The Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM@UCO) wishes everyone happy holidays, a merry Christmas and happy new year! To celebrate, we curated this Spotify playlist just for you. Enjoy!
Month: December 2018
Photos: JD McPherson Masterclass with Scott Booker
Longtime Oklahoma musician JD McPherson hosted a masterclass Oct. 26, 2018, to a capacity audience at ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The third-annual Music Networking and Mentoring Event was made possible by a partnership with The Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma’s Metro Music Series and the Oklahoma Film + Music Office.
About ACM@UCO Metro Music Series
The 2018-2019 school year marks ACM@UCO’s tenth anniversary. To celebrate, it expanded its long-running Metro Music Festival into a yearlong event. The revamped Metro Music Series includes the High Noon Showcase, presenting free shows by ACM@UCO-tied music acts and tastemakers; its ACM@UCO Performance Lab series by regional and national touring acts; and a growing roster of masterclasses, clinics and workshops with industry leaders, many of which are open to students and the public.
Check out upcoming ACM@UCO Metro Music Series shows at acm-uco.eventbrite.com!
ACM@UCO’s Metro Music Series is sponsored by Oklahoma Gazette, Exchange Music, KOSU Radio, ArtWorks, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council.
For more information about the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma, visit acm.uco.edu.
Spotlight: Hear New Music From ACM-Tied Act Love Seats
Love Seats, “These Days” album cover
Love Seats is musical project created by Ashton Gary and Ethan Wilcox, based out of Oklahoma City. The indie-rock duo specializes in writing melancholic guitar pop songs with lush orchestration and recording them to tape.
After listening to bands like Ultimate Painting, Whitney and Andy Shauf, the duo wanted to create music in the likes of those artists. Gary and Wilcox bought an 8-track tape machine and started recording demos of their songs while dissecting and studying the production of their favorite records.
Eight months later, the group recorded its debut record, “These Days,” which was released in October.
Hear it now:
Photos: Mac DeMarco and Leotie at ACM@UCO Performance Lab
Indie musician Mac DeMarco performed Nov. 1, 2018, to a sold-out audience at ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. ACM@UCO-tied act Leotie, aka singer-songwriter Caleb Starr, opened the ACM@UCO Metro Music Series event.
Photos by Tanner Laws | University of Central Oklahoma
About ACM@UCO Metro Music Series
The 2018-2019 school year marks ACM@UCO’s tenth anniversary. To celebrate, it expanded its long-running Metro Music Festival into a yearlong event. The revamped Metro Music Series includes the High Noon Showcase, presenting free shows by ACM@UCO-tied music acts and tastemakers; its ACM@UCO Performance Lab series by regional and national touring acts; and a growing roster of masterclasses, clinics and workshops with industry leaders, many of which are open to students and the public.
Check out upcoming ACM@UCO Metro Music Series shows at acm-uco.eventbrite.com!
ACM@UCO’s Metro Music Series is sponsored by Oklahoma Gazette, Exchange Music, KOSU Radio, ArtWorks, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council.
For more information about the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma, visit acm.uco.edu.
Photos: Maps & Atlases and Magic Munchbox at ACM@UCO Performance Lab
Maps & Atlases performed Nov. 1, 2018 at ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. ACM@UCO-tied band Magic Munchbox opened the ACM@UCO Metro Music Series event.
“Now a trio, Maps & Atlases connect the roller-coaster guitar fretting and weighted timbres of their earlier albums with frenetic synth touches,” Pitchfork reviewer Amanda Wicks said of the album “Lightnessness is Nothing New,” released July 1. “The polished result is their most accessible album to date, touching on Peter Gabriel’s fizzy pop proclivities and reaching for TV on the Radio’s early grandness.”
In the brooding-yet-playful vein of Talking Heads or Peter Gabriel, Maps embraces the paradox of what it is to be human — constantly searching and, forever unsatiated, returning with everlasting hope to the ever-darkening fray. The deceptively upbeat “Lightlessness is Nothing New” unveils a gorgeous, complex, slightly skewed take on pop music.
Photos by Tanner Laws | University of Central Oklahoma
Magic Munchbox
Oklahoma City experimental funk-rock quartet Magic Munchbox opens for national touring act Maps & Atlases Nov. 1, 2018 at ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Oklahoma City. The ACM@UCO-tied band includes a student and alumnus in its lineup: Gilson Machtolff on guitar, skeeter on guitar, Michael Vaughan on bass and Robby Andersen on drums.
Photos by Tanner Laws | University of Central Oklahoma
About ACM@UCO Metro Music Series
The 2018-2019 school year marks ACM@UCO’s tenth anniversary. To celebrate, it expanded its long-running Metro Music Festival into a yearlong event. The revamped Metro Music Series includes the High Noon Showcase, presenting free shows by ACM@UCO-tied music acts and tastemakers; its ACM@UCO Performance Lab series by regional and national touring acts; and a growing roster of masterclasses, clinics and workshops with industry leaders, many of which are open to students and the public.
Check out upcoming ACM@UCO Metro Music Series shows at acm-uco.eventbrite.com!
ACM@UCO’s Metro Music Series is sponsored by Oklahoma Gazette, Exchange Music, KOSU Radio, ArtWorks, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council.
For more information about the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma, visit acm.uco.edu.
Now Hear This: JD McPherson Performs Friday at Tower Theatre in OKC
In October, musician and singer-songwriter JD McPherson led an ACM@UCO masterclass at the school’s Bricktown campus with Scott Booker, ACM executive director, in conjunction with the Oklahoma Film + Music Office as part of the ACM@UCO Metro Music Series.
