Houston Music Blog

Don't lie, you know you wanna right-click that shit...

​ In late 1997, a song called "My Own Prison" started burning up modern rock airwaves. The band, Creed, was an earnest sounding rock band with a vocalist who sounded like an overly-polished Eddie Vedder and the music had a steady beat that wasn't that far removed from the grunge that was so gauche earlier in the decade. Even the lyrics seemed a tad scruffy, dealing in religious conflict and familial strife, which are all too universal in any era.

Aaron M. Sprecher

Kaz to Coop: Don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you...

​In news that may well come as a shock to anyone who doesn't follow baseball, Astros manager Cecil Cooper was fired Monday. Coop led Houston to a disappointing 70-79 record, with the final straw coming in the form of last week's road trip, in which the Astros went 0-6 against the equally dismal Reds and Brewers.

But enough with the statistics. Even as we speak, Cooper is packing up his office, and you need suggestions for appropriate songs to blast from your speakers as he trudges to his car one final time. Well, here you go.

Violent Femmes, "Kiss Off": It's unfair but true, Coop: your 171-170 overall record with the Astros will most assuredly "go down on your permanent record." Did we happen to mention that we're [not] impressed?

Two nights ago, while carelessly patrolling the back alleys of the internet, Rocks Off stumbled across Hilary Duff's execrable cover of The Who's "My Generation".

Well, what did you think, YouTube commenters?
​
You sure you're not being too harsh? ​ Yeah... ours too. Someday, when we are in our twilight years, we will think wistfully back to how we lived as teenagers, how we lived as college students, how freely we loved our first loves... and tearfully, we will remember the people we were before we heard Duff sing the sanitized, Disney-friendly lyric "Hope I don't die before I get old". This song has existed for five entire years? And people still find it within themselves to sing at all?

We beg to differ, jerkwad...

​Sadly, it's official: Toby Keith, that big redneck doofus who is always threatening to put his boots up somebody's ass or feuding with the Dixie Chicks, has been declared by Nashville Songwriters Association International the top songwriter/artist OF THE DECADE.

Man, Lonesome Onry and Mean bets Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, among others, are pretty pissed, although none of them will ever say so. You know what they say about Nashville: "Nobody ever says anything bad about anyone ... unless their back is turned."

LOM first learned of Keith's coronation via Jon Byrd's post on Facebook. It didn't take long for the comments to start piling up on Byrd's post, either. Nashville artist Chelle Rose piped in with "now why'd ya have to go and RUIN MY DAMN DAY with that!? i ain't a member of NOTHIN... but i might join a few and start VOTIN.

Er... no comment. OK, maybe one or two...

​In the world of rock writing, there are just some artists' fans that you can't help but fuck with. While you're alternately enamored and disgusted by their chosen obsession, they exert a near religious fanaticism for their fixation of worship, making them all too open for mockery. In the past decade, the increasing omnipresence of the Internet and the advent of American Idol have created a new sub-species of rabid followers who take each barb thrown in the direction of their idol as a personal affront, and release a cluster bomb of hatred back, the likes which is usually reserved for publicly condemned rapists, racists and ex-boyfriends.

Time was you could talk shit about a sub-standard artist and slink by with a handful of letters and maybe a terse e-mail or two from someone of the opposite opinion. But in 2009, you will be blitzed by almost 100 comments damning you to the very depths of Hell, or worse, an open invitation to at least try to see their favorite performer live. Rocks Off surmises that most of the time when these cyber-boot parties go down, it's the work of hawk-eyed trolls continuously Googling the name of their favorite performer in an interminable loop without pause.

It's not always just American Idol alums that boast rabid followings. Oddly enough, the higher echelon of AI winners and runner-ups have a exponentially quieter fanbase, so you probably won't be getting any bloody pig heads in the mail from Kelly Clarkson fans, or even a bag of dead snakes from a gang of crazed Carrie Underwood peeps. It's freaks and geeks like Taylor Hicks and Clay Aiken that have the power behind them with their respective Soul Patrol and Claymate SS troops.

Swoon Alert!

Oh my stars you guys! Are you all sitting down? Really? You wouldn't lie? For serious, OK! Lulz for days!

Warehouse Live and Ticketmaster are running a special this weekend for all of us Soul Patrol devotees. Tickets for what is sure to be a life-changing and heart-melting show this Monday are now buy one get one free! We told you needed to sit down for this, all you Taylormaniacs. If there is anyone you know that hasn't seen Taylor live, give them a hug for me, and then buy them a ticket. No one should go through life not seeing that hunk of man live and on fire.

