Articles (Blog)

In 1977, twenty-​six-​year-​old vagabond singer Larry Long wrote Pope County Blues in sup­port of farm­ers fight­ing a high volt­age power ...
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Five years ago I pub­lished a story about the 5K zom­bie race in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time I shared ...
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Five years ago I pub­lished a story about the 5K zom­bie race in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time I shared ...
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Recap: Five years ago I pub­lished a story about the 5K zom­bie race in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time I ...
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Recap: Five years ago I pub­lished a story about the 5K zom­bie race in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time I ...
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Five years ago I pub­lished a story about the 5K zom­bie race in Guthrie, Oklahoma. At the time I shared ...
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A pair of Oklahoma’s pre­mier song­writ­ers shar­ing a stage should draw a crowd. But if it’s Monday night the week ...
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In 1957 a young archi­tect named Herb Greene returned to his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, to teach. Working ...
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My friend RT Valine and his wife Jackie were vis­it­ing the Bureau one evening and we got to dis­cussing food ...
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My first encounter with the music of My Brightest Diamond was a track on a RED + HOT com­pi­la­tion. During ...
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It’s been years since the Dollyrots played Oklahoma City. But for­tune finally favored the city’s denizens: last April they opened ...
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Here are the pre­vi­ously unpub­lished black and white pho­tos from elec­tronic world fusion group Beats Antique play­ing the Diamond Ballroom ...
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I’m mov­ing the bulk of my Flickr pho­tos to their new per­ma­nent home. Back in 2012 I posted some pic­tures ...
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As part of my cleanup of my Flickr account, here are some pho­tos of LYNX I took at the Diamond ...
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This writer had only one offi­cial assign­ment (cov­er­ing gritty soul-​singer Opal Agafia) at the big out­door stage on fes­ti­val Saturday ...
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I took the same medium for­mat gear to the Pastures of Plenty back­stage as I had on Thursday and Friday ...
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The biggest musi­cal influ­ence in Opal Agafia’s life is her mom. Agafia char­ac­ter­izes her­self as a “life­long seri­ous shower singer,” ...
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I first met singer-​songwriter Ken Pomeroy on New Year's Eve, 2015. Her father, Skippy, builds rac­ing motor­cy­cles in the large ...
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In my sopho­more high school year, my fam­ily moved from the house we had been rent­ing in the sub­urbs to ...
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At first glance, one could be for­given for dis­miss­ing twenty-​five-​year-​old singer-​songwriter Josh Okeefe as a mere pas­ticheur. An inter­net image ...
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Despite the band name, And Then There Were Two does not com­prise two mem­bers. The band num­bers three: singer Amy ...
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Members of the Guthrie fam­ily per­formed a musi­cal show­case at Okemah’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Saturday after­noon of ...
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Woodyfest held its innau­gural Woodyfest Youth Songwriting/​Showcase Competition in 2018. The show­case fea­tured per­form­ers age six­teen or younger. Master of ...
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The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival has pro­vided a vari­ety of children's pro­gram­ming over the years. Last year the fes­ti­val expanded ...
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Brad Lauretti has been wan­der­ing. Originally from Brooklyn, then based in Florida, now call­ing Nashville home, Lauretti rarely sleeps in ...
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Ellis Paul loves Woody. Of the Woody Guthrie tat­too on his right shoul­der, he says it’s the only thing he ...
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Sam Baker has told the story of barely sur­viv­ing a train bomb­ing many times. The stark out­line: some three decades ...
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I took the same medium for­mat gear back­stage to the Pastures of Plenty as I had on Thursday. I’ve already ...
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Third place in the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival Songwriting Contest (2018) went to Robert Thatcher and Tom Brown. Thatcher ...
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According to their band bio, The Damn Quails began life as a weekly jam ses­sion between song­writ­ers and core band­mem­bers ...
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I drove to Okemah in early December to see folk singer and song­writer Tim Easton. Easton was on the first ...
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Your hum­ble author first met musi­cian Kalyn Fay in early 2016 when jour­nal­ist Nathan Poppe brought her to the Bureau’s ...
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The first time this writer heard Brad Fielder was in 2013. I was at the Bluebonnet Bar to see Alex ...
