The band snaps wide awake with Clergymen. The album sounds like the sort of surreal dreams the collective must have been having in the time leading up to last month’s release. Clergymen plays like a version of Alice in Wonderland painted in pastel watercolors: bold ideas and bolder actions portrayed by a watchful eye and […]
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Myke Brown — Don’t Forget the Y
He has contributed smart, quick and nimble rhymes on local hip-hop releases for everyone from Josh Sallee to Purple Mouth Bandits. Last year, Brown’s Survival of the Fittest and Summer Daze mixtapes let Oklahoma’s greatest guest spotter shine on his own, but he’s never shined brighter than he does here. In a city surprisingly flushed […]
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Milwaukee blues
An extended vacation hasn’t hurt What Made Milwaukee Famous’ performing prowess in the least, with the indie-rock act returning to form after the first few shows of its current tour, once it shook off the cobwebs. Yet the same can’t be said for everything. “The shows have been great in terms of playing. The attendance […]
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Colin’s calling
The story of Oklahoma City’s Colin Nance is your classic bedroom-project narrative, born from a chance encounter with the music of M83. “I don’t make it a mystery: M83 is huge for me,” Nance said. “A guy in college introduced me … I was listening to Before the Dawn Heals Us, and I was like, […]
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Still swinging, swinging
Tyson Ritter Ten years ago, The All-American Rejects were wide-eyed kids fresh out of Stillwater, just inking a deal to rerelease their self-titled debut album with DreamWorks Records after a limited release through an indie label. The humble pop-rock act had a standout single in “Swing, Swing” on its hands, and the rest is history. […]
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Toby Keith — Hope on the Rocks
For many years, on my late, lamented Colorado-based radio show, Damaged Hearing, whenever I felt like especially annoying the decidedly unpatriotic community-radio audience, I would sing along, loud and proud, to Oklahoma-born Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” Of course, the more I would sing along to the song, the more I […]
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Zorro
Zorro movies always are better in theory than execution, but this is one of the more enjoyable efforts, because for once, the swashbuckling Spanish superhero is interpreted by the Italians. Therefore, the dish has a slight spaghetti-Western flavor. French screen idol Alain Delon (Le Samouraï) gallops into town as Don Diego, only to see his […]
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Times bold
Photo: Doug Schwarz It doesn’t take more than a minute or so into Defining Times’ new record, Separate Tongues, to sense the intimacy, closeness and trust the Oklahoma City alternative band members must feel for one another. You’d think they’d been playing for a decade, not a year and a half. “It’s a brotherhood,” front […]
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Wanda Jackson — Unfinished Business
Here she builds on the success of last year’s The Party Ain’t Over, her collaboration with Jack White, but unlike that effort, this album is raw, spare and constructed to showcase the Oklahoma-born-and-bred Jackson’s prodigious gifts. Ample credit goes to Justin Townes Earle, who produced this 10-song collection of blues, country, gospel and soul covers. […]
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‘Grease’ girl
Although Olivia Newton-John earned her stripes well before starring in 1978’s Grease and released her debut album an entire decade before 1981’s Physical, odds are that when you think of the Australian pop star, you think of one of two things: black hot pants or a leotard. Despite those benchmarks, she has performed nonstop for […]