Aka Jesse McDermott, Binns was born in New Mexico, but ended up in Lawton via a baseball scholarship to Cameron University. Although he still lives in Lawton, Oklahoma City is his musical home. “I kind of think of Dewey Binns as kind of a character I’ve created,” he said. “It’s definitely Oklahoma City-based, as far […]
album”
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aDD it up
“I try to balance drawing, graphic design and music. I use each to feed my creativity,” he said. “My first love was art. I’ve been drawing practically my whole life. That turned into a passion for graphic design. I really enjoy being able to express myself through art; it may be through words, pictures or […]
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Skating Polly — Lost Wonderfuls
But it’s not that these girls are so young, or even that they’re so good at such a young age. Rather, what makes Skating Polly — and its sophomore LP, Lost Wonderfuls — such an anomaly is how brazenly Mayo and Bighorse embrace their youth, weaving a playful, seemingly innocuous sense of melody through unabashedly […]
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Who is Is/Is?
Photo: Alexander Uhrich Female-fronted shoegaze outfit armed with a punk-rock sneer and swagger? Raucous ’90s alt-rock revivalists touting surf-rock melodies? Beach House boasting an edge and a litany of distortion pedals? It’s hard to say what Is/Is is, exactly, but the Minneapolis outfit appears to be that way for a reason. “The first songs that […]
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Spyda “the Wise Musician” — Mr. Metaphor
Yes, it’s filled with the typical big-balls braggadocio that has become a hallmark of most hip-hop, but what makes Spyda’s album so refreshing is the way he backs those balls up: He has a sound harder than anything on the radio right now. In a world of punk-ass Tiger Beat tween faves like Drake and […]
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Trading places
Between being a band, helping manage a record label/recording studio and maintaining a full-time day job, time management is crucial. Maybe that’s why Josh Griffin and Jonathan Eldridge — the two-man crew behind Oklahoma City blues-rock outfit The Trading Co. — have taken to writing songs and playing shows at the same time. “We’ve done […]
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No Justice — America’s Son
For the record, the film is a back woods action-revenge thriller starring Kevin Sorbo. That perfectly suits the bluesy-rootsy tune with lines like, “Who you gonna call when it gets rough” and “Where you gonna run when the river runs dry,” sung with a passion that would go great with a couple of roundhouse kicks. […]
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Royal rush
For the guys of the Nashville-based Blacklist Royals, 2012 was a bad year. “2011 was really good for us,” said Nat Rufus, lead singer and guitarist, noting the group was coming off its debut disc and the Warped Tour. “And then 2012 happened. We had all these new songs written and the plan was to […]
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Tony Romanello and the Black Jackets — Pleased to Meet Us
Sure, Romanello doesn’t have the gravitas of a Westerberg and Stinson, but he doesn’t need to. Those guys have already paved the road; let’s just let Tony and the Black Jackets drive on it. “The Way It Goes” is a good intro to the group, and a song I’m sure kills live, with its intonations […]
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Horse Thief — Grow Deep, Grow Wild
Horse Thief is not a psychedelic folk band, like its members want you to believe; the Oklahoma City quintet plays trendy indie pop with some earthy guitar tones and lyrics that occasionally make mention of geography. Self-affixed or otherwise, labels aren’t necessarily indicative of artistic worth, yet framework and context are crucial in determining whether […]