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Kimya Dawson & Friends
WOMPA
November 14, 2025
Kimya Dawson is driving from New York to the Pacific Northwest, and she’s taking the long way. On her 2025 tour, the folk-punk legend said on Instagram, she wants to hug friends like Samantha Crain and play venues like WOMPA, which is what happened last weekend during a fundraiser concert benefiting Girls Rock! Tulsa.
WOMPA’s atrium always feels a little magical, but on Friday night, with string lights glowing and ironwork sculptures hanging overhead, the place felt especially otherworldly. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing in disbelief: Kimya? Here? Tonight?
Tulsa-based singer-songwriter Maddie Riggin opened a little after 7pm, setting the stage for the evening’s emotional temperature. Fat Dracula, the married punk-rock duo of Dave Dean and Kris Rose1, followed with louder, faster energy.
While the openers played, Dawson sat casually behind the merch table, signing autographs and doodling on bookmark-sized paper, which is only the right size for drawing boners and giraffes, she said. Meanwhile, SHOTS Harm Reduction was giving out free Narcan, fentanyl test strips, and emergency contraception. There were also plenty of free masks and earplugs. Harm reduction was part of the show.
When Samantha Crain began singing, Dawson quietly scooted closer to hear her. Crain joked about singing too many melancholy songs on a Friday night before leading the room through “This Little Light of Mine,” then moving into a Choctaw-language song she wrote about longing, place, and ancestors.
Dawson took the stage next, and their presence was disarming: part camp counselor, part chaos aunt, part oracle. The sweetness in her voice sat directly against the weight of what she was singing. That tension is her anti-folk superpower. One moment you’re thinking about an old high school crush; the next, grandpa (Dawson’s third identifier, alongside she/they) punches you in the gut with a tribute to “Macho Man” Randy Savage, the professional wrestler who died in 2011. I was tickled and my head was spinning.
Near the end of the night, Dawson invited Crain back onstage for “Gumshoe,” a song Crain wrote for her late partner. The crowd was silent as Crain’s voice wavered and Dawson’s harmony steadied her. It was one of the night’s rawest moments: grief offered plainly, and met with quiet solidarity.
Though this was their first time performing the song together live, Crain originally recorded “Gumshoe” with Dawson as a surprise for her partner. (The Moldy Peaches, which Dawson co-founded, was his favorite band.) He never got to hear this version in this world, Crain said. But maybe he heard it from wherever he is now. You can listen to Crain and Dawson’s official release of “Gumshoe (Alt Version)” on your favorite streaming platform as of today.
Death and grief threaded themselves through the evening. But the mood never turned bleak. It felt communal instead, like a roomful of people deciding to hold each other up. This is what WOMPA was built for in the first place.
Almost all proceeds from the roughly 220 tickets sold went to Girls Rock! Tulsa, a summer camp where girls and gender-diverse youth learn instruments, form bands, and build confidence. WOMPA donated the space, and every musician accepted a lower-than-standard rate. According to Rose, the fundraiser brought in enough for Girls Rock! Tulsa to file its own 501(c)(3). An entire future of kid bands and tiny, radical rockers just got funded by one night of collective tenderness and noise.
Footnotes
- Rose is also the events manager for Twisted Arts, the nonprofit umbrella that Girls Rock! Tulsa falls under. Return to content at reference 1↩
