Flogging Molly are celebrating their first quarter century as a band by heading out on a headlining tour to support their new album, Anthem. Singer/guitarist Dave King and fiddle player (and future wife) Bridget Regan formed the band and, 25 years later, having survived the pandemic, these veteran Irish rockers are ready to roll into […]
Music Features
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Co-op makes the dream pop
“I don’t know that any one of us could be doing this ourselves,” Sarah Reid said. As a music scene mainstay, kitchen worker, and part-time venue booker, Reid knows as well as anyone about the behind-the-scenes hustle that goes into assuring that musicians have a stage and a community in Norman, and it’s only been […]
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Label makers
For a couple generations of musicians raised on brutal public disputes, scene veteran horror stories, and way too many episodes of Behind the Music, it’s often felt like record labels were the enemy. In an age loaded with hyper-indie sentiment and a prevailing DIY mentality bolstered by social media and YouTube, the question, “Why do […]
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Alien invasion
In the decade since St. Paul & the Broken Bones came out of Birmingham, Ala., the eight-piece outfit has made a name for itself as a horn-driven neo-soul act fronted by singer and namesake Paul Janeway. And while the pandemic kept Janeway and company from touring, the creative juices continue to flow. The result is […]
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Suave Stiles
“I can hold a mean grudge,” Ace Stiles said. The 18-year-old Tulsa singer-songwriter has seen some rejection. While that may not be a rare experience for most young adults, few can say they’ve been turned down in front of millions of people. Stiles progressed to the televised audition rounds of American Idol’s 19th season. Despite […]
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For the record
It might not be the same iconic Double Stop Fiddle Shop that stood as a cornerstone of Americana for a quarter century, but the spirit of Byron Berline filled the music hall on a Saturday night in November. The Hunt Brothers Band — now the shop’s house band — recorded a live performance there which […]
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Machine learning
Nathan Wright worries about technology. The social media plague corrupting our brains. The cold, impersonal algorithms dictating our daily lives. Even the recent pushes into AI-generated art. But as a musical artist in the modernized world, you either figure out how to embrace it or you get crushed beneath the wheels. “There’s a sort of […]
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Strange days
“There are times when I’m just like ‘Oklahoma, I love you,’” Bartees Strange said from Washington D.C. He’s been reminiscing about cheap Norman apartment complexes, sadly departed OKC indie venues and the surprising wealth of musical styles and identities in the local scenes, but it was a mention of Oklahoma’s pink evening skies that got […]
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Ornamental orchestration
Last year’s version of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s annual holiday tour was an outing unlike any other for everyone involved in bringing the visually spectacular concerts to audiences across the United States. On the one hand, coming off of 2020, a year in which the TSO tour could not happen because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was […]
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Surprise landing
When Jess Haney was asked to join Rainbow Kitten Surprise while the band members were in college at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, he certainly wasn’t thinking it would be a long-term commitment. In fact, as commitments go, it was as minimal as it gets. “I got into the band through Ethan,” Haney said, […]