BRANDY MCDONNELL

Interview and video: Oklahoma musician Gregg Standridge gets collaborative on new vinyl double LP 'Squeak'

Brandy McDonnell
Gregg Standridge [Michael Duncan photo]

A version of this story appears in Friday's Weekend Life section of The Oklahoman. Be sure to check out the music videos embedded here. 

Specialty 'Squeak': Norman musician Gregg Standridge goes vinyl only with new double album

In 2018, Gregg Standridge joined forces with his friend Brian Eads to create the original musical "Spots & Stripes," presented with Norman's Namron Players Theatre.

"We're idiots, apparently, because that's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. We had a full live band and full performances with 20 people in the cast. It was a blast," Standridge said.

For a follow-up, the Norman singer-songwriter and guitarist released this summer "Squeak," a genre-spanning 16-song double-LP featuring more than two dozen local musicians and available only on cherry-red 180 gram vinyl.

"It's great to have that ride. I'll tell you what, it's awesome," Standridge said. "I love it. It kind of brings me back to the days when I used to have to go to Sound Warehouse and pick through an album and look at the artwork and go, 'Oh, that's interesting; my friend said it was good' and not really get to listen to it much. You just had to take a chance. So, it's fun to me."

Norman singer-songwriter and musician Gregg Standridge released this summer his new album "Squeak," a double-LP on cherry-red 180 gram vinyl. [Cover art provided]

Of mice and music

Available at Guestroom Records in Norman and Oklahoma City, Stash, Midway Deli and through Standridge's Etsy shop, the "Squeak" vinyl set represents not only an elaborate musical feat but also an intricately designed visual undertaking.

"The first vinyl I ever bought was a double vinyl record. It was 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,' Elton John, which is one of my favorite artists ever, especially the really old stuff. And I would sit with that album and just look at it over and over. It has this beautiful artwork inside with the lyrics. I think I've owned three copies of that now. So, I was kind of giving a little bit of a nod to him on that," he said.

"My hope upon hope was that people come and buy the record and not have to go through the Spotify / iTunes thing. I've always done that before, but you get 1,000 streams and maybe you can buy an ice cream sandwich at the end of that."

Standridge worked with artists Lauren K. Rawls Dale and Britni Peel to create an entire motif for the album, featuring a cartoon mouse mascot and an entire nest of his mousy pals.

"The idea with the name 'Squeak' and the title track was you have to squeak because the squeaky wheel gets the oil. For me, squeaking is about voting and trying to drive people to vote more," he said.

"We thought the mouse mascot would be cool, and I thought it'd be great to have an illustration using mice for every track."

Each copy of the vinyl comes with a handful of custom trading cards, which each one showcasing one of the songs or one of the collaborators on "Squeak." He gave each of the contributing musicians the full deck of nearly 50 cards to recognize their work on the double album.

Gregg Standridge plays on the Sooner Theater Stage during the Norman Music Festival on Saturday, April 29, 2017 in Norman, Okla. [The Oklahoman Archives]

Collaborative effort

Along with his bandmates in the pop-rock group The Sunday Flyers - Terry "Buffalo" Ware, T.Z. Wright, Bob French, Mike McCarty, Mark McCarty and Roy Dickinson - Standridge collaborated with a slew of Oklahoman musicians, from red dirt songbird Susan Herndon and drummer Jahruba Lambeth to bassist Stephen Tillman and Alegria Real vocalist Christina Audas.

"One of the ideas I had with this was I really wanted to try and pair together rhythm combos - bass players and drummers - that I thought might be really interesting. I play with all these guys, obviously, but they haven't played as much together. And I just thought that it would be really cool to mix and match them to the tune," Standridge said.

He started recording on the project in August 2019 and again teamed with Eads - his partner in the rock concept duo Big Dumb Buildings - who recorded, mixed and mastered Standridge's "Squeak" in his Norman home studio dubbed Tomb of Tut.

"I appreciate him. ... It was a lot of wrangling. It was really fun. We had a grid set up on paper of what times and scheduling," Standridge said.

"We tried to do everything live with the drummer and the bass player as much as we could ... but it was quite an orchestration."

Gregg Standridge [Michael Duncan photo]

Diverse sound

With so many players involved, it's little wonder that "Squeak" skitters through a wide swath of sonic territory over four vinyl sides.

"I think that's kind of the way most of my records have gone. I really love so much so many different styles. I grew up as just kind of an FM rock guy, but then I went to college and studied classical guitar and got a master's degree in classical guitar and just got exposed to all kinds of things. I love ska and reggae and pop and punk - I love punk stuff, too. I love old country, and it all kind of mixes together. But stylistically, the album has some different points to listen to, for sure," said Standridge, who got his bachelor of art degrees in music performance and music education from Chickasha's University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma and his master's at Oklahoma City University.

"I don't want to write the same song over and over again. Sometimes, I listen to albums that people do and it's like, 'Well, yeah, it's beautiful, but it's the same.' ... So, I'd rather shake it up and practice different stuff."

The director of guitar studies at the Norman Music Institute, Standridge said he felt free to follow his musical fancy on "Squeak," from cranking out protest songs like "Ice Box" and "America Is Waiting" to crooning ballads like "Hole in Your Heart" to covering The Replacements' "Little Mascara."

"I can make whatever I want. I don't have to sell albums. I don't have to be politically aligned any way or politically nondescript. ... It's really what keeps me sane is to be doing and creating stuff. I have to do it. If I'm not, I'm insane. So, I'm always working on something. I have to be. It's just great," Standridge said.

"This is the best thing that I've done. I can honestly say that. ... Hopefully, I'll do more better stuff later, but this is the best so far. So, that's good."

Although he also dropped this summer a digital EP with a few tracks, Standridge said he is giving the album the release he wants by focusing on vinyl.

"My older brother and older sister both were huge music fans. We listened to KOMA on the radio all the time. ... Apparently I was a kid - I don't remember any of this - my brother won 100 vinyl records from some radio station. It was pretty cool. I was about 3 or 4, I guess, and left to my own devices, apparently I took all those albums and got a jar of mayonnaise and a knife and stacked them all up and spread mayonnaise on each one and just made a huge tower of mayonnaise and record sandwiches. That's what I told them I did. Of course, with my brother, I'm surprised I'm alive. My mom kept me alive through all that, but he still holds that over me," Standridge said with a laugh.

"Maybe I should send him a jar of mayonnaise and my record and he should just go to town."

Gregg Standridge plays on the Sooner Theater Stage during the Norman Music Festival on Saturday, April 29, 2017 in Norman, Okla. [The Oklahoman Archives]

-BAM