Best Bets for April 27-29, 2012: Festival of the Arts, Joe Bonamassa, Red Dirt Rangers, Greg Jacobs and The Black Keys
The Red Dirt Rangers
Here are my picks for the Best Bets in entertainment happening around Oklahoma this weekend. For more options, go to www.wimgo.com.
1. Celebrate the visual, performing and culinary arts at the annual Festival of the Arts from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday in downtown Oklahoma City. Information: 270-4848 or www.artscouncilokc.com.
2. Listen to blues-rock guitarist/singer/songwriter Joe Bonamassa at 8 p.m. Sunday at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker. Information: 297-2264 or www.myticketoffice.com.
3. Hear Oklahoma red dirt musicians Greg Jacobs at 8 p.m. Friday and Red Dirt Rangers at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Blue Door, 2805 N McKinley. Information: 524-0738 or www.bluedoorokc.com.
4. TULSA — Catch The Black Keys with special guest Arctic Monkeys in concert at 8 p.m. Saturday at the BOK Center, 200 S Denver. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: (866) 726-5287 or www.bokcenter.com.
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Wednesday Video Spotlight: Eli Young Band’s “Crazy Girl”
Check out the official music video to Texas country-rocker Eli Young Band’s smash “Crazy Girl,” which earlier this month won the Academy of Country Music’s song of the year.
The ballad also was named Billboard’s top country song of 2011, and the video has garnered more than 10 million YouTube views.
EYB bassist Jon Jones recently talked to me about how much better it is to actually win an ACM Award than to just be nominated:
“You know, it is always an honored to be nominated … it really is, especially on something as big as the ACMs, which is country music’s biggest stage, where really anybody you’re competing against and nominated with are just the elite group. So you really kind of feel like you’re in a different league when you’re nominated with some of those folks,” he said.
“But to win is just a completely different feeling like nothing else I’ve ever experienced in my life. For being this little band from Texas, who still feels like the little garage band who could, to be sitting behind Dierks Bentley, who we’re out on tour with, and to be nominated in the same category and actually win, it was very gratifying. It kind of really made us understand how far we’ve come.”
For the third straight year, the band will be among the headliners at the Tumbleweed Dance Hall’s annual Calf Fry in Stillwater. EYB will close the raucous event Thursday night.
To read more of my interview with Jones, click here. For more information on Calf Fry, go to www.calffry.com.
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Interview: Eli Young Band talks “Crazy Girl,” Academy of Country Music Awards, before Thursday show at Stillwater’s Calf Fry
eft, Jon Jones, Chris Thompson, Mike Eli and James Young, of musical group The Eli Young Band, pose backstage with the award for song of the year for "Crazy Girl" at the 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday, April 1, 2012 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo)
A version of this story appears in Wednesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
Eli Young Band celebrating ‘crazy’ year
After winning the song of the year trophy at the ACM Awards with their breakout smash ‘Crazy Girl,’ the Texas country-rockers are returning to Stillwater — their favorite ‘home away from home’ — to play Thursday at the 21st Annual Calf Fry.
After a crazy 2011, the dreams just keep on getting better for Eli Young Band in 2012.
Fresh off a March trek to Australia for their first international tour, the Texas country-rockers got a great April Fool’s Day surprise when their platinum-selling, chart-topping breakout smash “Crazy Girl” also won the song of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.
“‘Crazy Girl’ going No. 1 nationally, that was a big win for the year, and then that leading up to three nominations, we just thought it really couldn’t get any better than that. And then we were like, ‘That means we’re gonna have really good tickets for the show!’ So we were real excited about that. Then we get to Vegas after going to Australia, which was the highlight of our year up to that point, and they tell us that we’re presenting for album of the year. And we’re like, ‘That’s great. We get some camera time; we get to be on stage at least once.’ And then we win the first award of the night,” said bassist Jon Jones, still sounding amazed almost three weeks after the ACM Awards.
“So really it was the best night that we’ve ever had as a band.”
