Just a few years removed from high school, Joel Parks, Lucas Gillette and Tremaine Wade — the guys behind Oklahoma alternative trio Ripple Green — have already devoted ten years of time into what started as a childhood diversion, now turned a full-fledged obsession. “It was a youthful drive to start playing music,” guitarist Parks […]
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Skin-deep
As John Lennon so perfectly put it, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Oklahoma singer-songwriter Sherree Chamberlain knows this all too well. Back in late 2011, she successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund what would be her second full-length album, released in the first half of 2012. Two […]
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Scream queen
Photo: Christopher Patrick Ernst Marissa Paternoster, leader of Screaming Females, has a message for all would-be rock journalists out there: actually listen to their music before comparing them to other female-fronted rock bands in an attempt to take a shortcut. “When we first started playing, critics would often compare us to Sleater-Kinney, a band that […]
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Home cookin’
In July, she helped her dad raise nearly $2 million for the United Way of Central Oklahoma’s May Tornadoes Relief Fund. She performed for 60,000 people in Norman and with a lineup that included Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson, Trisha Yearwood and, of course, her daddy, Toby Keith. An Oklahoma native, her family has roots here […]
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A “Phresh” performance
Although apparently meeting expectations with crowd-pleasing hits like “Duffle Bag Boy,” “Birthday Song” and “I’m Different,” his set was little more than him shouting lyrics into the mic; yelling, “Say what?!” for no apparent reason; taking gratuitous bows; and occasionally delivering a few lines of actual rap that made the listener wonder if maybe he […]
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Green with envy
It has been a long, winding road for country singer Pat Green, which might explain his recent departure off the beaten path. Green got his start playing in the honky-tonks across the Lone Star State while a student at Texas Tech University, eventually receiving the attention of Willie Nelson and, soon after, the figureheads of […]
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American Experience offers warts-and-all portrait of controversial president JFK
bY Dean robbins I’m powerless to resist a documentary about John F. Kennedy. Though I’m well aware of the late president’s faults, I’m drawn in by his charisma every time. I cheer his triumphs and bemoan his tragedies. And I always respond to images of the assassination as if I’m seeing them for the first […]
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Somerset West — Black Cloud
Coming off a lengthy hiatus, the band’s passionate take on rock music (lining up neatly alongside acts like Brand New, Taking Back Sunday and Manchester Orchestra) is back in vogue, thanks to the “emo revival” now in full swing. Black Cloud brings most of the same touchstones found in its 2010 release, The Golden Land, […]
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Tonk-adile Dundee
Even with the rise of such Aussie superstars as Keith Urban, the country music scene down under is still a burgeoning one. It was for this reason that Tasmania native Audrey Auld made the move to Nashville a decade ago and finally found her niche. “I’ve lived in America 10 years now, and I think […]
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Blades of gory
As Austin outfit The Sword would tell it, it’s a good time to be a heavy metal band. “People are finally trying some different stuff in heavy metal and hard rock,” frontman J.D. Cronise said. “All too often, bands rely on the traditional way … but traditional metal is funny to me because it’s a […]