Nine o’clock tonight at Milhouse, two traveling groups and two local favorites will bring sounds to one of the Kalamazoo underground music community’s favorite basements.
Johnny Foreigner, coming in all the way from the UK, is an energetic four-piece pop punk outfit with some experimental leanings. They’re hitting up the east coast, as well as the midwest on this tour.
Swerp Records labelmates Nervous Passenger are out with JF. They provide the type of throaty pop punk commonly brought to the Vine Neighborhood by Fat Guy House. They describe themselves and their music by saying “…songs are about girls and/or friends and/or beer, and they’re super fun to sing along to.”
Local support for the night comes from experimental/noise rock favorites Forget The Times, as well as left-wing anthem singers/Ted Leo fanatics Jake Simmons & the Little Ghosts. Donations will be accepted and are encouraged for the traveling bands. Attendees should plan for a fun night, but also to be respectful of the space, the others attending, and the people organizing/helping out with/playing the show.
Tonight The Black Lodge will be hosting an acoustic night featuring Jerry Fels and the Jerry Fels, who is actually just one man. Currently on tour to celebrate his 2011 release “Evil is the Root of All Money,” Jerry is a solo acoustic performer whose music has both a poignant introspection and a wonderful sense of humor. With such songs as “Bad Bad Bad Bad Money” and “Girl You Make Me Want to Change My Number,” Jerry’s tongue is planted firmly in his cheek.
Supporting him are several local performers including Boy Becomes Hero, folk songs with a distinctly personal bent.
Nick DeMott, who veers through various topics with a whimsical appreciation for the American roots folk/ blues sound.
Rounding it out will be Neil Shah, best known for his involvement with several popular Kalamazoo bands like Ackley Kid, Witch Fingers, and Statia.
Show starts at 9PM. Please bring donations for the traveling troubadour.
Singer against meadow. That’s about the sound of the show tomorrow night.
It’s going to be a Kalamazoo kind of night, right? There are some locals, or used-to-be locals, looking to provide some excellent acoustic-based music for No Fun House goers tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. Apparently there will also be pasty, nervous, film-maker there pleading for interviews, but it may be safe to ignore him as just another victim of too much music, schooling, and un-protected basement crawls. Remember, never sweat next to exposed dry-wall.
The proficiently productive performer recently returned to Kalamazoo as part of his vinyl-release tour Small Houses will be featured tomorrow night. To go with the release tour, Jeremy Quentin has also prepared a 4-piece band to back his guitar/harmonica combo, although this isn’t quite kosher with the No Fun House dialect, so it’ll be a surprise. Back to the music. The Ron-Swanson looking fellow has been featured everywhere from Daytrotter to A.V. Club, but for reasons beyond his formidably hirsute lip. Jeremy Quentin’s sound seems founded in the same love shared for his shirts–trotting on the edge of the country as a cowboy, singing a tune with a voice that seems grasped with the tinge of Marlboro’s. Most songs sound sad; more tears than whiskey.
Another Kalamazoo native, Elisabeth Pixley-Fink will be featuring her willow-the-whisp, Gary Jules-esque, deep-forest vocals that are as childishly playful as they are nervously morose. While usually paired with piano, EPF’s sound is vaguely reminiscent of She & Him, but more complicated in its experimental poetics and its bloody exploration of folk-songs. Fiddling with a banjo, an ever-so bitterly tuned piano, and a bowler hatted guitar player, Pixley-Fink seems to be the natural progression of a new-folk movement. Even if performing solo (without common companion Andru Bemis), EPF would be treat to for those that wish to see the state of all those summer-backyards that we used to play tag in, underneath the willow, and beyond the hills. As fun skipping down a dirt road, while enigmatic as the hole burrowed behind the oak tree.
Silphium Blooms is the on-going solo project of Tyler Basset (of the currently on-hiatus Neu Spryghts), an exhibition in meandering, grumbling, technical acoustic guitar playing–sounding a bit like an independent film-soundtrack from the 90’s. Most of this is based off the demo released this past Wednesday on Silphium Blooms’ bandcamp–so I suppose your opinion is just as fine as mine, mayhaps better. Listen for yourselves below:
Respect all things, including the music, yourself, and the house.
I appear to have some competition…that is there are many shows going on this Friday night for all the variety of tastes that listeners young, slightly older, and possibly older than them, may desire. Buts it’s really the generational aspect that entices the eye and the gut: the ageless quality, the community of patches; comprised of the old-punks, the new-hipsters, the college capitalists, and the cantankerous DIY veteran. So supposedly all are welcome to welcome the music.
But if the shows busts than the blame will squarely be placed on the drunken piss waggler in the street with a mighty crunch of the beer can. I cannot vouch for the folks over at Touchdown City 2.0, but a swift kick in the ass may be appropriate in any case if the threat to community ever comes to pass.
That being said, the actual music being presented is brought to you by a collection of four odd-men, three from home-base Kalamazoo and one from the West. That music they play being the sort of “I’m all by myself and this here guitar is my only friend” type, or “mayhaps this will be my murder weapon” sort of string strumming. More so these one-man-acts provide the kind of show that allows listeners to really appreciate the grain in the coniferous wood body of the performer’s chosen instrument and perhaps even whisper the word “intimate” into the next show-goers ear.
