Tulsa-based jazz band Harmonious Monk is spreading the good vibes of God, Miles Davis and the hippie nature of wonderment. “When we play, what is most important is that we are brothers sharing time and thoughts,” explained drummer Andrew Owen Bones. “Jazz might crawl up inside itself like a Gollum to speak about nothing […]
Music
Posted inMusic
OKC’s The Stringents rock out with classical instruments
While artists such as Elvis Costello and Sting recently have dabbled in classical music, four classically trained Oklahoma City musicians have joined forces to form what they call a “rock string quartet.” The brainchild of longtime friends Sarah Wilhite and Jenn Mills, The Stringents came to life in 2006 and quickly began winning over […]
Posted inMusic
Norman’s Syke! covers Eighties rock classics
Even if it is a tongue-in-cheek Eighties cover band, Syke! is an act to be taken seriously. “It was like lots of other bands that ever start: It was everybody sitting around and drinking,” said drummer Doyle Dodd. COVERING BASESThe only influence the band collectively could agree upon was The Cars, but singer […]
Posted inMusic
Norman venue Studio 360 hopes metal music is here to stay
Studio 360 is Norman’s home for metal: grindcore, death metal, heavy metal, black metal, thrash and anything heavy enough to which one can start a bar brawl. Originally doubling as a private-party venue and recording studio, Studio 360 became a venue when co-owner Vance Phillips recruited Ryk Weston to promote and book bands heavy […]
Posted inMusic
DJ Clue?-The Professional Pt. 3
onal Pt. 3,” even he’s not so sure, relying on guest stars (Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Nas, et al.) for each of his album’s 18 tracks. This head-on collision of identity yields a real crisis: one of adhesion. There’s a lot of anger brewing here, but the tracks render much of it superficial. Numbers meant […]
Posted inMusic
17 Pygmies-13 Black Birds
Trakwerx 17 Pygmies have been away for 17 years, but the 10-member 2006 version of the California consortium has returned younger than yesterday to produce its best work yet, a 30-track, two-disc beguiling behemoth. Even if you discount the fact that disc two is 13 versions of the same song, done in wildly differing ways […]
Posted inMusic
Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass/Various artists-Whipped Cream & Other Delights Re-Whipped
Shout! Factory Every music collection needs at least one cover sporting a model in a Reddi-wip bikini. Chances are, your grandparents have one in the form of Herb Alpert’s classic 1965 album “Whipped Cream & Other Delights.” But a much more revealing one adorns that album’s 40th-anniversary remix collection, appropriately subtitled “Re-Whipped.” While not […]
Posted inMusic
Ghostface Killah-More Fish
Def Jam Scattered Wu-Tang Clan projects are better than none at all. Ghostface Killah’s “Fishscale” was one of 2006’s more accomplished rap records, competing perhaps only with Rhymefest’s “Blue Collar” for the crown of year’s best. Squeaking in at the end of the year, “More Fish” continues the bracing brilliance of “Fishscale,” a paranoid, poetic […]
Posted inMusic
Karen Dalton-In My Own Time
Light in the Attic Records Bob Dylan and Devendra Banhart named her as their favorite singer. Nick Cave lists her among his faves. Enid native Karen Dalton was part of the early-Sixties Greenwich Village folk boom, but played the part of wallflower when it came to recordings, producing only two in her lifetime. Her […]
Posted inMusic
William Orbit-Hello Waveforms
Sanctuary William Orbit is better known for other people’s music than his own. He engineered Madonna’s late-Nineties comeback by producing “Ray of Light,” her Grammy-winning album of plugged-in pop, and when an LP under his own name actually moved units, it was comprised of covers of classical music stalwarts like Beethoven and Barber. It […]