Rocks Off received a heads up in the past hour that Frank Davis is missing. Davis, whose ties to the Houston music business go back to Walt Andrus and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, suffers from Alzheimer's. As shown above, a police report has been filed.

Rocks Off's sister blog Art Attack interviewed Davis in September 2010, and filled in some more background information.

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Photos by Ivan Guzman

Angel Olsen, Lionlimb
Fitzgerald's
November 5, 2014

Angel Olsen has a gaze so piercing that watching her even from far away makes you feel like you are being stared down by a friend, a lover, and an enemy all at the same time. Watching her perform, and I mean really watching her, can almost feel like you are looking way down into the depths of her soul.

If you were to listen to her debut full-length Half Way Home or her 2014 effort Burn Your Fire For No Witness alone in your room at night with headphones on, you're sure to get the same chilling feeling. The Missouri-based singer songwriter's defining trait is the ability to apply her hushed, fragile voice on top of any background music she pleases and still make the deep, longing emotion in her voice the thing that stands out.

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Photo by Marco Torres

Welcome back, 2012

The Weather
Sure it makes me sound like a curmudgeon, but I hate summer festivals. Oh sure, the music is great, but the heat, good lord the heat. It's just exhausting. Even ACL runs the risk of getting mighty uncomfortable if October decides not to play nice.

By the time November rolls around, though, even the warmest days are pleasant and the cooler days are just an excuse to wear those awesome hoodies you've been keeping in storage.

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Ends Sunday at 2:30 p.m....

There are some diorama-worthy candidates among the modern architectural masterpieces which have been erected in Houston.

The Astrodome. Johnson Space Center. The Beer Can House. All are perennial subjects and all are, at least for the short term, behind the current, most bitchin' leader of the pack, the "Lola's Ladies' Crapper" diorama.

Yes, a miniature version of the filth-laden ladies' room located in Lola's Depot has been lovingly reconstructed and handcrafted as the most curious of the kitschy arts. And it can be all yours.

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Photo by Marco Torres

Donnie Houston, center, talks to D-Solo of My20's Street Flava late-night program.

To a small extent, Houston's musical sound jumps around time periods. Cultures. Genres. The spastic rhythm of zydeco mixes like watercolors when met with the hard bass guitars and screeching, amplified wails of rock. The blues drones on in sorrowful hints and glimpses of emotional reprieve. And Houston's rap scene?

A gumbo of all of the above.

Without the blues in some form or fashion, the backbone of the production that leaves the walls of so many different studios in the city from Wire Road to iMix and 713 wouldn't exist. Without that trudging thought of moving whether it be in large, loud spaces like an 808 drum or driving the point home in a Southern Baptist sort of way with an organ or dark piano melody, Houston rap wouldn't sound the way it does.

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Welcome to Ask Willie D, Rocks Off's advice column where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, "funny, serious or unpredictable." Something on your mind? Ask Willie D!

Photo by Mario Jaramillo

THE GUY I LIKE IS A PLAYER

Dear Willie D:

For the past month I have been going out with a guy who is a known player. A part of me wants to surrender to him, but other parts of me remain reserved so that my feeling doesn't get hurt. How do I channel my emotions with this man?

Channeling Emotions:

The thing about hooking up with a player is a player will always feel entitled to play the field because you met him under those conditions. Have fun and enjoy his company if you must, but any type of happily-ever-after relationship is likely doomed. I feel for you because once your heart gets invested in a relationship it's hard to slam on the brakes and back up. But it beats running over something, or worse -- getting ran over.

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What? No Stairway? Denied!

Nah, we're totally lying. There's plenty of "Stairway" below, because bitchin' rock riffs are precisely what we're looking for.

Ladies and gentlemen, whip out the Ben-Gay and prepare yourselves for some injuries to your air-guitar arm, because with Deep Purple and Nazareth on this Throwback Thursday list, the burn? It's a'comin'.

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Photos courtesy of KKBQ-FM

The staff of KKBQ onstage during this year's A Day In the Country festival at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion

At some point during this evening's CMA awards in Nashville, one of the presenters will announce Houston's 93Q (92.9 FM) as the 2014 winner of the association's Radio Station of the Year-Major Market division. It's yet another piece of hefty hardware for the Cox Media Group-owned property, whose "Q Morning Zoo" show is also up for Outstanding Morning Show-Major Market for the team of Kevin Kline, Erica Rico and Tim Tuttle.

But that's not all. KKBQ is also coming away from this year's Marconi Radio Awards, given by the National Association of Broadcasters, with its second trophy in a row -- and in a much broader category this year. In 2013 the station won for Country Station of the Year, but this year graduated to Major Market Station of the Year, an honor that covers all formats. Within the industry, KKBQ is increasingly being recognized as a model of how to run a successful radio station.

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Photos by Jim Bricker

Legends of the Game: OutKast

The 16th annual Voodoo Music + Arts Experience has come and gone, leaving the rich taste of Hurricanes and filé gumbo in our mouth and the sweet sounds of Foo Fighters, OutKast, Arctic Monkeys and the rest of the festival's stacked lineup.

Taking over New Orleans's City Park every Halloween weekend, Voodoo has become a festival unlike any other. Featuring a diverse set of bands and DJs playing across four unique stages and allowing its patrons the adult playground of the Big Easy during off hours, it has shaped itself into one of today's top-tier music events.

There was no end to quality music over the three days, and only a few minor mishaps (looking at you, Ms. Lauryn Hill...), but some acts were just a little bit better than the rest. There was no shortage of contenders, making this list rather tough to whittle down, but these are the ten best acts of this past weekend's Voodoo Experience.

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Handbook of Texas Online/Texas Historical Foundation

Houston businessman Harold "Pappy" Daily's sons Don and Bud founded Cactus Records in 1975.

In 1952, Houston jukebox operator and record distributor Harold "Pappy" Daily and Jack Starnes, Lefty Frizzell's manager, formed their own record label. A combination of both men's names, the tiny Starday actually began recording operations in Starnes' house in Beaumont and released its first 45, Mary Jo Chelette's "Gee It's Tough To Be 13" b/w "Cat Fishing," in early 1953.

Over the next five years, Starday went from a bedroom operation to one of the most important regional labels in the country. Along the way, it would serve as a regional springboard for the popular new craze known as rockabilly as well as a label noted for its roster of important regional artists and eventual national country stars.

Daily and Starnes released 16 singles in their first year of operation, and seem to have skipped over No. 8 and No. 13, as no information is available on those series numbers. Several of these were by the same artists, as it was not unheard of to release several singles per year to feed the bulldog that is mainstream radio. While only one of the tunes from the first year caused much of a ripple outside the Gulf Coast area, they do give a fascinating representation of the sounds that certainly filled local joints and radio stations, and also offer a measure of how much talent there was in the local market.

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