Flock of Pigs 10 p.m. Aug. 31 Opolis 113 N. Crawford Ave., Norman opolis.org 405-673-4931 $12-$15 The shaggy college party band Flock of Pigs met at University of Oklahoma, played their first show at Norman Music Festival in 2016 and spent the ensuing years picking up sounds just as quickly as they put them down. […]
Matt Carney
Posted inArts & Culture
Get physical
Look inside and you’ll find what appear to be monster truck tires, loads of barbells, Olympic gymnastics-type rings hanging from the ceiling, and whiteboards with various workouts, goals, and records scribbled on them. You’ll see curiously few bench presses and not a single treadmill anywhere. Your neighborhood Y, this ain’t. “It’s not like going to […]
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The Visible Man — Chuck Klosterman
While both are after larger, more unsettling truths that don’t readily make for such conventional fiction, Visible Man remains pretty compelling stuff, largely thanks to Klosterman’s incisive, humorous prose and his pointed criticisms on human social behavior in a heavily mediated age. The book’s plot hinges on a Philip K. Dick-type premise, with the evermeta […]
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Vesper recipe
With two albums surveying themes of hope, redemption in Jesus, and supernatural healing to their name, it’s no surprise that The Vespers are a band of Christians. But are they a Christian band? A closer look at the college-aged siblings’ output and business acumen suggests they’re aiming for the former. “When we got together, we […]
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May the Schwarz be with you
When it comes to being in-the-know in music scenes, photographers are some of the most connected, hardworking folks around, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a guy more liked and in demand by up-and-coming Oklahoma City bands than Doug Schwarz. On any given night, you’re likely to spot him at shows, using his Nikons to […]
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It’s who you know
Scott Booker and Ben Folds Matt Carney “Brian Eno sent that over for Booker,” assured a tall, bearded man monitoring the space, in which five music industry professionals — whose experience ran the gamut from big-name booking agent to major-scale event production — were in conference with inquisitive students of ACM@UCO, aka the School of […]
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Ted, white and blue
Propelled by double entendres and hot guitar licks, Detroit rock institution Ted Nugent’s still cruising on a three-decade schtick worth more than 30 million records sold and 6,000 shows performed. On paper, the Motor City Madman’s career is as mind-boggling as the high-fret theatrics his 63-year-old fingers continue performing. A run from 1975 to 1977 […]
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JD McPherson — Signs & Signifiers
Producer Jimmy Sutton’s precise attention to past details is Mad Men–esque in its re-creation of rockabilly guitar tones, plunking upright jazz bass, and the way it captures Jonathan Doyle’s tenor sax and McPherson’s voice, which is the kind of durable instrument that made an army of slick-haired, suit-wearing bandleaders famous in the 1950s. It’s more […]
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Prehistoric powerhouse
Mastodon is great at naming things. Now touring behind its fifth album, The Hunter, Atlanta’s reigning prog-metal act stomped its way to critical-darling status by virtue of more than just formidable song sorcery. One can feel writers’ glee by reading reviews of the band’s sludgy, heady, unrelenting approach to rock that manifests in album titles […]
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Giving them hell
You’ve heard The All-American Rejects’ mythology before. Talented small-town Stillwater high schoolers’ album gets scooped from the trash by a record label intern: music videos, hit singles, major-label deals, high-grossing worldwide tours and dalliances with celebrities ensue. In short, all the stuff that constitutes the first half of an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music: […]