One look at the artists featured on Woody Guthrie at 100!: Live at the Kennedy Center — a concert album/DVD recorded on what would have been his 100th birthday — and his far-reaching impact is clear. Who else could influence both Old Crow Medicine Show and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello to the same […]
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Maurice Johnson — Peace, Love & Jazz
“Hello My Brother” has a sweet flute interlude that, contrary to the title, leaves me wanting to say, “Hello, my lover,” as I lay her down on a down-filled bed. The Spanish-flavored “A Taste of the Sun” follows this idea up nicely with an aural frolic on a secluded Mexican beach, if only to […]
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Another Round — Just Walk Away
Norman band Another Round’s latest album, Just Walk Away, could be used on the next five National Guard ads, and in no way do I mean that as an insult. When I see those commercials, I admit to rocking out and all but walking out to sign up and defend my country. With impassioned vocals, […]
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Takeoff Eyeslow — The Prescription
So if Kanye wants to go off on his Alan Vega/Suicide jag, let him. We have a homegrown replacement right here in Takeoff Eyeslow, dropping an album that is a better follow-up to Graduation than anything West has done since. On The Prescription, the Norman rapper exudes sleepy passion. The first track, “Papa Robert,” doesn’t […]
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Full steam ahead
Photo: Tess Baez Seventeen years is a long time for anyone. For a rock band, it’s an eternity. Yet things haven’t gotten stale over the course of Traindodge’s nearly two decades together, thanks in part to a willingness to evolve that finds the Oklahoma City act chugging along as strong and excited today as it […]
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New frontier
Lord Huron Photo: Ben Schneider One gets the feeling that as inspired by Bob Dylan as Lord Huron ringleader Ben Schneider probably is, John Wayne might be just as influential. The cinematic compositions harken back to the golden era of Westerns, and even with a dash of Bollywood and stroke of lush, Northern landscapes (a […]
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Kanye West — Yeezus
Ego alone isn’t what makes Mr. West such a fascinating figure; any other schmo with a head his size would be scoffed and discarded as parody. There’s actually a certain degree of legitimacy that keeps his maniacal sense of self-importance from devolving into full-scale megalomania: that Kanye’s vision and production chops are currently unmatched in […]
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Superior sound
A five-piece of former “Motherbitches” gathered around its communal kitchen table on a Monday afternoon, indulging in stories of drunken fan squabbles, Oklahoma City’s finicky music scene and the romance that started it all six years ago. Now known as Em and the MotherSuperiors, the psychedelic soul outlet opted to drop “Motherbitches” from its name […]
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Sweet slumber
Adam Miller, the brains behind the Oklahoma City-based project This Is Sleep, doesn’t just embrace the oncedormant science of computer-based production; he revels in it. “There is a magic, no doubt, that comes with bands,” Miller said. “But as technology rises, the evolution of music and new kinds of music go along with that, it’s […]
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Beau bridges
Beau Mansfield Photo: Kianoosh Moeini Beau Mansfield is a lot of things, but at his heart, he’s a piano man. The Norman native has toured in comedy improv groups, directed music for theatrical productions and become a momentary viral star in Holland, but at the core of everything is Mansfield’s lifelong love affair with the […]