Photo: Doug Schwarz With the third anniversary of Oklahoma City outfit Skating Polly coming on the eve of Halloween, things are shaking out how every band dreams it will. The duo recently signed a manager and found a booking agent, and a record deal looks to be inked in the very near future. Its been […]
torrent
Corn’s new crop
Based in Weatherford, Green Corn Revival never has boasted a stable lineup, but even a massive lineup shake-up this past spring put the group on pause. Six months later, the alt-country act is enjoying a bit of a revival itself, and bandleader Jared Deck believes its the finest incarnation yet. Its the trust I have […]
Killing them softly
Photo: Clark Deal Oklahoma Citys Kill the Reflection has come a long way. What began as a trip-hop group in 1999 has morphed into a post-punk band that does moody with the best of them. Heavily indebted to Joy Division and Interpol yet inspired by acts as varied as Deftones, Iggy Pop and Sade […]
The Man Who Created Halloween Irwin Yablans
This self-published paperback is his story emphasis on The Man, not Halloween. The making of that 1978 now-classic movie is only a small part of the autobiography, which covers his entire life. Luckily, Yablans is an engaging storyteller whos full of amusing anecdotes some of which are intentional (John Wayne declaring his wish […]
Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d City
The album, which Lamar labeled as a short film, tells the story of his life as a good kid in the mad city of Compton, Calif. He raps about trying to avoid temptations, including women, drugs, alcohol, violence and revenge. However, even the good kids succumb to temptation from time to time. The disc twists […]
Maximum Conviction
The two Steves one formerly stone cold, the other once hard to kill star as tough-talkin former black-ops partners at a “high-risk extraction” prison thats so “dark military,” the local police don’t even know the place exists. Therefore, the fuzz wont be any help when rogue military man Michael Paré (The Lincoln Lawyer) […]
Freaky Friday
Maybe its too early, but what are you doing New Years Eve? Unless youre Down Under, youre not going to see The Flaming Lips annual New Years Eve Freakout. Its true: Musics favorite weirdoes will ring in 2013 in Australia, but in exchange, theyve conjured up a holiday gift more appropriate than their usual end-of-year […]
Cheap shoots
The notion of genre has become increasingly muddled with each passing decade. As technology progresses, so, too, do the means by which that music is produced. New sounds are born from new methods and ideas, and the traditional framework of a once-pure building block evolves into something completely its own. This is especially true of […]
Reid all about it
Lots of guys get in trouble with their girlfriends for eating in bed. Norman singer-songwriter Kyle Reid was in the doghouse for building cigar-box guitars there. Sawdust would get everywhere, including in my bed, he said. It didnt bother me very much, because the sawdust reminded me of the work I had done that day, […]
Back in black
For rockers Gooding, life as touring musicians isnt just about the sex, drugs and rock n roll. Its also about financial literacy. Wait, what? Isnt it the least rock n roll thing in the world? Shouldnt I be carrying around a guitar and a bottle of Jack? said Gooding, guitarist/singer and unimonikered namesake of the […]
