The Americana outfit, led by Natalie Moore Houck and Ryan Houck, captures that unique Oklahoma Red Dirt sound, but in this case, the red is ominously stained crimson and the dirt is ready to be thrown on top of a coffin. This is the soundtrack of Okie-noir pulps and backwoods eulogies, left-for-dead lovers and dying […]
Louis Fowler
Posted inMusic
Got that swing
After making a name for himself in the Oklahoma music scene as a solo act, Kyle Reid returns to the stage with a toe-tappin’, finger-snappin’ brass band. They have crowned themselves the Low Swingin’ Chariots, and it has become a project that Reid can’t believe took him so long to get to. “I saw a […]
Posted inMusic
Straying from the norm
Photo: Doug Seymour Don’t bother asking The Stray Birds how they came up with their beautifully evocative name. Even they’ve forgotten by now. “We were trying to name the project and felt like we should be some kind of bird. Obviously, The Byrds is out,” said Oliver Craven, the band’s jack-of-alltrades. “We travel around a […]
Posted inMusic
Ziggy Stardeath
Throughout rock and roll lore, there are stories of bands breaking away from familial bonds to create identities of their own. However, even though local freakout artists Stardeath and White Dwarfs are closely related to The Flaming Lips — lead singer Dennis Coyne is Wayne Coyne’s nephew — it’s a shadow that the band is more […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Monochromatic masterpieces
As the temperature has dropped and the sky has turned gray above a white, snow-covered ground, wintertime is the perfect time to view a collection like Black and White, according to Janice Mathews-Gordon and Diana Smith, co-curators of In Your Eye Studio and Gallery’s latest exhibition. “We’re in shades of gray. It just seems to […]
Posted inMusic
Jerome-coming
Gregory Jerome is quick to clarify that he’s not a typical rapper — instead a positive, thought-provoking hip-hop artist. He also feels that may be why, since returning to Oklahoma City five years ago after a stint in Nashville, his music has been ignored by the mainstream. “It’s not trendy music,” Jerome said. “It’s just like […]
Posted inMusic
Apocalyptic — Wisdom Mixtape Vol. 1
In 2012, Robbie “Apocalyptic” Carpenter, former member of the legendary OKC rap collective Exodus, released the 20-track underground masterpiece Literary, a collection of sanctified hip-hop that was as rapid-fire with the rhymes as much as he is on fire for his Lord and Savior. It turns out it’s Carpenter’s mission to have the listener believe […]
Posted inMusic
Bottle shock
Photo: Chris J. Zähller To the general public, the current face of country music is dominated by GQ models with chiseled, square jaws who are more proud of their frosted tips and designer Western-wear than their music. But not the outlaws of Norman’s Empty Bottles. Not now, not ever. “As a personal preference, I just […]
Posted inMusic
Soul Williams — Love, Soul: The Musical Letters Collective, Part 1
With a humble swagger and beats that could knock down the walls of Jericho, Williams’ newest album fills the pews with a low-down gospel message that, refreshingly, isn’t afraid to pull out a whip and strike down the false prophets crowding the temples of the holy. For example, the second track, “Revolutionary Minds” — co-written […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kill Your Darlings
Yes, it’s another biopic about the aforementioned famed beat poet—in the past ten years, about five or six movies has been about or featured him as a character—but what makes Kill Your Darlings so different, and infinitely more watchable, is that it’s as big a mishmash of genres as Ginsberg’s words were on the page: we’ve […]