It’s a brand new 12 months and I do know lots of you might be wishing to recollect 2020 as one thing that didn’t occur. Effectively, it did.
However now it’s 2021 and earlier than shifting on, it’s time to recollect some extra Highlights of 2020 from the world of music, together with in Southwest Oklahoma.
If something was a kick within the pants for reside music followers in 2020, it will be the heavy hiatus to one of many most interesting components of life — attending reside exhibits that includes your favourite musicians.
It began off so robust, too.
Transitioning from eve and into the brand new 12 months, Nacho Kart Does Pantera supplied a neighborhood supergroup tackling the sacred music of the native heavy steel neighborhood. And so they did it with fashion. The lineup: Garrett Glass, vocals; Dakota Hooper, guitar; Francis Balliet, bass; and David Dodson, drums; channelled their heavy steel heroes to placed on a headlining live performance’s price of energy steel from the godfathers of the style. Try this partial twofer with ”Stroll/Common Folks” — https://youtu.be/pbKs8037CNo.
They even broke character by closing the night time with the AC/DC traditional, ”TNT” — https://youtu.be/ysiOSVl31Sc.
Bear in mind, all of the hyperlinks posted within the column will take you on to the music while you go to the web version.
Issues stored trying up when the spouse and I obtained tickets to the Dweezil Zappa “Scorching Rats Dwell! + Different Scorching Stuff 1969” live performance at Oklahoma Metropolis’s Tower Theatre in early-March. I missed out on the chance to catch the late-Frank Zappa in live performance and wasn’t going to overlook this one. It was some of the superb reside performances I’ve seen with its mixture of grasp musicianship and humor. Catch at little style of ”I Have Been In You/Damaged Hearts are for …” — https://youtu.be/qVkOopmfF0o.
The deck was stacked and prepared. Huge time reside exhibits had been lined up for protection, together with Okilly Dokilly, Om, Black Flag at Lawton’s Railhead Saloon, The Mountain Goats, The Growlers, The Black Keys with Gary Clark Jr. and … I finished retaining monitor after that. Greatest laid plans. All I can do is hyperlink the Mountain Goats music that looks as if it was written for 2020, ”This 12 months” — https://youtu.be/ii6kJaGiRaI.
It was all slated to begin domestically in Medication Park with Park Stomp. After which, on March 14, 2020, the pandemic claimed its first pageant, together with shuttering smaller levels for native reside musicians. By summer season, some would reopen however others stay closed even now. Medication Park’s Roots Ball can be the subsequent casualty. However the pageant season returned in July with Rock In The Park and the long-lasting Blues Ball closed out summer season. Park Stomp even made its return in October with most of the unique lineup on the invoice.
You’ve bought to provide it as much as Rodney Whaley in his first 12 months as occasions director. He was in a position to pull issues collectively below some antagonistic circumstances, together with the assistance of a devoted many, as he’ll guarantee you. He earned the title because the ”Actual” MVP award all his personal for this one.
I wished to thank the big variety of the Southwest Oklahoma abilities who didn’t let the dearth of levels in the course of the sequestration maintain them from doing what they do: make music. And so they joined this column and the column’s late-radio present in sharing it just about by being a part of #VirtualSoundemoniumFest. Its aim was to maintain reside music’s blood pumping by way of Fb or different media streams and shared just about. It was hoped that viewers to those occasions would possibly contribute to the performers who had been requested to recollect their favored venues and different native companies harm in the course of the pandemic shutdown. It’s about neighborhood and creativity combining. Civility throughout a disaster, if you’ll.
One of many first to share this imaginative and prescient was Brandynn Dammit. Over the 2 months that adopted, his band Drop Lifeless Dammit carried out three terrific units. Their tackle Mark Lanegan’s ”Phantasmagoria Blues” is unquestionably 2020s ”Greatest Cowl” in my ebook. It was becoming they closed #VirtualSoundemoniumFest to lift cash for Shine On Tattoo. I can’t thank sufficient each native musician who pushed via to maintain reside Southwest Oklahoma made music respiration right here in Southwest Oklahoma. Y’all rock!