He takes his critically acclaimed new holiday album, Socks, on tour and performs Dec. 14 at Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City.
JD McPHERSON
w/JP Harris
Doors 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14
Tower Theatre
425 NW 23rd St.
Oklahoma City
Tickets: $17-$20 at ticketfly.com
From NPR’s Fresh Air: A Roots And Rockabilly Holiday Concert With JD McPherson And His Band
JD McPherson never thought he’d make a Christmas album. Then, he says, “I got a bug in my ear.” He and his band perform live in studio from Socks, and McPherson talks about growing up on a cattle farm.
Read more and hear the full interview and studio performance on NPR.
From the Los Angeles Times: This year’s essential Christmas albums ranked, from ‘Shatner Claus’ to the irresistible JD McPherson
Rating: Four stars (classic)
The roots-rocking singer-songwriter from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, has put together the kind of holiday album that Louis Prima or Roy Brown would have if they’d ever gotten around to it, and thank Santa for that. It’s an utter joy, a vintage jump-blues/R&B/rockabilly workout devoid of treacly sentiment, but brimming over with child-like spirit — and just enough grown-up skepticism (“Bad Kid,” the title track) to keep things anchored in reality.
He’s written or co-written 11 originals that bring welcome fresh blood into the holiday music canon. Producing the album themselves, he and the band also zero in on a perfectly period musical and sonic vibe for this outing.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
From Oklahoma Gazette: ‘Socks’ rocks
McPherson said recording a Christmas album inspired him to return to the ’50s style that characterized his debut album, Signs & Signifiers.
“The language or the vocabulary of early rock ’n’ roll lends itself to that type of material,” McPherson said. “It just works better. We could’ve done a psych-rock Christmas album, but I don’t really think I would’ve wanted to listen to it afterwards.”
Read more from Oklahoma Gazette.
From Rolling Stone: How JD McPherson Blew Up Christmas Album Cliches on New ‘Socks’
Throughout Socks, McPherson’s impressive garage-rock guitarwork channels classic R&B, rock, blues and rockabilly with snappy, growling riffs (“Bad Kid”), slinky, reverb-drenched passages (“Holly, Carol, Candy & Joy”) and smooth, jazzy shuffles (“Ugly Sweater Blues”).
Along the way, he’s pitch-perfectly backed by his four-piece band of Jimmy Sutton on bass, Raynier Jacob Jacildo on keys, Jason Smay on drums, and Doug Corcoran on saxophone, steel guitar and glockenspiel.
Spotlight: ACM Student Caleb Starr’s Promo Video, Music
Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM@UCO) student Caleb Starr, a contemporary music performance major, recently created this promo video as a class project. We wanted to share it!
It also features his music as solo artist Leotie, which he recently performed live in front of a sold-out crowd at Mac DeMarco’s Nov. 14 concert at ACM@UCO Performance Lab in Bricktown.
Noname: ‘One of the Best Rappers Alive,’ Says Rolling Stone of Metro Music Series Headliner
Chicago-raised artist Noname, aka Fatimah Warner, blurs the lines of poetry and hip-hop through the music she’ll perform during her headlining tour stop March 3, 2019 at ACM@UCO Performance Lab, 329 E. Sheridan Ave., in Oklahoma City.
Check out her first-ever video, “Blaxploitation,” from her recent release “Room 25” and the related article in Rolling Stone.
Says Rolling Stone of the video: On Tuesday, the Chicago rapper dropped the “film” for “Blaxploitation,” a quick, frenetic cut from this year’s excellent Room 25. In it, she’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, a giant child frolics through Chicago; they’re as large as a skyscraper and play, nap and destroy their way through the city streets. “Chicago Under Siege,” the television chyrons read, “Monster Baby Must Be Stopped.”
The March 3 concert is part of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma’s (ACM@UCO) continuing Metro Music Series celebrating the school’s 10th anniversary.
Tickets are $25 at acm-uco.eventbrite.com. Original Flow and The Fervent route will open.
In 2016, her debut album, the “Telefone” mixtape, found the artist introducing herself to a worldwide audience. Describing the project as “an introductory conversation with someone you’re interested in,” she quickly earned everyone’s attention.
In September 2018, her full-length studio album “Room 25” was again received with universal acclaim.
A Rolling Stone headline declared, “Noname is one of the best rappers alive.”
Pitchfork decreed, “The Chicago rapper’s second album is a transcendent coming-of-age tale built around cosmic jazz and neo-soul, delivered by a woman deeply invested in her interiority and that of the world around her.”
Consequence of Sound raved, “Noname turns every head in the house on the compelling ‘Room 25.’ … She doesn’t just make keen observations; she sends those syllables skipping down the tongue.”
Spin said the performer: “A complete one-of-one act who continues to grow in real time outside of the limelight, Noname makes a subtle yet strong statement for women providing alternatives to one-dimensional rap archetypes.”
She grew up in Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago’s southside that has famously attracted accomplished black artists and intellectuals of all types. After releasing “Telefone,” she relocated to Los Angeles, where she’s said she prefers live comedy to high-dollar indulgence.
In fact, NME said of her most recent album, “Much of ‘Room 25’ is not only smartly constructed — it’s laugh-out-loud funny. … It’s flawless.”
ACM@UCO’s Metro Music Series is sponsored by Oklahoma Gazette, Exchange Music, KOSU Radio, ArtWorks, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council.
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