It’s always fun to watch a band that probably never envisioned themselves breaking out of their local scene expanding their audience to the point that frequent world tours seem inevitable. Such is the case with Chat Pile, the OKC quartet that’s quickly evolved from goofy sludge-metal songs about selling their bodies to Arby’s to increasingly sober reflections on the violence their city, country, and a broader global network of capitalist allies perpetrate on their citizens—albeit with the instantly familiar sounds of bong hits still embedded in the proceedings.
Who Loves the Sun is the band’s third album in four years (which doesn’t even include live releases, film scores, split EPs, and side quests into primitivist Americana), and although it shares many of the sonic hallmarks of their breakout debut, the focus of their writing continues to mature. Each track on the new record feels like its own horror-fiction vignette with a deeper meaning lying just under the surface, with frequent mentions of “the skull” invoking both the Cryptkeeper and octogenarian imperialists exchanging our freedom of speech for plagues of torrential diarrhea. A Chat Pile album always manages to feel as outlandish as Bosch’s conceptions of hell, yet unsettlingly familiar at the same time.
While the band appears to be spending less time at home every year as touring demand increases, we were lucky enough to spend an increasingly rare day in Oklahoma City with bassist Stin, who compiled a visual diary of what his ideal 24 hours in the city might look like. From the weirdest thrift stores to the most “comfortably shittable” coffee shop restrooms, he not only takes you to the best spots OKC has to offer but also steers you clear of the worst—including a Wayne Coyne–condemned fast food spot and just about any stretch of land between the street and a building.
Check it out below, and pre-order Who Loves the Sun before the album drops this Friday via The Flenser here.
Elemental Coffee
Doing Chat Pile’s required email work in public a few hours a day helps stave off my descent into isolated Howard Hughes–tinged madness, and no other venue offers the proper cure quite like Elemental Coffee. Located downtown, Elemental is one of OKC’s few hip gathering spaces. Its bustling, spacious interior is a great spot to gaze briefly and non-threateningly upon other human faces while clacking away at my punk-rock clerical work. It doesn’t hurt that the coffee is exceptional, the service friendly, and the bathrooms comfortably shittable.
Cafe Kacao
Rightfully, Kacao is the most popular breakfast spot in OKC, and their gorgeous social-media-friendly Guatemalan cooking makes it a magnet for hordes of suburban rubes who trek into the city to clog the waitlist. Getting in the door can be a pain, but luckily, Kacao offers a bar where solo eaters such as myself can walk right up to immediate service. The chilaquiles adobados may be the best dish in the entire city, and I come here about once a week to enjoy it (the cilantro burrito is no slouch either!). First-timers should try the French toast, which is heavenly but entirely too gluttonous for any self-respecting person to eat more than a few times in their lives.
Go on walk
After eating chips for breakfast, it’s probably a good idea to get a little exercise with a quick stroll through the neighborhood. Sure, the weather is inhospitable for all but two weeks of the year, sidewalks or crosswalks barely exist, packs of stray dogs run wild, you’ll cross paths with street lunatics screaming at god and, daily, people drive their cars into buildings/people—but it’s important to get in those steps!
Scissortail Park
For a safer outdoor experience, hop in your car (yes, automobiles are how we do things here), then head to downtown OKC’s Scissortail Park. Opened to the public in 2019, Scissortail provides one of the very few public shared spaces people actually use in this city. Truthfully, this park is miraculous, since most Okies don’t really share spaces with other people outside of church or the outlet mall.
Guestroom Records
While on tour, we dig obsessively through record stores across the globe, and Guestroom smokes 85 percent of them. My literal biggest pet peeve on Earth is walking into a record store only to find new, sealed records stocked in a minimalist Apple Store environment or, inversely, a musty boomer shop filled to the brim with rotting, outrageously overpriced thrift-store garbage. Guestroom stocks the perfect blend of new and used records with fair pricing and, genuinely, their staff loves music and record collecting, an important and often overlooked employee attribute. They’re tenacious about constantly cycling inventory in and out of the store, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better used new-arrival bin in the region (End of an Ear in Austin is the one true exception—that place whips ass).