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Friday at the fes­ti­val found this writer still cov­er­ing the enter­tain­ment at Lou’s Rocky Road Tavern. Erik “The Viking” Oftedahl ...
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Festival Friday proved to be uncom­fort­ably hot in the beer gar­den attached to Lou’s Rocky Road Tavern. The pre­vi­ous day’s ...
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This year’s Woodyfest con­tin­ued a long-​standing tra­di­tion of pro­vid­ing acces­si­ble enter­tain­ment through­out the host-​town of Okemah. On fes­ti­val Friday ...
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Let’s just get it out of the way. Chloe-​Beth Campbell (just “Chloe-​Beth” when she per­forms) is tiny. Just shy of ...
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Making their Woodyfest debut, Gypsy Twang played the Hen House stage Friday after­noon. Husband and wife Steve Huhn (bass) and ...
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You know how some­times you see a movie, and you’re pos­i­tive that a favorite actor appeared in it, and later ...
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Marking their third appear­ance at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, the Turnpike Troubadours closed open­ing night 2018 on the Pastures ...
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This writer first saw Carter Sampson three-​and-​a-​half years ago, when she played a short set at the Community Improvement Association ...
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The Red Dirt Rangers may not have birthed Red Dirt, but they helped mid­wife the musi­cal genre into the world ...
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This year’s sec­ond place song­writ­ing con­test title went to Charlie Mosbrook for his song “Remember Who We Are.” Mosbrook per­formed ...
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As most Woodyfest sup­port­ers know, fes­ti­val favorite Audrey Auld Mezera died of com­pli­ca­tions from can­cer three years ago. The Tasmanian ...
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From the moment she began to sing “Trance” from the Brick Café stage, Mary Battiata had this writer's short hairs ...
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Cleveland County res­i­dents may cast early in-​person absen­tee bal­lots at the Cleveland County Election Board at 641 East Robinson Street ...
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Led by vet­eran English rocker Stephen D. Ineson, The Milagro Saints had the audi­ence rock­ing in their seats in a ...
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Making his fourth appear­ance as a per­former at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Johnsmith thrilled the audi­ence with a rock ...
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Rick Reiley has never missed attend­ing the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. At least, he doesn't think so. Reiley kicked off ...
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Born in the Bronx under the name Elizabeth Gowan Berliner, Jaane Doe started her musi­cal career at age eleven in ...
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Kicking off the 21st annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Bill Lewis brought his solo trou­ba­dor act to the base­ment of ...
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Last Tuesday evening, the Faculty Heights neigh­bor­hood joined thou­sands of oth­ers across the U.S. to cel­e­brate National Night Out. National ...
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Last Sunday I drove out to the Lawton area with cus­tom leather­worker and hik­ing enthu­si­ast Michael Parham. Our goal was ...
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Returning to the scene of their very first show, for­mer Okies Skating Polly played to a sold-​out house at OPOLIS ...
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On 26 May, cen­tral Oklahoma felt an earth­quake. The vibra­tions were from the nee­dle drop­ping on Godfather of Alt-​Rock Tyson ...
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Through a series of unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances, my friend Mark Campbell lost cus­tody of his ther­apy dog, a cairn ter­rier named ...
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Visual artists and musi­cians pooled their tal­ents last Saturday to raise money for the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. Hosted ...
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This past Independence Day, my best friend and pho­to­graphic con­spir­a­tor Joe Crumley and I drove to see the aban­doned Gandini ...
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On the same week­end that Joe and I trav­eled to Roosevelt, we stopped to pho­to­graph sev­eral other small towns. Our ...
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Roosevelt is a small, all-​but-​abandoned town in west­ern Oklahoma. According to the lat­est cen­sus, the pop­u­la­tion num­bers 248. Today it’s ...
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Photographer Paige S. Wilson recently dropped by Mercury Photo Bureau for a facil­i­ties tour. We traded places behind the cam­era ...
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This is an exam­ple of a por­trait made using x-​ray film and a mod­i­fied “Rembrandt” light­ing setup. I used a ...
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Cleveland County res­i­dents cast early absen­tee bal­lots in the November 2016 General Election begin­ning today. Despite the national trend lim­it­ing ...
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Jarvix. The man. The musi­cian. The mys­tery. Cynics call his music twee. The less jaded and more gen­er­ous call it ...
