See the video for "Beautiful Day" here.

​Rocks Off does not have children, nor do we anticipate doing so anytime in the forseeable future. Frankly, the thought of being responsible for another living creature around the clock both terrifies and confounds us - just ask our cat, Neko.

However, we have crossed paths with popular Houston children's entertainer Leah White and her band the Magic Mirrors at Discovery Green and Cactus Music from time to time, and cracked a smile or two at their sunny tunes about sprinklers, carpooling and summer camp. So when we heard the Houston Zoo recently adopted White's "Beautiful Day" as its official theme song, we reached out to her for a list of her favorite songs about animals.

Thanks, Leah.

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray

​Courtney Love Is Not Having an Easy Time of It: First, the lawsuit involving Courtney's share of Nirvana's musical rights was settled, most likely for less than she wanted. We have a hard time mustering up any sympathy there, but even we get uncomfortable and sad when we see the desperate, heartbroken tweets Courtney left for her daughter this week on Francis Bean's 18th birthday. Go ahead, have a look.

She starts out with a link to this video, and it just gets more depressing and bizarre from there. Those familiar with Courtney's writing will notice even more typos and misspellings than usual, and it's easy to imagine a disoriented, tear-stained Hole singer breaking down as she frantically cries out for some kind of acknowledgement from her daughter through one of the only avenues she has left: Twitter.

​In February 1928, a man named Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who would be 120 years old today, published a short story to little acclaim called The Call of Cthulhu. A horror story written in a narrative style, the tale investigates a secret cult that worships a strange, mad star god named Cthulhu.

Since then, the squid-headed Cthulhu has gone on to be one of the most influential characters in modern horror, paid homage to by the likes of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Brian Lumley, and has also become a pop culture icon. For instance, he runs for president every year, often with the slogan "This time, why not the greater evil?"

But the place where you find Cthulhu the most is in music, and references to Cthulhu basically fall into three broad categories: Metal, comic, and sheer weirdness. Rocks Off would like to bring to you what we consider to be the top contenders in each of those categories.

​When you are young and exploring all the magic that rock and roll offers, wearing a shirt of your favorite band feels like an act of defiance. You want everyone to know who you support, even if the shirt doesn't fit right or it's faded. We remember a time when kids were getting suspended from school or having to serve detention for wearing Pantera and Marilyn Manson shirts. Or when you would come back to school the day after a big night of concerts and could tell where everyone went.

Rocks Off remembers the night in 2000 Blink-182 played the Woodlands with Bad Religion opening. Everyone came back to school the next day either wearing this garish yellow Blink shirt or the sacrilegious marked-out-cross shirt from Graffin and the crew. The Blink group obviously outnumbered us in the Bad Religion camp. In 2001, we were lost in a dank sea of Creed shirts wearing our brand-new Dropkick Murphys tour shirt.

Sunday afternoon at House of Blues (2-9 p.m.), you can take advantage of Texas' tax-free weekend and load up on all your favorite band merch at the venue's first-ever "The Great Rock 'N' Roll Sample Sale" in the music hall. From what we have seen, it should be a pretty wallet-lightening afternoon, with up to 60 percent off merch-booth prices - or even beyond - and no pesky sales tax.

Rocks Off collected the most iconic rock and roll shirts we could think of, but is pretty sure we forgot a few. Which ones?

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray

Gozer has designs on the Galleria.

​Rice University and the University of Houston have reached a deal to convert KTRU into a 24-hour white-noise station to help our city's insomniacs. Fitzgerald's was just bought out by the guys who made Mango's a viable venue for the first time since its days as The Oven.

It seems a lot of Houston properties are changing hands these days. What's next? Thanks to our vast underground network of spies, Rocks Off has received early warning of several upcoming ownership transfers around the Bayou City.

• Dean's Credit Clothing has been purchased by the Value Village chain and will re-open as such some time next year. Bands will still be encouraged to play the venue, albeit from a small riser in the corner by the cracked dinnerware and old Atari games.
• By October, Feast will be a Kenny Rogers Roasters franchise. No word yet on the luminosity of their neon sign.
• KUHT has been bought by Ted Turner and will be showing movies made before the Great Depression. Fans of Carole Lombard and Frederic March, take heart! Also, take your heart medicine.
More >>

​There has not been, nor will there be, a rap album from Houston this year as entangled in storylines and ramifications as Trae's Can't Ban Tha Truth. Not even if he somehow manages to release The Truth, the LP that was supposed to usher him into the national spotlight but was pushed aside as The Ban took hold of all of his attention.

