But that doesn’t mean you have to lock yourself into your homemade bomb shelter until David Stern starts waving his little, white flag. Climb the stairs and click on the TV, at the very least. We promise there’s stuff to do this fall besides mourning the Thunder. —Gotta get that fix? There’s a certain, extremely […]
Matt Carney
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Stoney LaRue — Velvet
The song opens Edmond resident Stoney LaRue’s second studio full-length, “Velvet,” six years after “The Red Dirt Album.” At times, LaRue and his band (which features CMA favorite Randy Scruggs on guitar) kid themselves with the limited singer’s range, but they really nail the dark, smooth feeling suggested by the title, with soft-rock guitar fills […]
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Math test
The clouds menaced Tulsa’s Brady Street Block Party in August, eventually spawning fat droplets of rain spread around by Oklahoma’s signature winds. Suddenly, Mutemath drummer Darren King feared the worst. “We were about two minutes away from playing, 111 degrees, sunny. And then all of a sudden, God’s wrath comes through,” King said. “It was […]
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Soundcheck: Beetyman — Underdog
That said, another quality GRP FLY-sporting rapper’s emerged from the fertile Oklahoma City ground that produced Jabee, Josh Sallee and aDDLib. Beetyman hails from the east side, as he informs us on his aptly named debut LP “Underdog,” a record full of optimistic brass samples that surround a genuine, young talent. Per the album title, […]
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Groovin’
Despite their lone, eponymous album release, the churning, heavy rockers known as Caravact boast a surprising wealth of original material. Toss a couple classic covers in with drawnout metallic jams and whatever else the band’s been working on lately, and you’ve got enough music to keep a crowd filled for an afternoon, as bassist/vocalist Nathan […]
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Soundcheck: Junebug Spade — Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Things crackle to life on this short disc, goofily titled “Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” by layering Peter Seay’s great, big, grinning voice over his vintage, red dirt-crunching guitars (reinforced by fellow riffing ace AJ Sadeghi), which lick their way across the opening track, “Aborigine.” “EVOO” makes for a fun, heavily stoned 18 minutes of music, […]
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Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
So much of the 21-year-old’s third LP, “A Creature I Don’t Know,” comes in styles more nuanced and technically difficult to perform than pure, simple folk, while it simultaneously avoids lazily dipping into other stylistic offshoots for guidance or song structure. Stories are told here in country, British folk, American folk and plenty of other […]
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Wilco – The Whole Love
The latter eschews much of that melody for a grittier rock and prog sound, and a wider thematic range, lyrically. Linking the two is the band’s universally beloved and critically lauded 2002 opus, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but, save for Jeff Tweedy’s most devout, wide-eyed followers, few find themselves with an equal appreciation for both albums. […]
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Kashing in
Tim Kasher writes songs the way any author of good fiction tells a story. After first establishing a base within his own experiences, he exaggerates and embellishes, fabricates and reimagines until a good song manifests. Not always does the character closely resemble the singer, but even those closest to him can’t tell you for certain. […]
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Soundcheck: ‘This Machine’
Well, yeah, he did. But his legacy carries on well after Huntington’s disease claimed his body on Oct. 3, 1967, and not just in the folk genre he mastered. His legacy is one that was hell-bent on tearing down authoritarianism and replacing it with tolerance and understanding. “Woody was a social conscience as much as […]