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I met Claude Butler when he 1st moved to Norman in 1987. He had an arrange­ment with the man­age­ment at ...
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Friends and fam­ily of 25 year-​old Norman res­i­dent Dayna Cannon gath­ered at the Deli on Thursday for a ben­e­fit con­cert ...
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Norman res­i­dents had the oppor­tu­nity to cast their bal­lots today dur­ing early absen­tee vot­ing in the munic­i­pal elec­tion ...
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Unless you’ve been trapped at the bot­tom of a well for the past 2 weeks, you know the great David ...
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This is a series of shots I made to work out the expo­sure char­ac­ter­is­tics of Kodak Ektascan B/​RA film. Ektascan ...
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Featuring the music of the late Queen front­man Freddie Mercury, Friday and Saturday’s per­for­mances of The King of Queen played ...
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Continuing on the heels of his suc­cess­ful Roger Miller, John Prine, and Smiths trib­ute shows, last month musi­cian Jerrod Beck ...
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One of the most pop­u­lar recent broad­casts on KOSU the SPY FM’s Oklahoma Rock Show was their all Roger Miller ...
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I found this cool bowtie on an online auc­tion site — you know the one — and it was just ...
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Astute read­ers may have noticed that I’ve been tran­si­tion­ing to using mostly my Fujifilm X-​T1 cam­era, with my Leica M9-​P ...
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I made my usual Tuesday gro­cery shop­ping stop at the Cleveland County Farmers’ Market and I saw this very attrac­tive ...
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The most essen­tial item in any photographer’s bag is a rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive item, often over­looked — the hum­ble roll of ...
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Just some flow­ers, in case you hadn’t noticed that it's Spring. I found these lit­tle beau­ties when I went out ...
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My acquain­tance, Robert Mark Campbell (he goes by “Mark”), recently adopted a 5-​year-​old cairn ter­rier after his long­time ther­apy dog, ...
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My friend Jaime Ladd coör­di­nates an “adven­tur­ous din­ers” group on a pop­u­lar social media plat­form; one of the group mem­bers ...
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In con­tin­u­ing to learn the ins and outs of my recently acquired Paul C. Buff “Einstein” (model E640) stu­dio strobe, ...
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I bought a used Paul C. Buff “Einstein” (model E640) stu­dio strobe just before Christmas; the pack­age arrived on New ...
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An online cam­paign to bring atten­tion to Norman High School and local law enforcement's response to the alleged rape of ...
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Cleveland County vot­ers may cast their bal­lots before Tuesday at the Cleveland County Election Board, 641 East Robinson, just east ...
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Norman Democrats cast their bal­lots today in the statewide runoff elec­tion. Democrats will decide between John Cox and Freda Deskin ...
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Yes, that’s Emmy-​winning rap­per Jabee slic­ing birth­day cake with my pock­etknife ...
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Yesterday we told you about the Surrogate Band, formed in 2011 to per­form Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The Surrogate Band ...
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Originally formed in 2011 for an extrav­a­gant per­for­mance of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, the Surrogate Band has reformed for a ...
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My good friend David Goad is rais­ing money to tour with his band, Kali Ra, by record­ing a cook­ing show ...
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Today marks the return of the Cleveland County Farmers’ Market. Hours have changed from the famil­iar Saturday and Wednesday morn­ing ...
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One of Oklahoma’s most antic­i­pated music releases of 2014 dropped 23 February, with the release of Skating Polly’s third full-​length ...
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Tumbling Nebulæ formed in early 2013 when bassist Steven Machovic and key­board player Cynthia “Luxy” Machovic got together with gui­tarist ...
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One of nine sib­lings, Rebekah Pulley grew up in rural Alaska lis­ten­ing to her the gui­tar play­ing of her dad ...
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I first met singer-​songwriter Alex Culbreth (Parlor Soldiers, Alex Culbreth and the Dead Country Stars) in July, when he was ...
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As singer-​songwriter Rebecca Loebe told the audi­ence at the Crystal Theatre this past July, she didn’t mean to become a ...
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Fresh from win­ning the Rose Garden Coffee House Performing Songwriter Competition in Mansfield, Maine and plac­ing 2nd in the New ...
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With his full beard streaked grey and his horn-​rimmed eye­glasses, Otis Gibbs might be mis­taken for one-​time Nashville res­i­dent Steve ...
