photo by Gabe Friedman, Bricktown Brewery

Reverb Bros. “Adult Entertainment”
by Gene Triplett, Daily Oklahoman February 25, 2005
Oklahoma City musical mainstay Basile Kollliopoulos kicks open the fuzztone floodgates and fills the listening room (and your head) to overflowing with steaming psychedelic swamp rock tinged a very dark blue on the Reverb Bros aptly-named new album “Adult Entertainment”. From the spacey, sizzling strut of “In the Fog” - featuring sci-fi fretboard effects from brother Miho Kolliopoulos and breathy backing vocals from Lin Sanchez - Basile takes off on a seven-song rampage of rip-roaring riffage and growling vocal rants that seem sometimes inspired by nightmare images from a drunkard’s dream. Titanic tunes such as “Oscar Wilde Blues,” “Shark Skin” and “Short Eyes” sound like ZZ Top in amphetamine overdrive, while “Swamp Stomp” weighs in like a Bo Diddley shuffle sonically multiplied by 10 from top to bottom. Recorded at Casey Friedman’s Inner State Studio, with Martin Dillon laying down the backbeat and Chad Feuerborn drawing the bottom line on stand-up bass, the new disc gets a coming-out party when the Reverb Bros perform live at VZD’s on Saturday

photo by Charles Parker

Marty, Miho, & Casey by Cat Parker, VZD's 4/28/06

Reverb Bros "Adult Entertainment"
by Preston Jones, Oklahoma Gazette
From the guttural opening notes of the spaced blues-swamp jam “In The Fog,” metro musical staple Basile Kolliopoulos’ ferocious musical vision takes hold and refuses to let go. “Adult Entertainment,” yet another product of Casey Friedman’s Inner State Studio, is six tracks of relentless rock that rolls like a wave of concrete. Kolliopoulos’ distinctive vocals anchor that often psychedelic instrumental excursions that course through cuts like “Lighter Fluid” and “Shark Skin.” Get loaded, crank this disc and punch a wall


photos by Holly Roach, Bricktown Brewery 8/26/2005

The Fortune Tellers
By Thomas Anderson, Oklahoma Gazette March 2, 1988
Transcribed by Terry Slade

I love the Fortune Tellers. So should you. They are our local rock'n'roll heroes, they are our elder statesmen, they are survivors, and are local treasures that should be honored far above and beyond the gaudy tourist traps we tend to venerate around here like the Cowboy Hall of Fame, the oil derricks in front of the governor's mansion, and the OU/Texas Weekend. The Fortune Tellers are strangers in a strange land and are an institution in it. They are larger than life. Let me count the ways.

** April, 1983. The first article I did for a national publication was for a New York rock'n'roll mag called "Trouser Press". The article was one in a series called "America Underground", dealing with hip, unsigned bands in local markets all across the country. I wrote about Oklahoma. Then I wrote, "Perhaps the finest band in the state, the Fortune Tellers, can be heard punching out their lean rhythm and blues in Oklahoma City and Norman. The four-piece has opened shows for Tav Falco's Panther Burns and Joe "King" Carasco, among others. More often than not, they've walked away with the show.

** Spring, 1984. The Fortune Tellers serve as Bo Diddley's backup band at a Bowery show. It is the most awesome, raw, bone-crushing rock and roll I've heard in a long, long time. It knocks the girls off their stiletto heels and strangles the guys on their skinny boutique neckties. Fights break out. Pandemonium reigns supreme. Bo Diddley IS the gunslinger, and riding shotgun the Fortune Tellers are stone-faced and deadly. No one who was there has ever forgotten it.

** March, 1984. Doing an "American Underground" update for "Trouser Press" I wrote, "Farther west lies Oklahoma City...Here...one can still find the Fortune Tellers, perhaps the world's only Greek-born rockabilly band among the brightest talents in the state".

** February, 1985. John Cale plays the Bowery. At the last minute Fortune Teller singer Basile Kolliopoulos is brought in to do a solo set as an penning act. The first two songs he does are Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do?" and the Stooges' "No Fun". Savvy choices - the Jimmy Reed song was covered by Cale on his Helen of Troy album (which has never been released in America), and the Stooges' first LP, (which contained "No Fun"), was produced by Cale. Basile knows a lot about records beyond those on the Sun and Chess labels.

** September, 1986. I pan the Fortune Tellers' first album, "Fortunes Told For Free" in "Creem". A major disappointment. In retrospect I've come to decide that the blandness of that disc is probably the fault of producer Dino lee.
Dino Lee is this Austin, Texas rock'n'roll "character" of which every major city has an example - like Joe Christ of the Healing Faith in Dallas, and like San Franciscos' Jello Biafra, that is until he discovered political rhetoric. Dino Lee has a foot-tall bouffant and outrageous apparel accessorized by such accoutrements as a huge vibrator he calls "General Lee". You get the picture. But on his own first record, Dino Lee is as tame as powdered milk. Straight frat-rock all the way. Farfisa organs even. So probably not the best producer for a Fortune Tellers record.

** Presently. The Fortune Tellers have a new record out called "Musick Without Tears". It's a lot better than the earlier set. Miho Kolliopoulos' guitars moan and wail over the eight songs and Basile comes up with the most convincingly wasted vocals since Lou Reed wheezed his way through "Some Kinda Love" on the Velvet's third album (and that's a compliment). A tough, fine record by any standards. You should own a copy.


Opening for the Reverend H. Heat @ Bricktown Brewery 2004
photo by G. Friedman 2005