CBTT is considerably more than just an album taking shots at The Box - it is that, though. The Ban has effectively altered the trajectory of not only Trae's career, but also his entire outlook, which will have, and is already having, resounding effects on his music. This album represents that shift with a strange, unreserved enthusiasm. It is a marker in Houston hip-hop history.

Trae has always been intuitive and shrewd; you don't get to the position he is in now - effectively able to provide for handfuls of people despite a limited education and a snowstorm of hardship hurdles - without being that. And after being able to see the resulting effects of The Ban (i.e. how loyalty does not translate well to rap, especially in a market as insular as the South), those characteristics have become hyper-magnified. That's what drives Can't Ban Tha Truth.

Hit the jump for the notes from the album.

Photos by Marc Brubaker

Former KTRU station manager Tag Borland

​"Your frequency is gone."

It was a statement that certainly didn't make Rice alum and former KTRU Station Manager Tag Borland any friends on Thursday evening. But his pragmatic outlook is probably the most important point of view brought up at Thursday evening's Battle Plan meeting of the Save KTRU movement in the Rice Media Center.

The night started similar enough to Tuesday's meeting, with a cluster of around 70 KTRU-loving folk anticipating the forthcoming words when current DJ Vincent Capurso stood up with a microphone.

"We're all here to try and answer one question - how do we kill Superman?" said Capurso before settling into the serious matter at hand: Blocking of the sale of KTRU's transmitter and broadcast frequency by Rice University to the University of Houston System.

His attempt to break the ice via humor, however, seemed foreboding, with everyone in the room acknowledging that the chances of winning this fight are slim at best. The administrations of both Rice and the University of Houston have agreed to the deal, which is currently pending paperwork and, following the mandatory 30-day period for public comment, FCC approval.

Photos by Brittanie Shey

Fat Tony: Houston's Hot.

​For more pictures from Thursday's Reduxion, see our slideshow here.

What if we threw a free show and nobody showed up?

Luckily, Rocks Off did not have to find that out at our first Reduxion at Walter's on Washington Thursday night. Instead, we found out that the Kinks never age (not in Young Girls' hands), Fat Tony is a fucking star no matter how loosely he interprets the Too Short catalog and it's best to duck if The Burden is onstage, whether they're playing Black Flag songs or their own.

All in all, for a test run, Thursday turned out pretty damn well, if we say so ourselves. But then, Rocks Off did put on the show. Instead of a review, then, we'll just show you a few photos and invite everyone out to our next one, September 23 back at Walter's. Performers and performees to be announced soon.

Every day Rocks Off trolls the tubes of you in search of videos to share. If you have something that you think deserves to be video of the day, send a link to jef_rouner at yahoo dot com.

​Now, your daily VJ has been told by the nice people whose checks pay for his daughter's daycare that he needs to stop using the daily video as a political soapbox and stick to nut shots and songs about cat buttholes.

But this guy...

Trade Martin is one of those incredibly talented guys whose contribution to music is often invisible. Nonetheless, he's been quietly producing, writing, arranging and in some cases playing every instrument on backing tracks since the 1950s, and has a Grammy for his work with B. B. King. He's sort of an unevolved Pokemon version of Quincy Jones.

Why all that stellar talent has been put to waste writing a song extolling just how dangerous it would be to let a religious group build a community center a few blocks from where an unconnected group of insane terrorists committed an unspeakable tragedy is utterly beyond us. It's not even a good song.

​Tomorrow night at 2016 Mainstage, Houston gets to relive its (our?) dark white-rap past when Dallas native Vanilla Ice hits the stage at the venue formerly known Sammy's On Main.

Yes, that Vanilla Ice, from our haughty neighbors to the north who can do no wrong in the eyes of Texas Monthly. Vanilla Ice, who we hear is a stand-up dude, is one of Big D's greatest and most infamous musical exports. It's like Houston and the newly indicted Roger Clemens.

As far as our cities go, we both have plenty of modern homegrown music to crow about. Dallas has the mighty Pantera, Reverend Horton Heat, Meat Loaf, Dixie Chicks, Erykah Badu, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Jonathan Tyler and Edie Brickell. Plus they adopted Blue October, and we all know how that turned out.

As it stands, Houston gets the longer end of the hip-hop stick. The Dallas Observer (hey Pete!) can talk all they want, but in the end "Stanky Legg"ers the G-Spot Boyz, The D.O.C. and some other tagalongs can't really stand up next to Slim Thug, Bun B, the Geto Boys, Paul Wall, Lil' Keke, Mike Jones, Fat Tony, Devin The Dude, Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Pimp C, Z-Ro, Lil' Flip... we should probably just stop. OK, and Trae too. Chingo Bling.