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Between 1854 and 1929, the Children's Aid Society (and later, the Catholic New York Foundling Hospital) removed over a quar­ter ...
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Princess of Twang Nancy Apple and coun­try trou­ba­dour Rob McNurlin are are almost as famil­iar to Woody Guthrie Folk Festival ...
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One half of brother-​sister duo Berteal , Kim Gentry made her Woodyfest debut at the Crystal Theatre this past July, ...
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Born and raised on the Wind River Indian Reservation near Lander, Wyoming, soul­ful singer-​songwriter Garrett LeBeau grew up vir­tu­ally with­out ...
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It just keeps get­ting bet­ter for Dan Weber. In 2010, he was nom­i­nated for the pres­ti­gious Dave Carter Songwriting Contest ...
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Although singer-​songwriter Audrey Auld iTunes describes her style as music with the dirt left on, that’s dirt from a dis­tinctly ...
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Making his Woody Guthrie Folk Festival debut this past July, Alex Culbreth (Parlor Soldiers, Alex Culbreth and the Dead Country ...
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The Woody Guthrie Coalition have been try­ing to book Grammy Award-​nominated duo Trout Fishing in America to play the annual ...
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Last week I stopped at Taqueria Ruiz for lunch after run­ning some morn­ing errands. I ordered a taco revuelta with ...
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This past Sunday the Bureau invited noise-​rockers SonicViolence, along with video direc­tor Mike Walsh, to drop by for an inter­view ...
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My friend David Goad (Kali-​Ra, Of the Tower) and his wife Alicia are head­ing to Europe for vaca­tion soon, and ...
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Chase Anderson and Oliver Holden-​Moses, both age 14, and Nico Lantelme, age 13, are pretty nor­mal teenage boys — like many ...
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Local garage-​rockers Shi++y/Awesome formed on a whim in 2009, when Guestroom Records co-​owner Travis Searle and man­ager Will Muir got ...
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Chickasha native Travis Linville was 1 of many Oklahoma artists per­form­ing at the Music4Moore fundraiser this past May, as we’ve ...
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The city of Norman cel­e­brated its 30th annual Jazz in June music fes­ti­val a cou­ple of weeks ago by shak­ing ...
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My cousin and his fiancée cel­e­brated the bap­tism and chris­ten­ing of their infant daugh­ter last Sunday at Saint Thomas More ...
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Texas singer-​songwriter Ramsay Midwood trav­elled from Austin with his band to per­form at the Music4Moore ben­e­fit in the wake of ...
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The Lumiquest SoftBox III is a small, highly portable soft­box that attaches eas­ily to var­i­ous speed­lights. Deployment it greatly enhanced ...
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In the con­clu­sion to our Skating Polly inter­view, step­sis­ters Peyton Bighorse and Kelli Mayo talk about meet­ing musi­cal heroes, music ...
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Skating Polly have been busy. The youth­ful sis­ter act per­formed sev­eral shows at this year's SXSW fes­ti­val, knocked out audi­ences ...
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To launch our new col­lab­o­ra­tion with direc­tor Mike Walsh Mercury Photo Bureau was the lat­est guest on his Rev Hi-​Fi ...
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In this con­clud­ing part of the Chloës inter­view, we hear the never-​before-​told story behind crowd-​pleaser “Put that Dick Away”, plus ...
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In part 2 of our inter­view with the Chloës, the ladies talk about the joys and pit­falls of audi­tion­ing drum­mers, ...
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I spent most of NMF6 run­ning from venue to venue pho­tograph­ing bands, but man­aged to squeeze in a cou­ple of ...
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Kite Flying Robot sprang from the sin­gu­lar vision of Nikolas “Kite” Thompson. The band itself has seen a rotat­ing cast ...
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When we began hear­ing rumors about a Leica project code-​named Chronos in late September last year, we assigned a small ...
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This is part 2 of our inter­view with Jonathan Eldridge and Joshua Griffin, who, together, form The Trading Co. an ...
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Blues-​rock duoThe Trading Co. belong to a small sta­ble of artists call­ing Old Dog Records their home. Like label ...
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Acoustic duo Bowlsey is mov­ing fast. They granted Mercury Photo Bureau an inter­view before their sec­ond pub­lic per­for­mance, and, in ...
