This show is gonna be awesome so I’ll make this quick:

DEAF WISH is a noisy, clangy garage-punk act hailing from the inhabited continent furthest from us: Straya.

NO BAILS is Kalamazoo’s Goner-esque garage-warrior outfit. They’re doing it and doing it for real.

Finally, THE UNCANNY are just that. Freaked-out surf rock that will upset your mother and infuriate your dog.

Show starts at 9pm. Bring some money for merch and 5 bucks is suggested at the door because Australia is a long drive or so I am led to understand.

Plus, if enough people by Deaf Wish records, KURT MIGHT TAKE OF HIS T-SHIRT.

The punks are taking to the stars tonight, coming in to port at Kalamazoo’s newest house venue. Bespin, AKA Cloud City is having their first ever show tihs very eve, and it’s gonna get heavy. Energy, Volume, Slashing Guitars. What more do you want in a Wednesday night?

First on the docket, Plan-It-X-affiliates RUBRICS will be up from South Carolina, and playing loud, fast, and super catchy, borderline-pop-influenced music. Barbed hooks with a thick slathering of anarchist lyricism. This is pop-sensibility gone bad.

Down from Grand Rapids, DIANE REHM will be bringing passionate spoken (shouted?) lyrics over drums and guitars that are powerful, deliberate, and ultimately furious.

Courtesy dianerehm.bandcamp.com

Playing support tonight, Local rock outfit BLANK will bring the sauce and be the boss. Hard hitting music, super-nice dudes.

Finally, former members of Pan will be playing in their new outfit MOLD. Technical prowess meets heavy riffs meets that classic rock record that you play late at night when nobody else is around.

Music starts at 8pm. Bring some skrilla for the touring acts, as gas ain’t cheap and freedom ain’t free. Respect the house, respect the bands, respect yrselves.

Tomorrow night, Kalamazoo once again hosts one of the most indomitable rock bands in the history of the known universe: DEAD RIDER. There’s not much that needs to be said, really. This is the Rock Music of the Future. Grimy, burning, and beyond reproach. All Bangs, No Whispers.

Playing support is Kalamazoo’s premiere noise-rock unit, FORGET THE TIMES. Lead by the fearless Sean Hartman, this is seriously one of my favorite local bands to experience. If you still have the ability to feel, this will feel so good. If you have been numbed by years of drudgery, take heart! FTT will put some tingles in you yet.

Finally, rock-solid Psych Powerhouse BROWN COMPANY will similarly be supporting this bill. Featuring members of Minutes and Violent Apathy, this is a collection of sounds that will make you reconsider ever giving up the guitar back when you were seventeen and couldn’t quite get the chords right to ‘Hotel California’.

Music starts at 9pm, and it’s $5 at the door to get in. A paltry amount for such a fantastic collection of performances.

1 CAVEAT though, Friends: You have to be 18 or older to show up, even though it’s Spring Break.

Otherwise, hope to see y’all down!

Well y’all, WIDR WEEK is upon us again! That wondrous time of the year where the DJs of Kalamazoo’s only source of Radio Evolution guilt us all in to donating money to keep the boards lit up, the turntables spinning, and the tower broadcasting 24/7.

Of course, WIDR WEEK also means a slew of fantastic events! This WIDR week is no exception!

The WIDR ALL-NIDR kicked off the week on Monday, bringing oodles of live bands to the studio back to back. Good times were had by all, I was informed! Tonight, The Doctor hosted a special WIDR-themed Cinema Fantastique at the 411 Club featuring the film Faster Pussycat: Kill! Kill!

Tomorrow, however, as every self-respecting youth in a college town knows, is the start of the weekend, and the start of a THREE DAY WIDR CELEBRATION.

Things will start out soft and low with fantastic music by

GRAHAM PARSONS AND THE GO ROUNDS

ALEX YOUNG

SECRET ANIMALS

Then, the real attraction begins, as John Brakefield and Emily Townshend share their poetry. It will be so good to hear it.

The shindig starts at 7:30 at the Vine Neighborhood Gallery (AKA Vine Neighborhood Association, AKA KCAC) and goes HARD ALL NIGHT. Please bring a minimum $3 donation to help keep WIDR WIDRFUL.

See y’all tomorrow!

In 2008, a gang of Kalamazoo art-lovers decided to get together and make steps towards an all-ages art and performance space here in our fair city. In many ways, this rag-tag group of folks were the fore-runners and progenitors of DIT Kalamazoo as we know it now. Weekly meetings and an active Facebook page lead to a great deal of progress being made: a number of benefit shows raised a little money, non-profit status was achieved, and seeds were sown.

That initial effort eventually slowed and stalled as life happened and the folks involved found less and less time and energy to put forth. By 2009, things had slowed and the Kalamazoo Collective Arts Center initiative took a break until 2012, when a -new- rag-tag group of folks picked it back up, again with the end-goal of operating an all-ages safe-space art and music venue here in Kalamazoo!

‘Kcactus’ by Jose Rincones

Things are moving forward at a steady pace, but in order for this ultimate goal to become a reality, the KCAC needs a little thing called CHEDDAR. Hence, Sunday, Feb. 16th, an AWESOME PUNK-ROCK FUNDRAISER WILL BE HELD, featuring the excellent acts

FISHERKING

courtesy Fisherking’s Facebook

THE NATURAL DISASTERS

Courtesy Natty D’s Facebook

AN (Formerly PAN)

Throwback photo courtesy PAN’s Myspace page

And excellently, a 1-time reunion performance by
ACKLEY KID

Courtesy Ackley Kid’s Facebook page

Show starts at 9pm at Shakespeare’s Lower Level. This one is 21+ (sorry, young-punks) and also ABSOLUTELY FREE, so make sure you bring enough money for a beer and a few bucks in the KCAC’s Hat.

Boring People is one of my favorite Kalamazoo bands:

Strangewave is warm and floaty:

Chris Rawlins makes pop music:

Doors open at 9 and music starts shortly after. Bring money for the out-0f-towners. Bring your own good things to drink. Bring tidings of good will and love to your fellow show-goers. LET’S DO A THING, Y’ALL.