Graveling about from the state Oregon, crawling out of that creative cess-pit of villainy, saxophone players, and liberal-arts majors known as Portland, Ghostwriter (or Steve Schecter to friends) has the sound of an electric guitar that had the pleasure of being crammed into the exhaust pipe of a Ford 4 x 4 along with Tom Wait’s left boot. Schecter is an embattled, entrenched, and entertaining DIY performer that chews out notes like the death rattle of some rusted-pick up that needs a carburetor replaced, all the while keeping passengers calm by the occasional usage of a hand-brake, or more accurately, a pedal-operated tambourine. A treat for the DIT deviants and fans of tin-can, swamp-punk.
Though the namesake isn’t clear to some, Arms Akimbo seems most at home when flaking the skin flecks off the metal banded strings adorned on his southern-lute, or banjo for short. (I don’t plan on addressing the namesake) While the guitar playing is settling, it’s the cracked voice, the uneasy quality in the timbre, the uncertainty bounding from one word to the next in his performance that coddles both wary and ignorant listeners into a bleary past of some golden creation, full of crickets and cat-tails.
Occasionally an ass-fool, Tim Tapper is a prolific son of Vine St., always trying and always contentious. His sound follows suit with confidence, with delicate attention to his instrument–carefully navigating through the muggings, murders, and poverty of the surrounding neighborhood from whence it played. The sour tone occasionally flowing into Tapper’s singing always chains me to this place–Kalamazoo–exposing the flaws in the pavement and the chips in the paint of the wood panels covering the student ghetto residences, whilst sobering dark imaginations.
I sat down with Alex Young the other day in studio. He was barefoot for the most part and carried his coffee in a mason jar. I was late, but so was he so we called it even. With my colleague David had setting-up the microphones and the decade-old Canon postured into my palm, the only bit of business left to attend to was the young-man’s performance. While the orange-lamp glared, the red-camera eye blinked in constant attention, and the dry-wall held its breath, Alex began a few songs that just made the scenery seem something electrically correct. The nasal-pitched voice climbing through vocal chords that sound scratched from screaming is complemented by an attentive electric guitar diddy. Makes the rug under your feet warm, and the wood smell like the city.
Show is at 10 p.m.
If directions to Touchdown City 2.0 are needed, email ditkalamazoo@gmail.com
Respect the house, the idea, the people, and yourself.
Friday night at Wayne manor, prepare yourselves for night of ridiculous Rock N Roll – expect good times – don’t forget to dance. We’ve got two touring bands on the line up so don’t forget a few bucks for donations (at least throw a smoke in the bucket).
Not convinced? Check out the line-up below
Destroy Nate Allen coming all the way from Portland takes one of American’s greatest forms of expression, folk music, flips it on its head and kicks it in the ass. The duo jams their unique folk-punk mix and fills it in with everything from Skanky Ska to experimental over tones.
Brass bows is a local band with one self-described genre, Rock n’ Roll and they play Rock n’ Roll the way it’s meant to be played: full of soul, sex, and plenty of booze.
The Mushmen is a local Ska-core band guaranteed to get your feet moving. When those up strokes start ringing and those horns start blasting, you will most likely be having too much fun – fair warning.
It’s about to get heavy on Western’s campus. Four punk-related artists will be spanning sounds and issues for a FREE SHOW brought to you by the Kalamazoo Peace Center.
Local favorites ACKLEY KID will be in your face, raw, heavy and just the best dudes. ELK WELCOME will also be bringing their punk/jam band mix helping you get weird.
The show will also feature out of towners GREEN WASHED, who have no recordings online. However, as fellow southwest Michiganders on a bill such as this one, I’m sure they’re bringing something not to miss.
Finally, CLOSET BURNER from Bloomingon, IN will be bringing the most intense queercore you’ll ever get the pleasure of seeing, unless you happen to be fortunate enough to see Limp Wrist. However, for the price of ZERO DOLLARS, this is too good to pass up. Seriously, they’re called Closet Burner, how can that not be awesome?
As I’ve said, this show is FREE, and will also have FREE ROOT BEER AND ICECREAM. Starts at 7:30. Respect the shit out of these bands and of the Peace Center folks who help bring cool outta towners at a low low price.
Since the Black Lodge began booking shows earlier this year, they have sported a myriad of genres. Adding to this diverse presentation, they’ll be showcasing acts of a varied folk tradition.
FOLK Y’ALL are an old-timey 3-piece with an up-to-current day edge from Connecticut. Mandolin picking, guitar strumming, twangy singing, this group is going to get your feet tapping and maybe even have you singing along.
Also featuring locals:
NICK DEMOTT rough ‘n’ tumble political/personal folk punk
JEREMY RUGGLES experimental, ambiguous and thought provoking acoustic
All kinds of fun is goin’ down this Monday at the Corner Record Shop. If indie rock is yr thing, then you won’t want to miss what we’ve got in store (pun intended). Two excellent Michigan bands and some Bostonian touring folks that I’m super excited about!
If you haven’t been to a Corner Record Show yet, here’s the deal. It’s located at 1710 West Main. That’s at the top of West Main hill inside of Tiffany’s Village. Music starts around 9:30 when Saffron closes so that we don’t piss of our neighbors. We never charge a cover and there is no age limit. However, we encourage everyone to donate to the touring band (and buy records from the shop). Because we are a business, we can’t allow any drinking or drugs on the premises.
This is modern Rock ‘N Roll done right. Easily draws comparisons to big name artists like Alabama Shakes, Kings Of Leon or Cold War Kids. However, they seem to have found a way of only incorporating the interesting bits from those bands. I’m impressed.
DITKalamazoo 