was?), Scooby's iPod wasn't short on R. Kelly.

​So a couple of weeks ago, after three or four years of increasingly faltering service, Rocks Off's 30 GB iPod finally died. Completely. Out of sheer broke-assedness, we had held on to it for longer than most. By the end, its quirks and shenanigans were endless, not least its inability to hold a charge whether or not it was actually turned on, so perhaps it was something other than foolishness that impelled us to wear it out in the rain one afternoon. Maybe, it was, as Quincy, M.D. would have put it, iPod moy-da.

But at any rate, we are still broke-ass muthas, and now we didn't have any tunes other than a couple of transistor radios. Impoverished or not, Rocks Off would have to replace that sucker, even if it meant rice and beans, hand-rolled cigs, and watered-down coffee for the next month.

Our first thought was Craigslist. We arranged to meet a guy to whom we were about to pay $100 for a replacement 30 GB model, but negotiations broke down when the guy didn't show up. So the next day, we thought what the hell, why not go see what our friendly neighborhood Third Ward pawnshop had in stock.

Jackpot.

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For every relationship, both failed and successful, there's a song that reminds you of that special (or not-so-special) person whenever it plays. Not to be used with the more cliched "our song," which is picked by both parties and can, most of the time, be repeated out loud with some pride. For the first installment of our new column about the songs that shape our lives, Rocks Off asked a few local musicians for a tune they associate with a past or present lover.

Chris Wise, Buxton

The Mountain Goats, "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton":

"When you punish a person for dreaming his dream

Don't expect him to thank you or forgive you

The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton will in time both outpace and outlive you.

Hail Satan, Hail Satan tonight

Hail Satan, Hail, Hail."

I was introduced to "indie" music early in high school, and I did not find it on my own. Instead I was introduced through the heaviest, meanest infatuation that has ever dwelled in my mind, and her name was Kristie. Kristie liked to wear black, but not in a death-metal way and that truly confused me.

We got to know each other and in turn she introduced me to this band called The Mountain Goats. Seeing as how System of a Down ruled my life, this really kinda fucked with my head. How could something sound so bad and so good at the same time? Why does he sing like that? I cannot tell you if I truly loved the music or if I was just holding on to the one thing I could force myself to have in common with her.

But I do know that this song reminds me of the heavy heartbreak induced by this girl, who I eventually grew to hate. Hail Satan indeed.

Find It: All Hail West Texas (Emperor Jones, 2002)

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