Tonight, Milhouse is playing host to some excellent, loud, and technical music, and a bunch of awesome people, too.  If you’ve got nothing else to do this Tuesday night, you should highly consider changing that for the better.

Coming in all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada and Top Shelf Records, Caravels will be creating a wall of sound too tall to see over. Shattering cymbals, beautiful guitars. Matter-of-fact vocals. High-powered like a substation.

Also on tour and traveling, Baltimore, MD has allowed us to borrow their Have Mercy.  Pulsing and rhythmic, the sound is almost reserved at times, while absolutely full-bore at others. With a vocal delivery that is often thoughtful almost on the verge of being soft-spoken, Have Mercy brings an interesting mix of dynamics and concept to the table.

From way up Grand Rapids way, No Health is bringing their brand of Post-hardcore to the room. Screaming vocals. sharp-edged guitars.  and a penchant for bridging the gap between wistful and heavy-handed.

Finally, Seventeen Again will be playing. Made up of members from William Bonney, The Reptilian, and Ackley Kid, Seventeen again is easily the best 18 minutes in Kalamazoo.

Music starts at 9pm. Please be prompt so we can get this show over before midnight! Also, please bring two or three dollars for the touring bands, or a little bit more cash to score some merch.

Let’s do this thing, Kalamazoo.

From Rockford, IL, WARREN FRANKLIN & THE FOUNDING FATHERS will be playing high-energy punk-infused pop music. It’s good.

From Houston, TX, FOOTBALL, ETC is rock-n-roll with just a twinge of shoegaze thrown in the mix. Plus they’re playing Fest 12 this year. how cool is that?

From St Louis, MO, FOXING will doing their post-hardcore thing and doing it right. they’ve been hear before. I heard it was real real good.

From Kalamazoo, MI, GOAT MACHINE (not to confused with Milking the Goat Machine) are gonna do some dancin’, organ-ized party jams. Think Ska without the ska.

Finally, from Kalamazoo, MI, BIKE TUFF will be rockin’ that punk.

Doors open at 9pm in the Basement of Shakespeare’s on Kalamazoo Avenue. Bring money for touring bands, dudes.

Tonight is a rare and joyous occasion in Kalamazoo where Punk gets punked and sweetly sinister things happen. The Corner Record Shop is, of course, the place to find this happening, and it will be wonderful

Image courtesy http://duanerafanan.blogspot.com/

On tour from Willimantic, Connecticut, HEATS OF FORMATION (formerly known as The Book Slave) will be bringing their acidic dual-guitars and heart-felt lyrics to the front. Strange melodies can be found in their manic music. The Book Slave came through a few years ago and were an avant-garde treate. HoF will be no different.

Local Newcomers POLYCHROME VIOLENCE will be playing support. They are a two piece drums-and-guitar punk band with an axe to grind. Hit ’em hard and fast, that’s what I always say sometimes.

Finally, one of Kalamazoo’s oldest and most venerated improv-noise outfits, BORON NUZZLE, will be rounding out this bill. There is literally no telling what these guys are going to do (or even who is going to do it), but it’s always worth the experience.

Music will start near 9pm at the KALAMAZOO CORNER RECORD SHOP. You can bring your own beverages, but please bring some spare scratch for the touring guys. Gas, after all, is expensive.

Tonight, some folks from across the pond are bringing their psychedelic feel to our fair city.

All the way from the UK, THE TELESCOPES are here. They play fuzz and swell like it’s nobody’s business. Their tracks are haunting and ethereal without being long-winded. Their vocals are pleasant and direct. They drone, they sample. The are a force to be reckoned with.

Photo courtesy maps.rcdc.it/

Accompanying The Telescopes on their travels, LSD AND THE SEARCH FOR GOD is in from the sunny shores of California. They wash out their pop music with fuzz, filters, ‘verb, and the occasional burst of noise. Their sound is much more shoegaze-influenced than their tour-mates, and that’s just fine.

THE VANDELLES are on the road too, but from the opposite coast of Brooklyn. They mix surf-rock with sharp objects to get a sound that makes you feel a lot like throwing down and and subsequently not picking up after yourself.

Finally, local Shoegazers CRASH CITY SAINTS will be bringing the support. They’re dancy, fancy, and rock real good.

