White Boy Scream / Kole Galbraith & Warren Realrider / Castigada
Drifters Theater
July 9, 2025
Greasers and socs have been rumbling around in the mythology of Tulsa for a long time, but there’s another undersung character who’s just as much a part of it: the drifter, the Motorcycle Boy, the itinerant preacher, the rambler who makes his way now and then to Tulsa Time, taking in a sunset and a honkytonk beer before moving on down the road.
It took Dylan Aycock a while to come up with a name for the project he’s been working on for the past several years, but Drifters Theater is just right. In February 2022, he bought the old Owen Park Baptist Church, which sits atop a steep hill west of downtown, across from the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, overlooking the skyline. He lives in the adjacent parsonage house, from which, inch by inch, he’s been remodeling the church into a venue that feels perfectly tuned to this moment when so many Tulsa “drifts”—cultures, artistic disciplines, creative communities—are meeting and merging in new ways. Think of it as a one-man, small-scale, extra-gritty, super-DIY version of the Pony Coffee rebuild. It seems to have come right up out of the heart of the original space, evolving its vintage warmth into a spot where today’s Tulsa can stop and breathe.
One of Tulsa’s most gifted instrumentalists, Aycock is someone who takes his time, who usually works out of the spotlight, who’s willing to sit with something for the long haul. His Scissor Tail Records, founded in 2010, has put dozens of beautiful, handmade editions into the world: a tribute to legendary guitarist Bruce Langhorne, the slam-dunk debut record by New Zealand’s Nadia Reid, early work by Hayden Pedigo, strong albums by Tobacco City, and a scattering of releases by Aycock himself and his brother Jesse, among many others.
Drifters Theater is marked by the same easygoing but intentional focus. To the existing church building Aycock has added a sweet patio, red velvet stage curtains, a solid sound system, lighting, and big glass windows that can open wide when the weather’s nice. But he’s kept the pleasantly creaky dark wood church pews, and the baptismal zone still stands behind where I imagine a pulpit once was, backed by a huge photo of a tree-lined creek with a bridge across it. Above a shelf spread with tea lights, a little plexiglass half-window pokes up, hand-painted with fronds of green grass.
The space feels like what it is: a spot that’s been lived in, sung in, prayed in, potluck-suppered in, a place to land for a few hours on life’s lonesome highway, listening and talking and watching the sun go down. That’s exactly what I did last week, leaving the striving city behind for the kind of Tulsa experience I’m craving more and more: a quality noise show in an old Baptist church with a fire pit outside, friendly people, a bookcase full of LPs, homey plants, water in gallon jugs at the entrance, and beers that arrived halfway through to supplement the BYO-whatever folks had showed up with, all for a $10 suggested donation.