The breakout success has been a long time coming for the Denton, Texas-based quartet — singer/guitarist Mike Eli, guitarist James Young, drummer Chris Thompson and Jones — which its namesakes started back in 2000 at the University of North Texas. This week, the band will play a familiar gig that sort of sums up their 12-year journey to mainstream country music success: the 21st Annual Calf Fry at the Tumbleweed Dance Hall in Stillwater.
“Calf Fry for us is one of those events for us that we’ve done a handful of times and it’s one of those festivals where we’ve played everywhere from the opening slot when the doors are opening and people are filing in and we’re the band that’s basically testing out the PA to a middle slot when the sun’s still out … to the headliner of the night when everybody’s focused on the band and just going crazy,” Jones said last week from Montana. “We love the town and the energy the fans bring. It was the first town outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area we ever really played … so it’s been our favorite home away from home for a very long time.”
In other words, for more than a decade before “Crazy Girl” became the ACM’s song of the year, the Eli Young Band was building success the long, hard way — touring relentlessly, earning a reputation for high-energy shows and honing their songcraft and musicianship — and for Jones, “oh, it makes it so much better.”
“Well, keep religion out of it, but it’s more of an evolution, I would say. ‘Crazy Girl’ was definitely a huge spark and it led to a lot of big things for us, but there were a lot of big things before that that led to ‘Crazy Girl.’ I think a big spark for us was meeting Frank Liddell, who’s produced both of our (major-label) records,” he said.
“It was very full circle when we were able to present the award that Miranda (Lambert, a fellow Texan who now lives in Tishomingo,) won for album of the year, because Frank Liddell produced that album and it was actually Miranda that introduced us to Frank. So after winning our award, we got to give one to her and Frank, and he’s the one that helped us put out our last two records … He’s the one that introduced us to everybody that we now work with and just really showed us the ropes and believed in us and told us the right way to do it. He said, ‘Keep on doing what you’re doing down in Texas and build that foundation and don’t worry about everything else because it will fall into place eventually. If you keep on making fans the way you’re making fans and making the kind of music you’re making, it’ll happen eventually.’”
It turned out to be sterling advice. In 2008, the band released its major-label debut, “Jet Black & Jealous,” which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and No. 30 on the cross-genre Billboard Top 200 list and produced the band’s first top 20 hit, “Always the Love Songs.”
The title of that hit turned out to be quite telling for the band. The surprisingly sweet ballad “Crazy Girl,” the lead-off single from the band’s 2011 album “Life at Best,” slowly gained a following, eventually selling more than 2 million copies, garnering 10 million-plus YouTube views for its video and earning the Billboard top country song of 2011 title. For many country music fans, it even became the wedding song of choice, which surprised the band’s bassist.
“It’s just different enough to catch your ear but the lyrics are simple and strong enough that it’ll get you singing along,” Jones said. “I think people really connected with the sentiment of that song. … We always loved the song. We’re suckers for a good love song, but why we loved that song was because it just has a slightly different take to it. … You hear ‘crazy girl,’ and you’re thinking one thing, but no, it’s a love song. And it’s a very endearing song, and people were really falling in love with it and making it their own.”
The follow-up single, “Even if It Breaks Your Heart,” seems a bit prophetic with its lyrics “some dreams keep on getting better, gotta keep believing if you wanna know for sure.” The rousing anthem has raced to No. 18 on the Billboard country songs chart, becoming the group’s fastest-moving single at radio, though Jones laughingly claims that’s fairly easy “since every single we’ve had before this has been so slow.”
“‘Crazy Girl’ took almost a whole year to get up the charts, which is partially why it was the No. 1 song at country radio last year, because it just stuck around for such a long time. But ‘Even if It Breaks Your Heart’ feels like the perfect follow-up to ‘Crazy Girl.’ Even though it’s a song we didn’t write, it really tells the story of why we’re in this position. For people who are hearing us for the first time with ‘Crazy Girl’ … ‘Even if It Breaks Your Heart’ kind of tells our story, about the fact that we’re a band and kind of the passion we have (for our music).”