OK Family Thrift
A good thrift store has to be sorta shitty to be worthwhile, and OK Family Thrift has plenty of shittiness to go around. This huge underlit space on OKC’s west side is far and away the cheapest thrifting in town, offering the best selection of unloved homeware and media. If you’re on the hunt for something weird, this place is the spot. We purchased most of the “found” cassette tapes sampled in our Blood at Night compilation here.
Dust House
I spend a big chunk of my life in the 300-square-foot unattached apartment in my back yard, where we make all the Chat Pile sausage. In 2012, a close friend and I turned the space into a makeshift recording studio, where we learned how to record our bands and friends’ bands onto 1/4-inch tape through the process of pure trial and error (mostly error). The project fizzled out after a couple years, but the infrastructure was more or less still in place for Chat Pile to take over. This space is where we write, record, practice, and store all our tour merch (which is now taking over the space in a dangerous OSHA way).
Oklahoma Film Exchange
The Oklahoma Film Exchange (OFX) is a nonprofit, single-screen movie theater that hosts almost daily screenings of movies ranging from high-brow art-cinema to B-grade schlock. A scrappy co-op of volunteers (including Chat Pile’s very own Raygun Busch) curate OFX’s monthly calendar, and viewings often pair with guest hosts. OFX is injecting desperately needed culture into this city, cultivating its own cool little scene of Okie cinephiles.
Winchester Drive in Theatre
Speaking of theaters, Winchester Drive-In on the city’s south side is legitimately the most fun you’ll have in OKC. Granted, you’ll have to pick a night where they’re not playing a Minions movie or some shit, but you’ll find your patience rewarded with a cheery, festival-like atmosphere, killer snack bar, and a screening where you can goof on the movie with your pals without fear of bugging other moviegoers. Winchester is one of only about 250 drive-ins left in the country, making it an extremely rare historical holdover in our state (we love to bulldoze anything of historical value). Upon reflection, this place makes sense, considering Okies rally behind any cause that lets them sit in their car.
Del Rancho
Look, we have plenty of great restaurants I could recommend, but I’d be remiss not to extrapolate on the most representative food (?) OKC has to offer: the Steak Sandwich Supreme from Del Rancho. This caloric titan has been in the subconscious of OKC residents due in part to a television commercial that rotated heavily on UHF stations for 40 years. Its star has faded a bit in the last decade or so, but seven locations still exist across the state (most are drive-ins, of course), slopping up big ol’ Steak Sandwich Supremes for those who know how to party. And in case it sounds like I’m being disparaging against Del Rancho and its SSS, let it be known this dish would absolutely be my death row meal!
Ice cream at Braum’s
OK, so I have to admit that this photo essay isn’t a literal perfect day. In no reality could a human artery survive Kacao, Del Rancho, and Braum’s in a 24-hour period—and even if it could, the results would be anything but “perfect.” Logic aside, Braum’s is a must on this list, an institution ingrained deeply in Oklahoma’s DNA and its chubby residents. As a fast-food joint, Braum’s is top-notch, but the star attraction is their ice cream, an artisan endeavor decades before all these Johnny-come-lately bougie ice cream places started popping up. Our neighborhood Braum’s is at 16th and Classen (a famously terrible location of an otherwise pretty consistent chain), and my wife and I find ourselves there about once a week as a special treat.
Hosting friends at home
Domesticity is my number one hobby—I love cooking, decorating, organizing, and anything else that lets me tootle around the house with a modicum of purpose. The fruit of this meandering labor is a home suited perfectly for hosting friends. This is pretty much the only thing I miss about OKC when we’re away on the road: my wife, my dog, my cat, and watching the world’s worst music videos on the couch with friends.