​We don't always hate John Mayer. No, really. Sometimes dude seems downright likable, like when he's hanging out in the Comedy Cellar in NYC, or releasing self-effacing web videos, or popping up for cavalier, amusing chats with our XM favorites Ron & Fez. Even his Twitter account is worth reading on a regular basis. And who could forget his appearance on Chappelle's Show? We haven't.

But then we hear one of Mayer's songs, and our goodwill instantly evaporates. From the simpering nature of the lyrics to the ultra-diluted, pinch-of-blues pop "rock" they're wrapped in, there isn't a single thing about his music that doesn't irritate the living shit out of us. Is anyone still buying his "lovesick troubadour" act? Does anyone besides the shallowest of pre-teens listen to his lyrics and think, "I relate to this"? And for God's sake, do girls really fall for shit like "Your Body Is a Wonderland"? The old "Nice shoes... wanna fuck?" is more sincere.

Since Mayer sells himself in song as an all-too-sensitive wisp of a soul, we're going to take that at face value and present some artists manlier than John Mayer.

​1. Paolo Nutini: Joining Mayer in the "Largely Impactless Pop-Rock Mostly About Apologies" genre, Nutini is another in a long line of musicians who your girlfriend claims to hate because you hate them, but whose babies she secretly wants to birth. His gentle Scottish warble sends shivers down her spine even while she curses herself.

Don't be judgmental, though; remember, it's mainly due to us men that Paris Hilton ever had a career. Guys in the doghouse, you can score huge brownie points by taking your girl to Nutini's show Friday at Warehouse Live without even being asked.

Finishing Move: Nutini will use his foreign charm to steal huge chunks of Mayer's female fanbase, then coerce one of his converts into poisoning Mayer's morning latte.

Braaaaaaaap!

​That's the sound of us thinking about Taylor Hicks. For the uninitiated, it's a fart noise, meant to denote a lack of candor or warmth. In another case of the Good Lord shitting the bed of mankind, Hicks is coming to Houston next month to play "Teen Angel" (Frankie Valli's role) in Theater Under the Stars' production of Grease at the Hobby Center - which we don't care about, hence the loud flatulence. The experience starts September 8 and runs five days or so; we are currently praying to various pagan deities to conjure a hurricane that week.

Hicks won American Idol in 2006, beating out resident HPOA Katherine McPhee, in one of the most tragic reality-television moments since that tax-evading queen won the first season of Survivor. Never mind the fact that we still do not understand the appeal behind AI or the fact that Americans saw fit to anoint a "special" looking, prematurely gray-haired, karaoke-grade crooner as its "idol." Even our own mother, who is usually easily swayed by pre-recorded canned pop music and bright lights on the television, hates Taylor Hicks. She even went as far to claim that he looks like he is "not all there," which are pretty harsh words from the lady that raised the likes of us.

Last weekend's Stingaree Music Festival was proof that Bolivar is back from the brink.

Need further proof? Check out these video of two Vidorian lovebirds dirty dancing in the beer-scented sea breeze...

Now that's what we like to see down on Crystal Beach: wife-beater shirts, skin-tight jorts and rolls of sinuous back-fat gyrating to the beat.

(Hat-tip to The Bayou and videographer of Vidorian amour "Laurie").

What with Creed reuniting, BuzzFest coming up in a couple of weeks and, hell, maybe even the swine-flu scare - As in: What's worse than coming down with swine flu? A Houston radio that only tunes in 94.5 FM - Rocks Off sure has been thinking a lot about The Buzz lately. Probably too much.

I mean, it's a radio station, which in an age when people stream Pandora on their iPhones - to say nothing of car stereos with iPod plug-in ports - makes it almost as big a media dinosaur as the printed page. The station's advertising sales staff would no doubt agree.

Somebody must like it, though. The most recent Arbitron ratings had The Buzz at No. 3, which, in a market of 5 million people, ain't too shabby. So Rocks Off decided to put The Buzz under the microscope to determine two things: if it truly deserves to be the designated whipping boy of everyone who doesn't think the new Seether song totally shreds, and if that familiar old gripe, "Radio is so much better in other cities," really holds any water.

We're so stoked about Creed reuniting and coming to Houston in September we can hardly contain ourselves. The more we gazed longingly at the cover of Human Clay, the more it inspired us to put together a slideshow of other buzz-killing graphics from heavily tattooed bands who, not so long ago, shared their pain with an entire nation (and still do on 94.5 FM).