Upon approaching what will be the final story I write this year for The Scene, I drove down to the Sooner Theatre, where older, art-types were flocking about. The wind blew a little harder as I walked down past Bison Witches where two guys shared beers on a porch. For a Friday, the street was terribly empty. Furniture stores lit the sidewalks, which made their products look more expensive than the price tags. But worse than the wind, the investment firms, the lawyers' offices, the closed coffee shops and the beguiling antiquity of downtown Norman's structures was the fact that on a Friday night, there were no sounds. There was no music.

Enter The Opolis. Shoveled into a dank avenue (Crawford) behind Main Street, The Opolis sits politely by the Landmark Tabernacle and Sunflower Press. It is a remnant of times when Liberty Drug and Subterranean torched Campus Corner with music. But with its black prison-font sign, The Opolis appears upon first inspection to be nothing more than a used typewriter shop.

It's a surprise when people like Andy Gibb, host of the Norman public access variety show, "Music Show," say, "I think Opolis is the Norman music scene."

It didn't always used to be that way, though. As shown in the recent Flaming Lips documentary "Fearless Freaks Revealed," Oklahoma City and Norman were havens for weirdo rock.

Starlight Mints drummer and The Opolis owner Andy Nunez grew up marinating in the weirdness while attending Norman High School and trekking to Norman venues and Oklahoma Memorial Union's basement to see bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. Countless now-revered post-punk bands cut their then-underrated chops in Norman. Then they all left.

In 2002, when there wasn't a place for alternative rock, Nunez made the Starlight Mints' rehearsal space public domain.

Opening The Opolis

This week is as good a week as any to celebrate the sturdy tenure of The Opolis, which opened its doors in 2002 after serving as a rehearsal grounds for the revolving door band.

The wildly catchy third Starlight Mints album, "Drowaton," is set for release Tuesday on a new label, Barsuk. The Mints explored google.com to come up with their album name. When "drowaton" ("notaword" backward) didn't pull up any Google links, the Mints decided it had a nice druggy quality they liked.

With Drowaton, the Mints once again explore the shifty compositions and time scramblers that have marked their previous indie pop output. The use of strings, horns, piano, cello and lyrics like "there's a lobster on the phone!" feel like Pee Wee Herman's dreams of past eras: British Invasion, punk, Brian Eno drones and New Wave. These sounds are made of musical influences that first resonated here in Norman.

"There are so many" memories, Nunez said. "Growing up, I had a fake ID to get into shows and it was really not to drink but actually to go see shows ... God, man, we saw everything from Sonic Youth, to the Minutemen. Back then it was a lot SST (Washington, D.C.-based Punk label) and that kind of stuff."

The Mints grew out of the same progressive soil that the Flaming Lips broke their acid rock guitars on in the late '80s and early '90s, which may be why the Mints are often compared to the band.

But the Mints are ever-evolving and devolving -- their line-up has gone through years of shape-shifting, with seven people jamming on violin, piano and guitar, four solid multi-instrumentalists today with Javier Gonzales on bass. The result is a scattered identity all their own, one that initially needed rehearsal space.

"The main reason we opened up The Opolis was because we originally got the spot as a rehearsal space, then we started throwing shows," Nunez said. "There's a lot more now more because Norman's twice as big as it was growing up ... And then after all these people who were throwing the punk shows had had enough and moved away, there was nobody having that one place where supposedly 'alternative' music could go on."

Since opening, The Opolis has housed countless CD release jams and helped the crew at Music Show further their broadcasting ambitions. The show features live performances from The Opolis and music commentary from the Music Show staff.

"I think it's great," Gibb said. "Some of the shows I've seen there I wouldn't have been able to see anywhere else. I've seen Jonathan Richman, the Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Players, the Fruitbats, and it's in your backyard. They'll bring in these mid-level bands we have heard of but haven't gotten a chance to see, and then let a local band have a show and earn a reputation. And it's great for us. They've been encouraging."

Norman bands agree.

"The Opolis is by far the best and our favorite place to play," said Evangelicals bassist Kyle Davis. "They've helped us out and put us with great bands who have come through, and it's just a great venue to have in Norman ... With Guestroom Records, those are the places that are keeping the Norman scene alive."

Most of the bands Nunez books he has gotten to know through touring and getting to know the promotional agencies. The famed Shins show put The Opolis on the map. The show was a favor to Nunez.

"You know, there's some bands that I'm fascinated by and some I'm like, 'Eh,'" Nunez said. "We are pretty lucky in a sense that being in a band right from the get-go (helped)."

Nunez says with rising rent in Norman, he wouldn't be surprised if new venues like The Opolis had a hard time getting started. On nights without an Opolis show, the hush of Main Street is still a reality.

Dipping into 'Drowaton'

Having dual duties as club owners and musicians has put a hold on the making of the Mints' much-anticipated record "Drowaton." The Mints opted again to go with Trent Bell at Bell Labs. Sometimes the band dropped tracks off with Bell and often Andy and vocalist Allan Vest traded tracks over e-mail. Nunez said Bell Labs has been the band's recording home since 2000's "The Dream that Stuff was Made Up."

The first time I met Nunez he was tinkering with a developing "Drowaton" track with Bell.

"We've worked with Trent since the get-go," Nunez said. "In the beginning it's just been me Allan and Trent in the studio, you don't want too many people in the studio. So I think there's some sort of sound that has developed from that."

The band's biggest challenge, Nunez said, is turning its minute-and-a-half ideas into coherent songs.

"Allan is the prolific wordsmith and prolific songwriter, and I would say there's a weird chemistry (between us)," Nunez said. "Me and Allen have been working together for so long. Some of them are more mine than his and some songs are going to be more his than mine. But in the end just to get any song done, you have to work together ... Me and Allen have tons of minute-and-a-half ideas, and we really need each other's help to get those minute-and-a-half ideas to two-and-a half to three-minute cohesive songs to make it make sense."

The Mints' first two albums collected enough admirers on the national level who wanted to know what the Mints have been working on the past two years. Two weeks ago, the NPR program "All Songs Considered" featured the new track "Pumpkin," saying the Mints "write smart, quirky, dream-pop songs."

The sound of "Drowaton" makes the Mints sound like a cockeyed, propulsive orchestra. "Drowaton" is a "best of Norman" symphony with guests Ryan Lindsey on piano, Brent Williams on violin, Steven Stark on cello, Kevin Webb on trombone and Matt Blagg and Ricky Brooks on trumpet.

Very happy with the product, Nunez admits the next two months of touring will dictate the aging band's next step.

"We've put all this into it. It would be kind of stupid to stop," Nunez said. "It'll be obvious when it's played its course. When you go out on tour you can tell."

Still, Nunez is happy with the pace in Norman and pleased his venue has helped give shape to more Norman bands in the Norman area as well as those in the Stillwater area, including bands Colour Music and Kunek.

"There's more bands that are being birthed around here all the time, and they are good bands," Nunez said. "I'm amazed at all the good bands that are coming out all the time and I think that is outstanding there was bands like Defenestration and the Lips growing up to get a bunch of people motivated to listen to music and stuff, but now it's become more and more expansive."
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