This show was originally at Louie’s Trophy House, but it has been moved to the downtown VFW! Find it at

Veterans of Foreign Wars
323 N Church St
Kalamazoo, MI 49007

The cost is $10 at the door, which opens at 7:30. The music will start at 8pm and go until everyone is done dancing. All the touring bands will have much merch as well, I’m sure!

What do you get when you cross the Western Inter-Dormitory Radio and the Kalamazoo Collaborative Arts Co-op? You get a sweet little acoustic set at 509 Vine street!

Alex Young will be playing as his solo guitar-and-vocals project A Life of Making Tapes. He also did a set last night at Milhouse, and it was most excellent, so if you missed that, consider this a DO-OVER.

Fiona Dickinson is going to lend her soothing sounds as well. Excellent music, haunting lyrics, powerful voice. A Kalamazoo treasure and personal favorite.

Courtesy http://fionadickinson.bandcamp.com

 Another favorite of mine, Diamond Wave Press (Of Kalamazoo’s) Cold Mountain Child is fixin’ to swath wave after wave of joyful Appalachian sound. These folk are folk in the truest sense – that is, they play the snot out of folk music. Catch them!

Finally, Aaron Garcia (?) will be down to do his thing.

This is an early one (7pm!), so you can show up and have plenty of time to make it to the Hands Off Dance-off.

It’s also a FREE one, but WIDR is in a tough financial way these days and SURE COULD USE A DONATION IF YOU’VE GOT ANY CASH TO SPARE (HINT HINT).

This will be a good time.

I guarantee it.

Friday, there will be a fantastic sound echoing through the Vine neighborhood. It will reverberate from hill to dale to street sign to the broken remains of Oak Street Market. It will make doves wonder at their purpose, and grown men weep. Mostly, though, it’s gonna sound great.

What is this great sound? Why, the celebration of Cold Mountain Child’s first trek in to the wild unknown that is the Midwest tour. Some of their friends, of course, are fixin’ to send them off in style.

Helping bring CMC’s fantastic (though sometimes forlorn) tunes out on the road, Peter Damien Juan Diego Cook, formerly of the Philly Crawlers, will be playing an eclectic mix of his personal favorites and his personal compositions, and all with the help of an acoustic guitar!

Alex Quinlan (one of my local favorites) will be bringing his brother Marcus down to play his thoughtful, wandering melodies over excellently understated guitar-work. This is not an act to be missed ever, if one can possibly help it.

Cold Mountain Child’s friends from afar, Lobo Marino, will be coming up off Virginia way to get all the way down. Their sound is a strong, haunting chant on a wind-swept hilltop at sunset. S’wunnerful.

Finally, Rust Whip’s Dylan Lancaster will be bringing his Rock-Americana to the Milhouse once again. His songs are about lost love and hard life and good times and rough times and making it all work out in the end. Another personal favorite.

The music will start PROMPTLY at 8pm at the Milhouse. If you come late, you’ll miss it. Bring a little cash to either donate, or buy Cold Mountain Child and Lobo Marino’s merch to help them down the road. Other than that, bring a good ‘tude, a few friends, and some fine taste, and get ready for some fantastic tunes!

The day before everyone goes out and takes advantage of Michigan’s new tolerance of dangerous fireworks, Kalamazoo will be visited by an alien presence. They will bring strange sounds that will make strange feelings. They will warm your soul and cool your jets, as the evening permits. they are:

Courtesy insectfields.org

INSECT FACTORY, an ambient noise act that is sure to simultaneously soothe and cause ruminations of thoughts of different places that are not quite tangible but absolutely do exist, probably.

PUBLIC SPEAKING is uncouth grooves and sensual vocals. A perfect blend to get the blood moving again, after all that sweet rumination.

KYLE LANDSTRA, a Kalamazoo local, will assist us in examining our metaphysical states and righting what may be wrong with our microcosmic orbits.

Finally, the GIANTS OF FREE JAZZ will be making a shadowy and mysterious appearance via Wireless technology.

The music starts at 9pm sharp and flat, but make sure you get there early enough to catch everything. Also bring some cash for the touring acts. The show is free, but they’ve got merch and will be accepting donations.

It’ll be quite the hullabaloo, boy let me tell you