OKLAHOMA CITY — The night of Saturday, August 5th, Beer City Music Hall saw a trio of some of OKC’s biggest rising indie-rock stars – Chelsea Days, newcomers Coat, and headliners Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards – celebrating the release of a brand new local compilation album on which they each feature.
But this isn’t just your standard local scene sampler or split EP. This is a reverberating, 18-track, hour-plus statement about the importance of this community and the need for education reform and protection across the state.
Conceived and executed by the rapidly growing Catapult Recordings and scene veteran (and Coat co-founder) Alex Coleman, “Help Oklahoma Teachers” is a sprawling compilation showcasing some of the state’s biggest talents across genres, all in service of raising funds and awareness for non-profit RestoreOKC.
Through outreach efforts like food donation, home repair assistance, and even creating and managing The Market at EastPoint, RestoreOKC has established itself as a major player in community development.
But it’s the group’s educational outreach arm, in which they partner with local schools, the Boys and Girls Club, and HOPE Center, that will be receiving all proceeds from the compilation’s sales.
We want to keep this fundraiser continuously donating to our teachers and schools.
Cooper Anderson, Catapult Founder
“By releasing this on streaming platforms and selling our leftover stock,” said Catapult founder Cooper Anderson in an online statement accompanying the release, “we want to keep this fundraiser continuously donating to our teachers and schools.”
The massive track listing features some of the hottest names in OKC music right now (and more than a few that will be familiar to regular readers of this column,) so let’s take a look at just a few of the best and brightest.
Grayson Hamm – ‘To Remind’
Right out of the gate, singer/songwriter Grayson Hamm sets things off, perhaps surprisingly, without a bang.
Rather than kicking the doors in for the opening track, Hamm’s contribution sets the mood with a gentle, lo-fi anthem for anyone lamenting a lost past or even a lost future.
Though the songs collected here aren’t trying to adhere to any conceptual theme or outright protest subject matter, “To Remind” still feels like an appropriately sad, wistful starting gun, given how quickly and completely decades of progress are lately being undone in Oklahoma schools.
Sun Deep – ‘Show Me Your Scars’
Continuing that same expression of loss and resilience, this lush, powerful track from Sun Deep rises up like the score to a post-modern Western, all sun-dried acoustic guitar and weeping violin atop a chopped, moody trip-hop backbeat.
Between his production work and his co-leadership of local experimental hip-hop masters Finite Galaxy, Sundeep Sharma has made a strong case for himself over the past couple years as one of the most creative and compelling artists that the scene has to offer.
This is a gorgeous, deeply affecting track that gets well under your skin, even for all of its minimalism and space.
HuckWheat – ‘Downhill from Here’
The lo-fi vibes of the compilation’s first act keep floating through this impassioned, resolved call-to-emotional-arms by Sativa Prophets MC HuckWheat.
As the mix’s first straight hip-hop track, the sound of the spaced-out drumkit and watery, affected piano break slots perfectly into the reverb-washed character of the compilation.
As to whether it all being “downhill from here” means that things will be getting worse or simply rolling faster, that can be left up to the listener, but lines like “I’ve been running for so long, I’m knee-deep in the dirt” might give you some indication.
Steven Stark – ‘Teacher: The Sun Hasn’t Gone Away (feat. Nathan Siler)’
Maybe the most delicate, spacious, minimal track in the bunch is also the one that most directly and bluntly addresses the issues at hand.
This soft-spoken, Casiotone lament touches on everything from book bans, revisionist history, and the ridiculousness of putting guns into classrooms, all as part of a sad reassurance to the entire teaching profession that things can still turn around and get better with time.
Coat – ‘Woof’
As the entire album was jointly overseen and compiled by Coat co-founder Alex Coleman, it’s little surprise that the band’s contribution would be something of a stylistic thesis statement.
“Woof” is about making the hardest, most tragic decisions that you know in your heart are actually the right moves, and as you might expect if you’ve ever heard her sing, all of that sentiment and sincerity comes beautifully through Hannah Edmondson’s vocal.
There’s something characteristically “southern” or ever so slightly “country” in Coat’s shoegazing indie-pop. I think I’ll call it “bootgaze.”
Whatever you call it, Coat is probably doing it better than anyone else right now.
So Many Others
There are too many great tracks here to keep digging into each one. It’s a stacked track listing and the curation of these artists and the songs that they’ve each contributed might be unparalleled among any other scene compilations.
There’s something here for practically any music listener, from the straight-fire rock of Big Weather’s “Night Before Sunrise” to the chilled, delicate “Home” by The Branches to the full-on, unrestrained jazz of the Kendrik McKinney Quartet’s “Stick It to the Man.”
If you love Oklahoma music, then you need to grab this release just as a document of this truly remarkable period of creative energies in this scene.
But if you love Oklahoma as a whole, then you need to grab it to help support a better-informed, better-loved, and just altogether better state.
“Help Oklahoma Teachers” is available now on all streaming platforms and for sale on Bandcamp at music.catapultrecordings.com.
All proceeds will be donated to RestoreOKC.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
