When S. Reidy released “Abstract Gravity” as a single in the pre-COVID days of 2020, the longhaired, beanie-wearing Norman rapper didn’t know it would become the opening track to his new album. It was intended for a project called Open: Honesty, which he scrapped during the pandemic. The next year, following his well-regarded I Started […]
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Soundcheck: Beau Jennings and The Tigers – Heavy Light
There is so much life in Heavy Light. Musically, Beau Jennings’ band brings layers of bustling energy and bright tones, but it isn’t just that. Life at its fullest is colored with hardship and hope, trial and triumph. Jennings’ songwriting is at the crossroads of these opposing forces. While he sometimes uses these juxtapositions to […]
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Five years later…
In March 2017, my business partner Stephen Tyler and I had a dream to make Tower Theatre a world-class concert venue in the heart of our beloved Uptown 23rd entertainment district. We also had no money, an unfinished building, and an empty calendar. We were under intense pressure to open as soon as possible and […]
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Welcome to Beer City
While the original Beer City was a lawless and short-lived pre-statehood Panhandle town from which Beer City Music Hall took its name, the collective force behind the venue intends to bring the spirit of the town back to life in the form of a new 500-person music venue and survive much longer than the two […]
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YOLO with Yola
Stories abound of how musicians navigated the full-stop nature of the pandemic. For English singer-songwriter Yola, the extended COVID-19 pause gave her a chance to do a deep dive into herself with Stand For Myself, the follow-up album to her critically-acclaimed 2019 debut Walk Through Fire. While her introduction to the public came as a […]
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Family ties
Ciara Brooke and Brody Farrow go together like peanut butter and jelly, milk and cookies, macaroni and cheese. As a two-person brother/sister band, they are snack-size compared to some music groups, but for a new project rooted in sibling camaraderie, there is no need for a third ingredient. “You’d think we were twins,” said Brooke, […]
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Soundcheck: Jason Scott and The High Heat — Castle Rock
Castle Rock knows it’s amazing. Filled to the brim with crafty songwriting and smart arrangements, it could dazzle. It could toot its horn, but it doesn’t. Will fresh listeners catch Jason Scott’s play on words describing a punchdrunk time clock in opening track “Quittin’ Time”? Will they follow that the “six ideas in rotation” on […]
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Happily ever after
Most people go on honeymoons, but the founders of the Honeymoon Rock Fest are bringing the honeymoon to themselves. The festival’s founder will be wedding her husband on March 17, the day the three-day event kicks off. A who’s who of 90s mainstream rock acts, the festival runs March 18 – 20 at Remington Park. […]
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Soundcheck: Husbands – Full-On Monet
Full-On Monet secretly may be one of the most prophetic releases of the year. Though it comes from writing sessions during the pandemic onslaught of 2020, its reflections on escapism are perhaps even more relevant in 2022. As society anxiously pushes into a hopeful future, the choices and overtones of the past refuse to evaporate. […]
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Sharpening his axe
“I would say my grandpa got me into woodworking,” Chase Jenkins said. “He built my sister and me toy boxes and two story playhouses when we were young, along with many other small projects. A lot of my first wood tools came from him.” Jenkins comprises the one-man operation that is Moonsaw Guitars, an ultra-boutique […]