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Featured Bus Feb 2025

Featured Business for February 2025: Oklahoma Underground Music Archive

The Oklahoma Underground Music Archive (OK UMA) is a project by the Department of Special Collections and Research at the Metropolitan Library System of Oklahoma County, working with community members to preserve and share a history of alternate, underground, subcultural Oklahoman music.

Can you tell us how and why you started your business?

When I started in my current role as Special Collections Librarian, the seed of the collection was dubbed History of Punk. After seeing what we had was not so much a chronological history of the genre as much as a time capsule of a time and place, I changed the title to a more accurate Punk Project. After months of showing others what we had and discussing the best ways to engage, preserve and share local music history, I changed the name again to the Oklahoma Underground Music Archive (OK UMA), to more accurately represent the multidimensional and multi-genre local music scene and the ways it has flourished over time.

What services do you provide within the music industry?

The OK UMA includes not only an archival collection ranging from musical recordings to distressed sweaters and used hair dye bottles, but also a monthly music zine (UMAmi), and the quarterly concert series Library Out Loud. We work to preserve and increase access to underrepresented music genres, from archival ephemera to free monthly gig schedules and opportunities for local community members to express and engage with one another.

How has your company grown to meet the needs of Oklahoma’s music industry over the last 3-5 years?

We began our (free) monthly music zine UMAmi, which is now almost to 1000 distributed copies a month, as well as starting the Library Out Loud series of concerts which each highlight a different subgenre plus feature local talent.

What are the benefits of basing your company’s operations in Oklahoma?

We’re all about local history and culture. Our departmental motto is “Documenting our Past – Telling our Stories.”

What would you consider your business’s greatest accomplishment to date?

Favorite highlights include presenting at the Zine Librarian unConference 2024, having an honest to goodness mosh pit at the library and hearing from folks all over town that our work has made a difference to them.

Are there any recent successes your company would like to highlight related to work within the Oklahoma music industry?

We hosted the first Library Out Loud in November featuring experimental artists paired with live imaging by a visual artist, and will have the second one on February 27 with a local heavy psychedelic band. And after all of a year and a half, we’re steadily inching closer and closer to 1000 distributed copies of UMAmi each month.

What are you working on now/next?

We’re always working on the next issue of UMAmi, incorporating whatever submissions folks send our way with reviews, interviews, tidbits about library resources, and musical whimsy. The Library Out Loud series will be ongoing with one event every three months. And we’re always working on inventorying, cataloging, acquiring and increasing access for the materials in the archival collection.

What is your goal/vision for the future of your company?

Creating connections between community members and preserving materials so that local, ephemeral history is saved and made accessible to all interested.

What advice do you have for others who are considering starting a music business in Oklahoma?

Build your network in whatever way is comfortable to you. And don’t hesitate to ask, whether you want info or something else.

What opportunities do you believe await Oklahoma’s music industry in the future?

I cannot wait to see how the local music scene continues to evolve and flourish.
 

Each featured individual or business is given the provided questions to answer in their own voice. Other than formatting and grammar, the answers are personal to each featured voice, and are not provided by the Oklahoma Film + Music Office.

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