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Featuring an ever-​changing lineup of local musi­cians (includ­ing more drum­mers than Spinal Tap), the Venditos have been rockin’ Oklahoma City ...
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Five-​piece fuzz rock out­fit the Kamals (minus guitarist/​backup vocal­ist Brad Nance) dropped by the Bureau in January, fol­low­ing their resched­uled ...
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Neo-​grunge musi­cians One Gun Solution drove down from Oklahoma City to speak with me ear­lier this month. I met them ...
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The word “atmos­pheric” gets tossed around a lot when describ­ing Cleveland-​based mr. Gnome. Also “schiz­o­phrenic,” “psy­che­delic,” “weird,” “exper­i­men­tal,” “thun­der­ous,” “dreamy,” ...
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In September 2012, elec­tron­ica and exper­i­men­tal world fusion band Beats Antique played the Diamond Ballroom in sup­port of their Animal ...
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Opening for Peelander-​Z at Club Dada on Hallowe’en, local favorites Urizen enter­tained the audi­ence at the Deep Ellum nightspot with ...
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According to a copy­right story by News on 6, the most pho­tographed Chinese accor­dion in the world has been returned ...
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Citing Van Halen, Aerosmith, and Guns and Roses among their pri­mary influ­ences, Japanese rock­ers Electric Eel Shock astounded the audi­ence ...
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I expended prac­ti­cally no effort get­ting Kali-​Ra front­man David Goad to talk for an over an hour about music, tech­nol­ogy, ...
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David Goad, front­man for Kali-​Ra and var­i­ous other musi­cal and per­for­mance projects, recently sat down with us to answer some ...
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Kill the Reflection front­man Morgan Routt took time out after the band’s recent shows at the HiLo Club, Blue Note ...
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Kali-​Ra front-​man David Goad dropped by for an inter­view yes­ter­day before head­ing over to Opolis to open for CHUD. After ...
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Singer-​songwriter Patty Griffin returned to Norman’s Sooner Theatre for a nearly sold-​out per­for­mance in late October. Mercury Photo Bureau was ...
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I sat down with youth­ful neo-​psychedelic rock­ers Psychic Milk, after pho­tograph­ing when they opened for Kill the Reflection at Oklahoma ...
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Hailing from District Z on Planet Peelander, self-​described Japanese action comic punks Peelander-​Z trav­eled across the galaxy to eat our smiles ...
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Cleveland County vot­ers may cast their bal­lots before Tuesday at the Cleveland County Election Board, 641 East Robinson, just east ...
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Guthrie, Oklahoma — Billed as Oklahoma’s Premier Zombie Race, the 5K Zombie Run unleashed rav­en­ous mobs of the undead onto sprint­ers in ...
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The Goddamn Gallows, who blend rock­a­billy, roots, folk, Americana, and coun­try music “with just enough hard­core and punk […] to ...
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The aroma of grilling meat and pota­toes fry­ing in gyros grease per­me­ates the block around the busi­ness, guar­an­tee­ing a packed ...
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I do a fair amount of con­cert pho­tog­ra­phy with the Leica M9-​P dig­i­tal rangefinder cam­era. This presents cer­tain chal­lenges not affect­ing ...
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Adobe Lightroom is a pow­er­ful tool for man­ag­ing and pro­cess­ing dig­i­tal pho­tos. It can cat­a­logue and orga­nize your pho­tos, auto­mate ...
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The Arca-​Swiss Monoball P0 Tripod Head, retail­ing for $299 USD, fea­tures a kno­b­less tri­pod head with a three-​element geared lock­ing ...
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After all that research, I decided that, besides buy­ing bet­ter lenses for the M3, I was will­ing to fork over ...
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I spent the next cou­ple of months obses­sively research­ing Leica cam­eras and lenses. I began by down­load­ing the owner's man­ual ...
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… Then Joe took a trip to Roswell. As I men­tioned in Part 1, Joe rides motor­cy­cles: BMWs, Kawasakis, and ...
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My best friend Joe Crumley is an inter­est­ing char­ac­ter. He grew up on a farm in west Texas, served his ...
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Tufte CSS pro­vides tools to style web arti­cles using the ideas demon­strated by Edward Tufte’s books and hand­outs. Tufte’s style ...
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