Punk rock’s Riverboat Gamblers are something to behold. Singer Mike Wiebe is a feral animal stalking the stage, jumping into the crowd and climbing any available rafters, exposed piping or speaker cabinets while his bandmates rip through high-energy, melodically charged garage sound. They’ve built a reputation for furious performances, but their LPs have inconsistently captured […]
The Conservatory
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Hot wax
Charlie’s Jazz and R&B5114 Classen Circle Charlie’s is famous for not only for its wonderful selection of hard-to-find LPs, CDs and tapes, but for the lively owner and namesake. Charlie makes soul, blues and jazz the focus here, with plenty of rare pieces hidden away. meeting him is a must, and make sure to ask […]
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MilkDrive — Road from Home
Not good, not great, just there. MilkDrive’s “Road from Home” is an almost totally inoffensive release, but it doesn’t shine that brightly, either. Falling neatly into the newly hip folk/bluegrass genre, the group cranks out tunes that lean more toward the Nickel Creek bluegrass end of the spectrum than the Avett Brothers’ pop side. I […]
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Wonder boys
Pop punk’s The Wonder Years — whose name definitely didn’t come from the television show — spent those years in the ’90s, the heyday of family-friendly punk bands like New Found Glory and The Ataris. “We hit the era of moving past your parents’ music to your own in the ’90s, so it was stuff […]
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‘Gossip’ grrl
Who would have expected this from Cindy Lou Who? Child star and current “Gossip Girl” actress Taylor Momsen has come a long way from the 2000 film “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Although no one else saw her rock transformation coming, she always did. “Rock ’n’ roll is what I grew up with. It’s what […]
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Hop, skip and a jump
Garage punk’s rabbit-masked Nobunny hops into The Conservatory on Saturday night for a return gig that he had no intention of making. Local Nobunny fan Clint McEwen noticed something wasn’t right when the Oakland, Calif.-based act’s winter tour dates were posted on Twitter recently: no Oklahoma City stop. This irked him, because he had seen […]
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The Walkmen, Peelander-Z to headline Norman Music Festival 4
According to Holly Jones, NMF publicity chair, the approximately 150 local bands playing the festival will be announced in the next week. In all, some 200 musicians will perform on 12 stages. The festival coordinators are playing coy with the rest of the main stage, as well as the headliner of the second stage. “We’ll […]