The band opened last month in Australia for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, is continuing to tour nationwide Dierks Bentley through May, and getting ready to play the big Stagecoach Festival in Indio, Calif. In addition, the Texans will be part of the lineup when Rascal Flatts’ new “American Band” tour launches in June. But Jones said he and his cohorts also are looking forward to savoring their recent success with faithful fans in their old stomping grounds.
“You know, I think Calf Fry would be the right place to go right now. I don’t know. We just keep on telling ourselves, ‘you know, it can’t get better than this,’ but I think now (it’s about) having longevity and keeping the momentum going. I think the biggest thing for us right now is realizing that it doesn’t happen on its own at any point in time, that it doesn’t go on cruise control, our career. This really is opening lots of doors and lots of opportunities for us … ‘cause more people are playing our music right now than ever have before. So we feel like life in a lot of ways couldn’t get better than it is right now, but there’s still a lot to learn.”
GOING ON
21st Annual Calf Fry
Featuring: Eli Young Band, Randy Rogers Band, Gary Allan, Cody Canada & The Departed, Wade Bowen, Kevin Fowlerd and more.
When: Thursday-Saturday. Show starts at 5:30 p.m.; doors at 4 p.m.
Where: Tumbleweed Dance Hall, Lakeview and Country Club roads, Stillwater.
Information: www.calffry.com.
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Video: St. Vincent crowd surfs and hoses down fans at Coachella, releases new music for Record Store Day
It’s been a busy couple of weekends for Tulsa-born singer/songwriter/guitarist St. Vincent.
During her April 14 set at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., she thrilled fans by crowd-surfing through her performance of her new single “Krokodil” (pronounced “Crocodile”).
On Saturday, she released “Krokodil” and B-side “Grot” during the big Record Store Day festivities; hear both tracks posted above, along with fan video of her crowd-surfing performance.
Then, Saturday night she played again at Coachella, and she had a rather radical way of helping the crowd deal with the sweltering California temperatures.
On the last song of her set, St. Vincent, AKA Annie Clark, got down from the stage, grabbed the water hose and began spraying the crowd, getting herself wet at the same time, reports the San Jose Mercury News. And she once again ended up jumping into the crowd.
During the festival, St. Vincent shared with Rolling Stone her philosophy on playing live:
“Go bigger with everything you do onstage,” she said. “Subtlety goes out the door. You just have to be a monolith onstage. All of the quiet, sensitive numbers, we’re like, ‘X through that. Nope. Not gonna do that one.’”
She also told Rolling Stone that fans can expect more new music out from her in the fall: She has completed her collaboration album with the Talking Heads’ David Byrne, which was inspired by the Dirty Projectors and Bjork’s “Mount Wittenberg Orca” album. She and Byrne then plan to hit the road together for a set of tour dates.
“David Byrne is the coolest person on the planet,” she told Rolling Stone.
St. Vincent will bring her spring tour to the city of her birth when she plays May 15 at Cain’s Ballroom. For more information on the Tulsa show, go to www.cainsballroom.com.
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What to do in Oklahoma on April 23, 2012: Laugh along with Daniel Tosh at Tulsa’s Brady Theater
Daniel Tosh
Today’s featured event:
TULSA – Laugh along when comedian Daniel Tosh of the Comedy Central show “Tosh.0″ performs at 6 tonight at the Brady Theater, 105 W Brady. For more information, go to www.bradytheater.com.
Tosh also will bring his standup tour to Midwest City for a show at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Rose State Performing Arts Theater, Theatre, 6420 SE 15. For more information, go to www.myticketoffice.com.
Both shows are reportedly sold out, but for those lucky enough to snare tickets, it should be a couple of hilarious performances.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
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Secret Service closes Ted Nugent investigation after Oklahoma interview
Ted Nugent
After meeting with rocker Ted Nugent, the Secret Service says its probe into what Nugent had to say about President Barack Obama is over, reports the Associated Press.
Last weekend during a National Rifle Association meeting in St. Louis, Nugent said of the Obama administration: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.” He also said he would be “dead or in jail by this time next year” if Obama is re-elected.
