When Tallows’ two-song demo surfaced on their Bandcamp site last November, expectations mounted in anticipation for a proper full-length. This was understandable, given the promise exhibited by these four fresh-faced locals on both “Soft Water” and “Small Talk” (the aforementioned demo), songs that were staggering in their conceptual ambition. Nine months later, we have Memory […]
Zach Hale
Posted inMusic
Bone density
Bone marrow is a soft and spongy substance, yet it’s the innermost element of the human construct, vital to our existence as a sustainable and adaptable species. Without it, our bodies would succumb to even the most innocuous threat. Likewise, Tallows’ music is so constructed: robust with instrumental depth and conceptual assertion. There’s also a […]
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My name is ____
Cosmostanza “We didn’t know what to call our band. We had a few ideas — although nothing was really sticking — but we both had a common love for Seinfeld. Then it hit me, and I envisioned George Costanza’s head in space. The name came from there, Cosmostanza. I called Raney (Aboud, bandmate) on the […]
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Pony up
Like a lot of local musicians, Steven Battles has grazed the floors of Norman’s Opolis for as long as he can remember. The Pink Pony ringleader has seen countless musicians at the venue, even cutting his teeth as a doorman at one point. But no matter how vital the place has been in the booking […]
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Bowlsey — Sleepy Weather
In a weird way, it does. The budding Oklahoma City trio released Sleepy Weather — a five-song demo of sorts — just a month after the band’s conception, each track abstaining from any semblance of formula. With a range of influences spanning from sultry lounge and folk jangles to Adult Swim hip-hop and chilled electronica, […]
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Smith and lesson
Who is Frank Smith? According to Wikipedia, there are dozens of them, ranging from English footballers to daytime soap characters. In musical terms, however, Frank Smith isn’t any one person; he’s five of them. The Austin, Texas-based alt-country project — fronted by Aaron Sinclair — was, in a past life, a band out of Boston […]
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Western Residents — Sunlit Nights
Western Residents are an anomaly in that their first release, the earnestly delivered and judiciously crafted Sunlit Nights, sounds like the musical equivalent of a tattered wool blazer. They wear it well. The Oklahoma City outfit has existed in some form or fashion for more than a decade, undergoing a bevy of name changes and […]
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Huff stuff
New Fumes isn’t technically a local act. However, one gets the feeling this is its home away from home, as the Dallas-based experimental brainchild of Daniel Huffman returns to Opolis this Friday. “I’ve lived all over the metroplex,” Huffman said. “Now I feel like half the time I live in Oklahoma City.”It started in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
RED 2
Its inevitable successor, RED 2 (the acronym stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” per the comic-book source material), is, instead, a caricature of a caricature, one that revels in its lack of substance to the point of phlegmatic disinterest. The film revisits retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis, A Good Day to Die Hard), who, […]
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Music Made Me: Chris Harris
The Cure, Disintegration (1989) This record was released when I was 15, but I don’t really remember listening to it a lot when it came out. I started playing guitar when I was 17, and it was probably sometime around 19 that I revisited it and realized that my guitar playing was subconsciously influenced by […]