Indie Third Thursdays with Skating Polly

KRTU Indie Overnight is kicking off the start of our series with Oklahoma rock goddesses Skating Polly! They will be joined by heavy hitters Blithe and Filthy from San Antonio, along with some local food trucks and plenty of locally brewed Alamo Beer, to top off the evening. Come get your faces melted free of charge at the Alamo Beer Garden.

Filthy 7:00
Blithe 8:00
Skating Polly 9:00

NO COVER ALL AGES

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Born from an impromptu jam at a Halloween party in 2009, Skating Polly is a sister duo made up of Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse. They recorded their first album Taking Over the World in their living room. Their second album Lost Wonderfuls was produced by Exene Cervenka and mixed by Flaming Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock. For their most recent release, Fuzz Steilacoom, Skating Polly traveled up to Olympia, WA and recorded at Dub Narcotic Studio with Calvin Johnson (K Records/Beat Happening). Prolific songwriters who are constantly recording when they are not on the road, the duo is finalizing two new releases for 2015.

 Raised on '70s punk and early-'90s alt-rock, Mayo (age 15) and Bighorse (19) mine inspiration from artists as disparate as Johnny Cash, The Ramones, Nirvana, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Bikini Kill and saturate their own songs with a raw energy reminiscent of their musical heroes. Skating Polly takes a minimalist approach to songwriting, with the two largely self-taught musicians (Bighorse plays guitar, Mayo plays a guitar/bass hybrid called a basitar, and both girls play drums and piano) crafting super-catchy melodies mainly by "messing around with our instruments and figuring out how to make cool noises," according to Bighorse. But despite their stripped down aesthetic, their songs contain a rich emotionalism that's at turns brutally in-yourface, gut-wrenchingly tender, and irresistibly fun.

Along with earning the adoration of Cervenka (whom they befriended after attending one of the X singer's 2010 solo shows and playing their demos on a cell phone), Skating Polly has found fans and supporters in Rosanne Cash, Lori Barbero and Kat Bjelland (Babes in Toyland), Sean Lennon, John Doe (X), KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, and actor Viggo Mortensen. They have also shared the stage with punk legends like Mike Watt and opened up for such indie heavy-hitters as Deerhoof, The Flaming Lips, Band of Horses and Kate Nash. The stepsisters typically optimize their travel time by making up songs on their ukulele.

Both Mayo and Bighorse are intent on ignoring what's fashionable and staying true to their passion for challenging music with long-lasting appeal. "The musicians we're most inspired by are the ones who keep on going and going, who devote their entire lives to coming up with new and different stuff," says Mayo. "A lot of times at our shows people will come up to us and tell us, 'Keep on doing what you're doing, don't ever stop' and we're just like, 'Yeah – we weren't planning on ever stopping.'