That drew the attention of the Secret Service. Nugent says he discussed the matter with two agents on Thursday while in Oklahoma, where he played a show at Heritage Hall in Ardmore.
A spokesman for the agency, Brian Leary, says the issue has been resolved and that the Secret Service does not anticipate any further action.
Nugent says he’s never made threats of violence against anyone.
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Video: Record Store Day 2012! Flaming Lips ready to release “Heady Fwends,” Guestroom Records to showcase local music
Jacob Abello
It’s almost here! The fifth annual Record Store Day is Saturday.
Celebrated every third Saturday in April, Record Store Day is the one day of the year that independently owned record stores come together with recording artists to celebrate the art of music. Instead of sleeping in on Saturday, get out and support your local indie music retailer.
As part of the festivities, Guestroom Records is hosting performances by Oklahoma musicians in all three of its metro OKC locations Saturday afternoon. (They won’t make you get up too early; they’re open at their usual 11 a.m.) Here is the lineup:
Guestroom Bricktown, 25 S Oklahoma, Suite 101
12:15 p.m. – Student Film
1:15 – Crown Imperial
Guestroom OKC, 3701 N Western
2:45 p.m. – Jacob Abello
3:45 – Deerpeople
Guestroom Norman, 125 E Main Street
6:30 p.m. – Locust Avenue
7:30 – Beau Jennings
8:30 – Brother Bear
According to RecordStoreDay.com, other Oklahoma outlets participating in Record Store Day include The Beat Goes On, Claremore; Randy’s M&M’s, Edmond; size records, OKC; Reggie’s Records, Ponca City; CD Warehouse, Shawnee; Blue Moon Discs and Starship Records & Tapes, Tulsa; and various Vintage Stock location around the state.
A wide array of bands and artists are planning exclusive vinyl, CD and single releases especially for Record Store Day, including Tulsa native St. Vincent, ABBA, Arcade Fire, David Bowie, Metallica, Bruno Mars, Michael Buble with Ray Charles, Carolina Chocolate Drops with Run DMC, The Civil Wars, Coldplay, Florence + The Machine, Jimmy Fallon, Paul McCartney, the Woody Guthrie tribute quartet behind “New Multitudes” and many, many more. For a full list of RSD releases, click here.
Perhaps no RSD 2012 release is more eagerly anticipated than The Flaming Lips’ much-buzzed-about collection of collaborations, “The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends.” Warner Bros. Records is only pressing 10,000 copies of the album, which features the Oklahoma City-based psychedelic rockers partnering with Ke$ha and Biz Markie, Bon Iver, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Prefuse 73, Tame Impala, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Nick Cave, Lightning Bolt, Yoko Ono, Neon Indian, Erykah Badu, New Fumes and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
I got to take a listen to a preview copy of “Heady Fwends” – on CD, not on the special vinyl that has vials of the contributors’ blood mixed in with it, mind you – and for Lips devotees, it lives up the considerable hype. It’s a star-studded trip through the band’s personal spacey, otherworldly, noisy-in-a-good-way cosmos. To read The Oklahoman Entertainment Editor Gene Triplett’s review of “Heady Fwends,” click here.
Lips frontman Wayne Coyne talks about “Heady Fwends” in this video:
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Muskogee’s Bare Bones Film Festival continues, Rocky Frisco to receive Living Legend honor Sunday
The post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans musical-dramedy "Flood Streets" will screen tonight at the 2012 Bare Bones Independent Film Festival in Muskogee. Photo by Kim Welsh.
The 13th annual Bare Bones International Independent Film and Music Festival continues this weekend in Muskogee.
Founded in 1999, Bare Bones has been named one of the top 25 indie film festivals in the country by MovieMaker magazine.
Taking place at various venues in Muskogee, this year’s festival started a week ago and is in the process of screening more than 180 entries, including features, short films, documentaries, music videos, trailers, comedies, dramas, sci-fi/horror films and thrillers. The grassroots event also is offering events like live screenplay readings, red carpets, after-parties and more.
