Every three or four years, it feels like a new class of Oklahoma bands emerge — the ringleaders of an ever-growing scene. Some still burn bright, others have burnt away, but it’s always evolving: The underclassmen become the seniors, and the rookies become the all-stars. Back in 2009, it was the (rowdy) dawn of bands like The Pretty Black Chains and The Boom Bang, as Jabee started to become a local hip-hop legend, Red City Radio started stepping towards a national spotlight and Deerpeople got its start. Three years prior, Student Film and Colourmusic set the stage for the boom we’ve seen in the years that have followed, all while Starlight Mints registered into the international conversation and Kunek (now Other Lives) was first coming into its own.
This latest class — of 2012, we’ll say — is the probably the most impressive yet, and certainly the most important in terms of shifting the context of Oklahoma as a place that is persistently giving rise to formidable talent. Parker Millsap is well on his way to folk legend status at this point, and, oh yeah, John Fullbright and John Moreland seem just as likely to reach that point as well. BRONCHO — who will perform as part of the latest Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup — is an honest-to-God indie-rock festival band at this point (that’s harder to crack than it sounds), its punk-branded guitar pop infecting just about anyone within earshot of it. Skating Polly has been across the pond opening for punk matriarchs Babes in Toyland and being lauded for it, all as Josh Sallee keeps chipping away at the national hip-hop scene, swelling closer to a breakout moment with every release.
And it’s certainly worth celebrating the fact that those bands are tirelessly working to improve Oklahoma’s standing as a talent factory on a grander scale, but at the same time, I’ve always enjoyed spotting the names of the future, and the timing feels ripe for another class of talent to emerge. This feels especially pertinent today, with a pair of local showcases that aren’t filled with the same names that Oklahoma has known and loved for years now. Many of them were virtually unknown — even locally — at this point a year ago, and many of them plain didn’t exist yet. So, if I can give you some advice, go see one of these two shows tonight … because odds are more than a few of these artists will be your favorites by tomorrow.
Of course, I am heavily biased towards the lineup we assembled for the H&8th Night Market music stage tonight (7 p.m. at 8th Street and Hudson Avenue). How could I not be? When we sought to curate this showcase, our minds immediately went towards the groups and artists that are just now coming into their own. We love our more established acts, but the country’s largest food truck festival felt perfect to attack unsuspecting crowds with music they might not know yet but whom we can practically guarantee they’ll love once bumped into.
PVLMS is lightning in a bottle, a sophisticated take on house music — with plenty of willful bleed-over across the EDM spectrum — that pumps the blood through your veins just a little bit faster. It’s fun, yes, but heady, too, a nuanced take on something that often stops at primal urges. Deus Eyeslow is the coolest dude at the party, doing a keg stand at one moment and offering up deep conversation on love, life and God at the next. Home — his new record — is one of the best hip-hop releases Oklahoma has offered up yet, and though that’s a brief history, it is one that’s growing. When Trey Millward (of Power Pyramid) put me onto Tonne, it didn’t take more than one listen of Subtract & Slide to know that I had just found one of my new favorite Oklahoma bands. Frankly, they are cooler than me, you and everyone you know. Dark and brooding, it’s less aesthetic than emotionally charged indie rock that affects you at a deeper level by sheer force of will. It takes years to establish a sound so well-thought out, but they did it in months. And The Daddyo’s, well, at first brush this is another entry into the beach-combed guitar rock that Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls exploded the blogosphere with back in 2010. It is that, but at the same time there’s something more charming, witty and alluring at play, these vulnerable, tattered little compositions that are scrappy as all get out. They’ll be touring hard this summer, so don’t be surprised if the secret gets out sooner than later.
Meanwhile, Midtown Music has similarly plotted a lineup devised of new favorites that haven’t been sitting on the shelf more than 12 months or so. It’s 7 p.m. tonight at The Plant Shoppe, and you’d do well to dash over to this if rain should insert itself into the evening. Sardashhh is our favorite local mad scientist, a beat-making field with a knack for curating samples that whirr through you like lifespans flashing by in three or fewer minutes. Cherry Death — the brainchild of Glow God guitarist Tim Buchanan — put out the most underrated album of 2014, a fuzzy masterpiece made in tribute to the best riffs and tones of the college-rock boom of the ’90s. Colin Nance has no shortage of impressive projects, any one of which could be his breakout platform, but the electro-pulsed indie rock he produces as Softaware is more likely than any of them to be the one. Calabar has made quick work of getting their Krautrock-indebted material out into the world, too, churning in electrified house show sets and turns out at Opolis.
There are plenty more names as primed as those to take off as the next torchbearers of Oklahoma music. Rachel Brashear and sun riah, for example, from whom we just premiered songs earlier this week. Or Power Pyramid (who silently unveiled their latest LP over Memorial Day Weekend) or Sex Snobs, who are putting out a new full-length this year. Go listen to your BRONCHO record and go see Parker Millsap next time he is in town, but keep an eye on the young ones. Seek them out, because they’ve got next, and the future is now.