You could find performances via the Right this moment’s Greatest Soundemonium Musaic Fb web page: Cody Newby, Cashroh, Richard Clift Jr., No Expertise Hack’s Jacob Slagle, the Scratch Studio Crew of Ray Bordelon, Dave Smith and Ray Miller, Allusion guitarist Tyler Farmer, Dissocial Fury, Caleb McGee, Robbie McMillan, Ciera MacKenzie, 1GCrew, Parlor Trick, Huge Pete Piehnik, Jared Rosin & the Shuffle, Drop Lifeless Dammit, Tripple Menace, Fancy Bump, Ryan Tyler, Dave Laurence, Francis “Franky Livid” Balliet & Household, Bannister Chaava, Jacob Moore, Cotton White, Caleb McGee, David Dodson and Dayton Keel; and the unhealthy boys of Backwash . All these performances are archived on the column/radio present’s Fb web page: https://www.facebook.com/steveoandthescribe/. Key in #VirtualSoundemoniumFest.
I wish to give it as much as all the massive methods performers have pushed via. Being caught within the house studio as an alternative of larger levels might actually name for some unhealthy rock star events of performing out. However go away it to artists to discover a option to be inventive whereas making the most of the most recent know-how.
I’ve written about this following sequence within the Songs for the Sequestration part that’s sprouted over the previous 10 months. It’s actually taken the liberty to make content material and join with individuals to seize my consideration.
After all, a humorousness is a reasonably nice. And when mixed with some incredible musicianship, you’ve bought a winner. At the least that’s the case for Gwarsenio Corridor and Mutoid Man and the recurring YouTube sequence, ”Two Minutes to Late Night time.” Fingers down my selection for ”Greatest Music Factor on the Web.” There are such a lot of cool movies to take a look at.
Taking cues from the self-quarantining occurring, collaborations between a variety of musicians have yielded some superb outcomes. And so they at all times include a smile Try one of many distinctive collaborations that includes Marty Friedman, Corridor, and members of Mastodon, Lucifer and Baroness to remodel Fleetwood Mac’s ”You Make Loving Enjoyable” into one thing else and but the identical — https://youtu.be/zwXt8zdC1cI.
This was a form of spotlight 12 months for me in some respects. It was cool to have the chance to interview two Oklahoma musicians who impressed me a very long time in the past to rise up onto these Oklahoma Metropolis-area and, later, native space levels and comprehend it’s okay to in that second really feel like a “rock star” on this state.
The chance to disclose the story of Tyson Meade over three columns was one thing that couldn’t probably be afforded aside from when reside music went quiet for some time. His is an in depth story to inform. It’s appreciated those that indulged in his story that traveled from the Nineteen Eighties in Defenestration and was adopted by The Chainsaw Kittens, a type of Nineties bands that ought to have been greater. From Norman, they carried out with Jane’s Dependancy and Iggy Pop and lots of extra earlier than the band’s disintegration.
Meade’s journeys via life and that led him abroad are finest shared, recorded, learn and remembered. For him, it led again house to Oklahoma Metropolis, the music he loves and success as an artist. He’s a one in all a form.
One other cosmic singularity is Flaming Lips mastermind/frontman Wayne Coyne. He additionally occurs to reside throughout the road from Meade.
It had been a few 12 months since a previous interview the place Coyne mentioned the motivations and inspirations for what would change into “American Head.” From their earliest days as a gritty and barely succesful however extremely enthusiastic band performing in Oklahoma Metropolis within the Nineteen Eighties and 90s, they’re a sonic sensation. I name it the tenacity of by no means giving up. And on this case, Coyne’s enthusiastic creativity married with the metaphysical musicianship of Eisenhower Excessive Faculty graduate Steven Drozd, his musical associate.
You guys know I’m a fan of the band however, as a discerning fan, ”American Head” is my ”Album of Hope into 2021.” This assortment carries the band’s ever-present embodiment of hope and sonically imbues an incredible feeling of being alive and hopeful: ”Will You Return?/When You Come Down” — https://youtu.be/DgWaChX1cno.
I do know this previous 12 months’s been a wild one however bear in mind, it’s going to be okay. What’s the worst that may occur?
Though the ”Right this moment’s Greatest Soundemonium!” radio present led to 2020, our social media presence stays everlasting so you possibly can sustain with what’s taking place and what’s subsequent.
Do not forget that all #VirtualSoundemoniumFest performances from the COVID-19 shutdown are archived on the column/radio present’s Fb web page: https://www.facebook.com/steveoandthescribe/.
And, hey, when you’ve got a music you need us to take a look at, electronic mail us: [email protected].
Go to, “like” (“love”) and comply with our Fb web page: https://www.facebook.com/steveoandthescribe/.
Soundemonium Musaic Lawton music archive homepage: Scott Rains — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPw__GedGPOUD-wROFcuZ8w.
