Wednesday 22 May
 
 

IndianGiver — Plafond EP

If you were to peruse the “About” section of IndianGiver’s Facebook page, you’ll notice how the instruments attributed to each of the Oklahoma City band’s five members are described with downright flippancy: Dylan Jordan plays “sticks & animal skins,” while Jazzton Rodriguez earns his keep with “shanties & loud noises,” and so on.
05/22/2013 | Comments 0

Various artists — Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of The Postal Service

Few indie bands have had the impact on current music that The Postal Service has. Even fewer have done so with only one album.
05/15/2013 | Comments 0

Big Worm — Bench All-Stars

Fans of the comedy classic Friday may recognize the name Big Worm, but the Big Worm behind Bench All-Stars is rooted not in South Central L.A., but on the streets of Oklahoma City.
05/08/2013 | Comments 0

Code 22 — Going Soft: The Acoustic Album!

The guys of Oklahoma City’s Code 22 seem like a likable group of fellas. Their latest release, Going Soft: The Acoustic Album!, is likable enough as well — so likable that on first listen, I took its clean, acoustic sound and clear, unstressed vocals as an alternative praise-and-worship band.
05/08/2013 | Comments 0

Eureeka — Polysynthetic Fields

It’s always refreshing to hear music that embraces its own eccentricity, yet presents it in an accessible and meek fashion. Eureeka — the Norman-based duo of Jordan Vargas and Devin Wahl — has tapped into this rarified air on its self-released EP, Polysynthetic Fields.
05/08/2013 | Comments 0
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Urban renewal


Phone the neighbors, wake the kids: Defunct local popsters The Neighborhood reunite for the Norman Music Festival.

Stephen Carradini April 27th, 2011  

The Neighborhood
12:30 a.m. Friday, Norman Music Festival
Opolis, 113 N. Crawford
NormanMusicFestival.com
Free

The Neighborhood has some good neighbors.

The Norman four-piece broke up a couple years ago, easing to a halt after the release of its excellent debut album, “Our Voices Choked with Fireworks.” It wasn’t apparent whether the group would ever play again, as members got busy with other projects, moved to far-off places and got married.

Enter Andy Nunez (Starlight Mints, Opolis) and Trent Bell (Chainsaw Kittens, Bell Labs). It’s at their encouragement that the indie-rockin’ outfit will reconstitute and headline Thursday night’s Norman Music Festival offerings at Opolis.

“Andy and Trent have always been big fans of our music, and they asked us to do it,” said Philip Rice, lead singer and guitarist. “That’s pretty much it.”

Naw, there’s gotta be more to it.

And there is. Drummer Matt Duckworth was at Bell Labs, making a record with another band, when Bell had been asked to curate the stage for the festival.

“We started throwing around ideas of who could play, and I think it was Trent’s idea to do a reunion,” Duckworth said. And since bassist Eric Mai was going to be in town, “why not do a show?”

Apparently, “playing hard to get” is not a part of their arsenal.

It helps that all the personnel will be in one place. Mai will be visiting from his home in California, and Duckworth will be in town with his current band, Stardeath and the White Dwarfs, which plays Friday at Opolis. Rice and Blake Studdard (keys, guitar) have been in Norman all along.

The band promises not only tunes from “Fireworks,” but unreleased material that made several appearances in the few shows before their break. While this will be the first time anyone has heard Neighborhood songs live recently (much less fresh ones), it may not be years before new noise comes from the group’s camp.

“As we’ve gotten together and practiced these songs, we realized there’s a good dozen that we’ve never recorded. And we love the songs,” Duckworth said. “We might get together and do some more recording. We might do some shows, maybe not.”

Added Rice, “I would not be surprised if there are more Neighborhood shows.”

The band is focused on making its wee-small-hours reunion at NMF a top-notch gig for fans old and new. And however the future goes, Duckworth said, it’s gonna be a good time.

“It’s a good excuse to get together with old friends,” he said.

 
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