“This year’s festival has some of the best independent films that can be found anywhere,” said festival founder and creative director ShIronbutterfly Ray.
“Bare Bones has a unique festival experience that goes beyond watching movies. Our filmmakers interface with the next generation of youth via our Movie-Biz Career Days, where filmmakers, screenwriters and actors talk to middle and high school students about the art and culture of film.”
Husband-and-wife filmmaking team Helen Krieger and Joseph Meissner have made the trek from New Orleans to Muskogee to attend the Bare Bones screening of their post-Hurricane Katrina musical-dramedy “Flood Streets.” The film will be shown at 6:30 tonight at the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, 401 S Third. The couple also will participate in a question-and-answer session about the film, which they sold their New Orleans house to fund. To read my recent interview with Krieger, click here.
Rocky Frisco
The festival will culminate Sunday in a lively awards ceremony. One of the highlights of this year’s awards bash is sure to be Tulsan musician/actor Rocky Frisco receiving the Living Legend Award.
Best known as the pianist for J.J. Cale’s band, Frisco was born Don Roscoe Joseph III July 26, 1937, in Saint Louis, Mo. He moved with his parents to Tulsa in 1940. Frisco was a precocious child, learning to read at age 3, according to his Bare Bones bio. A neighbor gave him a ukulele and a songbook when he was about 5 years old. Soon after, his father bought a big old upright piano and Frisco started teaching himself to play, using the chords he had learned on the ukulele. He walked away from his first and only piano lesson and learned the rest of it on his own.
Frisco is a 1955 graduate of Central High School in Tulsa, where he met singer-songwriter J.J. Cale, a friendship that turned into a lifelong gig; Frisco has played in Cale’s band throughout his life.
Frisco has played piano for some of rock’s most lauded visionaries, including the great and hugely influential Cale, as well as Eric Clapton. He has also played with Flash Terry, the Gene Cross Band, Clyde Stacy, Danny McBride, Tom Skinner’s Science Project and many others. He once rode a Schwinn bike from Tulsa to Killeen, Texas, as a publicity stunt for KOME Radio to do an interview with Elvis Presley. While there, he jammed privately with “The King.”
Throughout school, Frisco acted in stage plays. In the early 1960s, Frisco worked for a company in Independence, Kan., and acted in Little Theater under director Georgia High.
In the late ’60s, Rocky played the role of Haemon in “Antigone” at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In the 1990s, he began appearing in films, most notably in the 1998 short “Melvin: a Midwestern Tale” and the 2003 feature “Where the Red Fern Grows” In 2007, he appeared in “Red Dirt: Songs From the Dust” by director Lata Gouveia. In 2011, Gouveia and a crew from Luxembourg returned to Oklahoma and filmed “Red Dirt on 66: A Road Movie,” currently in post-production.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.
For more information on Bare Bones, go to www.barebonesfilmfestivals.org.
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Eddie Vedder’s Tulsa shows postponed to October
Alternative rock icon Eddie Vedder was scheduled to play shows tonight and Friday at Tulsa’s Brady Theater, but those shows have been delayed.
Earlier this month, the Pearl Jam frontman postponed his 15-city U.S. solo tour because of nerve damage in his right arm, reports the Associated Press.
The damage stems from a back injury he suffered earlier this year. Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis told the AP Vedder worked aggressively with doctors and physical therapists for the last eight weeks to repair the damage, but he is not well enough to play. Curtis says the singer is frustrated, but remains positive that he will be better this summer.
The tour dates will be rescheduled for November and December, except for his planned Jazz Fest performance. Tickets will be honored for the rescheduled dates, and refunds will be available upon request through the point-of-purchase.
According to BradyTheater.com, tickets for tonight’s show will be honored on Nov. 18. Tickets for Friday’s concert will be honored on Nov. 19.
Vedder is planning the tour in support of his Grammy-nominated second solo album “Ukulele Songs,” released last May.
Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Glen Hansard – known from his turn in the indie movie musical “Once” and subsequent duo the Swell Season, his leadership of Irish band The Frames and most recently for contributing a foot-stomping rocker to the best-selling soundtrack “The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond” – is set to be the opening act for Vedder’s Tulsa shows.
For more information, go to www.bradytheater.com.
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Ted Nugent playing Ardmore show tonight after reportedly meeting with Secret Service
Ted Nugent (AP file)
ARDMORE – Rocker Ted Nugent will play at 7:30 tonight at Heritage Hall, 410 W Main Street, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, Nugent’s show tonight is set to follow a planned interview with Secret Service agents Thursday in Oklahoma, where the outspokenly conservative rocker was rehearsing for tonight’s concert.
The show, featuring opening act Whiskey Myers, will celebrate the 19th anniversary of the famed nearby Ardmore venue Two Frogs’ Grill.
The interview was planned in the wake of Nugent delivering an incendiary speech at an NRA convention, according to the entertainment trade publication. Nugent, a conservative activist, has been criticized by political opposites since he used violent metaphors over the weekend to describe what he considers an urgent need to defeat President Barack Obama in the November election.
After his passionate NRA speech, reports surfaced that the Secret Service was looking into Nugent’s rhetoric as a possible threat to Obama. On Wednesday, the rocker confirmed the accuracy of those reports during a segment on Glenn Beck’s radio show, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We actually have heard from the Secret Service,” Nugent told Beck. “They have a duty, and I salute them. I support them. And I’m looking forward to our meeting tomorrow. I’m sure it will be a fine gathering backstage in Oklahoma.”
Beck, who also spoke at the NRA convention, played some of Nugent’s speech on his radio show Wednesday before asking Nugent for clarification on some points.
“Our president and attorney general, our vice president (and) Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals,” Nugent told the NRA faithful. “We’re Americans because we defied the king… We are patriots. We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”
“What exactly are you planning in November?” Beck asked sarcastically, given his co-hosts already determined that Nugent was speaking metaphorically.
“You know, that’s the season of harvest,” Nugent joked.
“Isn’t it fascinating that the author of ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’ has to explain the words that I use?” said Nugent, referencing one of his odder song titles. “We vote this November – a critical life-or-death vote. You know, every reference I made, whether it was ‘a shot across the bow’ or ‘targeting the enemy,’ (I) always ended the sentence with, ‘in November, at the voting booth.’”
Nugent said that he “reveres” law enforcement and, in fact, it’s a profession that has been a part of his life for three decades.
“I’ve been a sheriff’s deputy in Lake County Michigan since 1982 and I conduct federal raids in Texas with the federal marshals, the ATF, the FBI and the Texas Rangers, catching fugitive felons,” he told Beck. “See, that’s what I do for recreation. I mean, you go bowling, I tackle rapists.”
Nugent said powerful Democrats like Sens. Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid — the “lunatic fringe” — demanded an investigation after his NRA remarks.
“The Secret Service, when they’re told to investigate, even silly things that couldn’t possibly be construed as any type of threat whatsoever — I respect their duty to investigate,” Nugent said.
“The bottom line is, Glenn, I’ve never threatened anybody’s life in my life,” Nugent said. “I don’t threaten. I don’t waste breath threatening. I just conduct myself as a dedicated We-the-People activist because I have saluted too many flag-draped coffins to not appreciate where the freedom comes from. The Nugent family is a totally non-violent, peace-and-love, rock-n’-roll, working-hard, playing-hard American family.”
Toward the end of the segment, Nugent seemed to well up as he described how a fallen Navy SEAL asked in his will that Nugent perform at his funeral. Nugent said he was set to fulfill that request when somebody “very high up” in the military “uninvited” him.
“I was uninvited in defiance of a dead Navy SEAL’s request,” Nugent said. “I just don’t know what country this is.”
See video of Beck’s interview with Nugent, courtesy The Hollywood Reporter, after the break.
For tickets and information about Nugent’s Ardmore show tonight, go to www.stubwire.com. Nugent also will play with Styx and REO Speedwagon next month at Oklahoma City’s Zoo Amphitheatre.
