OKLAHOMA CITY — Well, the sun is setting on another year, and OKC’s music scene looks to be barreling right along, poised to burn up some stages on New Year’s and then hit the ground running in 2025 with some stacked lineups and intriguing shows all through January.
But the year’s waning days are for reflection, and 2024 gave this city’s music community a lot to think about.
OKC on the world stage
It wasn’t just our most performative politicians and officials that made national waves this year.
To the continuing surprise (and admitted glee) of many, nu-metal sludge masters Chat Pile have effectively become the global cultural ambassadors of Oklahoma City.
Their monumentally heavy “Cool World” dropped in October and has continued to shake foundations for months. Now that the year is wrapping up, the album is racking up awards and “best of” placements worldwide.
Given the palpable anger and frustration that ran rampant throughout 2024’s neverending election season, the persistent and daily horrors of multiple wars and police actions, and the somehow still increasingly toxic discourse of media run amok, it’s no wonder that people respond to their sound.
But there’s still something very personally “Oklahoman” about Chat Pile’s ability to frame all of that subject matter among the mundanity and absurdity of daily middle-American life, and for that, they really do feel like the appropriate torchbearers of OKC.
But it wasn’t just Chat Pile continuing to explode nationally.
Husbands hit the road hard in 2024, opening a national tour for Cold War Kids and even taking the stage at New York City’s Governor’s Ball.
Likewise, country-rockers Jason Scott and the High Heat kept up their pace, breaking out across the country with tours and high-profile spots on festivals and showcases all over the place, not to mention some major acclaim for their new “High Country Heat” EP.
Who might break out nationally in 2025? It’s hard to say, though with jazz-poppers Bee and the Hive officially splitting their time between OKC and Austin now, they’re definitely primed to hit it big.
Keep your eyes and ears out.
‘The sun’ll come out…‘
Even all these months later, there’s been no other story in Oklahoma music that’s warmed hearts and comforted minds quite like Tomorrowfest at Norman’s Opolis.
The past couple years for the Opolis have already been a story of scrappy local artists scraping together to save their favorite creative space, but when a terrifying severe weather forecast shut down the final day of Norman Music Fest, those same artist-owners scraped together to save the day again.
Organizing a make-up mini-fest in less than 24 hours, the Opolis opened its doors the very next day for Tomorrowfest, featuring a stacked, cross-genre lineup of artists that were forced to cancel the previous day.
The result was a full, successful day of genuine gratitude and love for the tenacity of the scene and an acknowledgment of the very real, very frustrating dangers and challenges of life and art in Oklahoma.
There was no other story I enjoyed reporting as much, and no other day of music that I enjoyed attending more this year.
‘Take back your time‘
However, the one that comes closest is the opening night of stepmom’s Profitopia at Factory Obscura.
Launching on Halloween Night, Profitopia is something never seen from the city’s ground-level, indie music scene: a full-scale immersive art installation and experience built around a local band and grown from their new EP.
Profitopia is the kind of project you’d expect to see from the biggest acts in the world, an all-encompassing multimedia exploration of an idea, ripped from an artist’s mind and stretched out to its extremes to engulf and engross its audience.
But the hyper-indie focus of Factory Obscura and stepmom have allowed the project to skirt the self-indulgence of similar multimedia album projects like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” or U2’s “ZooTV” and to instead place the focus on themes rarely explored in such a way, namely overt anti-capitalism and girlhood. Profitopia is the band’s regular plea to “take back your time” made tangible.
It’s an absolute trip to see a band perform inside an intricately designed artistic world spawned entirely from their own creative minds, but we got to experience it right here in OKC, and we didn’t even need a billion-dollar sphere to do it.
Factory Obscura has actually become one of the most consistently great stages and live music spaces over the past year as well, joining Resonant Head and 51st St. Speakeasy on the list of the city’s best indie venues.
That’s thanks in no small part to Factory Obscura talent buyer – and stepmom leader – Lindsey Cox’s eye and ear for booking, as well as the monthly Wonder Stage open mic hosted by scene giant Jarvix, perhaps the city’s very best showcase for underground and upstart creatives.
Closing time
Unfortunately, not every space and showcase has been as successful or as lucky.
39th Street’s Point A Gallery – one of the city’s most forward-thinking and exciting creative performance spaces – was forced to shut its doors after some months of struggle with rent prices, operating costs, and staffing challenges.
White Rabbit in the Farmers Market just opened its doors earlier this year, hosting bands, community events, and showcases, but they’re already shuttering for all the same reasons.
89th Street’s longtime operators stepped down this year and handed the reins to DCF Concerts, though the outlook seems good among the city’s punk and hardcore community that it’ll remain a home base for the scene.
The whole OKC rap scene, however, took a major hit this year when hip-hop stalwart Trip G finally wound down the long-running Trip & Friends showcase at Hubbly Bubbly, long considered the city’s best showcase for up-and-coming rappers and one of the very few consistent rap stages in the city scene.
According to Trip, the crowds just stopped coming out, a sad and common sentiment to hear from any OKC booker or organizer, so he’ll be focusing on his new podcast series instead.
Personal stories, powerful voices
No matter what stage, and no matter how big or how small the audience, OKC music in 2024 should be remembered for the deeply personal statements made with confidence and conviction by our local artists.
Even for as wide-reaching and globally concerning as were the issues tackled by Chat Pile and stepmom’s new releases, they’ve resonated because they feel like the focused perspectives of the artists themselves.
That was definitely the case as well for Beau Jennings and the Tigers on their new “American Stories, Major Chords,” a more direct exploration of the small lives and massive spirits that populate Norman as much as any and every similar town in America, if not the whole world.
But just as much as our best artists were filtering the biggest issues through the most human of emotions, others were throwing the windows wide to present the most personal emotions in the grandest and most universal ways possible.
2024 kicked off with the long-awaited release of “10:10” by LABRYS, an immediate contender not only for the best collection of songs but for the most nakedly emotional and raw songwriting of the year.
Three of the city’s best names in rap each dropped poignant, introspective releases considering their own minds, ambitions, and places in life and the community, with Huckwheat’s “Me & My Study,” S. Reidy’s “I Think I Feel a Little Different,” and hip-hop hero Jabee’s “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak.” Together, they form an unbeatable triple-play example of just how insightful and vulnerable the best rap can be.
Brandon Birdwell dropped one of the year’s most pointed and direct personal examinations with “How Have I Let You Down?” not only interrogating himself and his own emotions and hang-ups but forcing himself forward musically into uncharted terrain.
Similarly, prog-rock acrobats SHIFT explored the outer extents of their musicianship and their own minds on the standout “Jagged & Bold,” one of the year’s most fearless and unhinged offerings, but also surely one of the most honest and personal.
All taken together, it adds up to a year’s worth of deeply challenging, emotionally reassuring work that should mark 2024 as a year worth remembering, if not for the relentless contentiousness, heart-grinding daily news, and demoralizing outcomes of every battle, then at least for the remarkable art of our community.
Sometimes, that’s enough to fall back on.
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
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.
