Music Features

Many Oklahoma music fans have grown used to the state being passed over by big-label rockers. Luckily for fans of garage rockers Hot Hot Heat front man Steve Bays can relate. “We grew up on a little island. It was a good population, but it was hard to get to and expensive for bands to […]

Moviegoers checking out “Spider-Man 3” might hear something strangely familiar. Or familiarly strange. Oklahoma’s The Flaming Lips have contributed an original song, “The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to Be in Love,” to the sound track. The song is spacey, fun and quirky in the typical fashion of the Fearless Freaks ” a punchy digital […]

Umbrellas play gorgeous music that is full and melodic, bordering on orchestral. The band’s latest album, “Illuminare,” was recorded in a defunct comedy club in downtown Tulsa and released by California indie label The Militia Group. The band will finish its current tour up with an all-ages stop Friday at the Opolis in Norman, before […]

Danny Masterson, star of Fox’s long-running sitcom “That 70’s Show,” will DJ on May 9 at the Electro Lounge.   Masterson, aka DJ MomJeans, started DJ’ing in 2000 just for fun, but it eventually turned into a passion.   “I just had a lot of records. I started DJ’ing with a friend at a club. […]

Tuesday’s show at Norman’s Opolis marks the first time playing in Oklahoma for the Miami, Fla., indie pop band The Postmarks.   Yet the band has ties with Flaming Lips manager Scott Booker and the Edmond-based music label he co-founded, World’s Fair.   “We just sort of take each city as it comes along and […]

  Twenty years ago, the most promising young alternative-rock band in the area wasn’t The Flaming Lips. It was the Norman-based Defenestration ” a loud, four-piece ensemble centered around Tyson Meade’s vocals and Todd Walker’s guitar.   At the height of its local popularity, the band self-released a seven-song mini-album, which led to a deal […]

Seattle punk band The Pharmacy  is in the midst of a sprawling tour that will hit around 70 venues coast to coast. They are stopping at the Opolis on the way through, in part to pick up a tourmate, Mickey Reece, the lone gunman of Norman’s El Paso Hot Button. “We met him in Ft. Worth […]

For many local musicians, it’s hard to keep a roof overhead. For Juan Santana, it’s no problem. When he’s not singing with the Mexican folk group Mariachi Orgullo de America or performing his own songs as a solo artist, he’s actually roofing houses. “He’s an amazing guy. He’s done a lot to grow Hispanic music […]