The party's in your ears

A genre cheat sheet for Overground’s music line-up

Thursday March 24th @ VANGUARD 222 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 6PM   •   SHOW: 7PM - 2AM

Sports: Jacuzzi rockers summoning chill vibes and playing what the 80s thought the future may sound like.

The Bourgeois: 90’s indebted indie rockers, who pay more attention to the “rock” than “indie” part of the genre tag. 

Sun Vow: Doom gaze and dirge worship. Very pretty, slow and heavy post hardcore.

The Riot Waves: Ripping, young skate punks. Superfast and catchy songs set apart by bassist C.J. “fingers” Fennel’s quick hands. He doesn’t like it when people call him “fingers...” 

The Lukewarm: Spacey, baritone-voiced, indie-psych youngsters. Sounds like burning your bangs while lighting a bong and then having to look your parents in the eye when they get home.

Friday March 25th @ VANGUARD 222 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 7PM   •   SHOW: 8PM - 2AM

Johnny Polygon: Rapping road warrior Johnny Polygon spends three quarters of every year taking his reflective hip-hop and soul to the highways. Half-rapped/half-sung tracks float between head-nodding bangers and lovelorn ballads. 

Nuns: Maximalist approach to Beatles-y psych-pop. Sounds like love, loss, and things too bright to be viewed head on. 

Verse & The Vapors: A lineup of some of Tulsa’s key soul players supports a suit-and-tie-wearing man rapping about pizza & cookies. Mighty musicianship, deadly rhymes.

​klondike5: A crazy-eyed bluegrass collective picking and grinning their way through the classics. 

The Capital Why’s: Youthful and energetic, this indie pop/rock crew takes its cues from Top 40 bombast.

Friday March 25th @ SOUNDPONY 409 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 7PM   •   SHOW: 8PM - 2AM   •   21+

Chainmail: Defenders of the faith, playing harder than diamonds. True heavy metal.

La Panther Happens: Longtime Tulsa nu-wop favorites invoking 60’s girl-group glamour and the ghost of Lux Interior. 

​Cosmostanza: Loose pop rockers from our state’s capital. Shades of No Age, Jeff The Brotherhood, and trading in your anime stash for rent money. 

​Queenager: Churning riffs and scalding lyrics running the gamut from animal rights to suicide by self-interment. They call it “powerslop.” I call it, uh…yeah, “powerslop” works. 

Saturday March 26th @ VANGUARD 222 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 7PM   •   SHOW: 8PM - 2AM

Broncho: Tulsa’s most visible punk/pop/shoegaze/whatever-you-wanna-call-it-but-don’t-forget-it’s-rock-n-roll group. Tearing up the nation’s festival circuit while sound-tracking HBO series and Tinder commercials. 

Zig Zags: Killer slime punx from L.A tearing through several decades of heaviness du jour. Think the Spits smoking out of a Natty Light can on Cliff Burton’s grave.

Mike Dee w/ Stone Trio: Mike Dee is known as the “shy one,” the “nice one,” the “quiet one” of the Oilhouse rap crew. Also, the “rap so fast it’ll catch your hair on fire” one. Performing here with Stone Trio, three of Tulsa’s funkiest/blues-iest/jazziest virtuosos. Yell “Rage!” ‘til Mike yells “I won’t do what you tell me!”

Dead Shakes: Garage rock with an emphasis on the “rock.” Dead Shakes keep their sights on hot licks and whatever tequila’s in your well.

Turtle Creek Cloggers: When I first saw this group’s name, I thought this must be Tulsa’s newest bluegrass act. Turns out, they’re actual cloggers—as in, people who wear clogs and use them accordingly. 

Saturday March 26th @ SOUNDPONY 409 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 7PM   •   SHOW: 8PM - 2AM   •   21+ 

Who & The Fucks: Heavy, catchy, stoned-out-their minds “dumpster surf.”

SWAP MEAT: Weirdo punk rockers making weirdo punk jams. Surf leads marry well with pro-wrestler vocals, and the whole thing’s usually over in ten minutes.

Grass Crack: Dirty punk rock freaks playing actual bluegrass, not crusty folk. 

Reigns: Motorheady space rockers, ramping their Harleys right into your Pink Floyd record stash.

Sunday March 27th @ SOUNDPONY 409 N Main St | DOORS OPEN: 6PM   •   SHOW: 7PM - 2AM  •   21+

Helen Kelter Skelter: Norman-based psych-rockers who do a bit of everything, but always make sure to turn on, tune in, and drop out along the way. 

Noun Verb Adjective: Pulling a page from John Waters’ playbook, Noun Verb Adjective is certainly the oddest band in Tulsa’s garage rock scene. Look beyond the muumuus, ill-applied rouge, blood and fireworks, and dig into the group’s blown out indie-freak stylings.

Holy Void: Circle pit approved, D-Beat hardcore in old, cold corpsepaint. For Fans Of: upping the punx and burning churches. 
The Daddyo’s: Nap rock. Garage nod. Sleepy time party pop. This trio injects their lugubrious brand of sugar with ultra catchy melodies.

Skeleton Farm: One of the weirder acts in the Tulsa “weirdo-rock” pantheon. Hints of shoe-gaze, post hardcore, and the weedly-deedly that defined the good grief out of the early 2000s.

Cucumber and the Suntans: The brainchild of analog wunderkind, Mike Gilliland, Cuke play oddly-structured, infectious psych-pop.

Lizard Police: I play in this band. Sounds like: nepotism, and wishing you weren’t the music columnist.

For more from Mitch, read his story on jacuzzi rockers, Sports.