Category Archives: News!

URGENT: Oil Spills into creek that feeds Kalamazoo River, State of Emergency Declared

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Fellow DIT-ers, something horrible has happened today. If you haven’t been reading the news, I regret to inform you that 800,000 gallons of oil were released into a creek in Marshall ealier today. Said creek feeds the Kalamazoo River.

Kalamazoo county has declared a state of emergency. This is a picture, created by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, detailing where the oil spill is and where it is travelling to. Note that the end of the road is Lake Michigan.

There is a facebook group that has been put together in the hopes of organizing people to help with this in any way. It is my modest suggestion that you join it.

Not only is it unnecessary for me to elaborate on this, but I am severely unqualified to do so. I will, in respect to the urgency and seriousness of this matter (if that’s needed at all, in this case), leave you with a snippet from the Kalamazoo Gazette article I linked to above:

“I just came from Fort Custer and you can smell it now,” Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Pali Matyas said. “… It’s all rolling downhill and there are a lot of complications.”

Let us hope this has a timely and safe resolution.

No Wrench in These Works (So far so good, anyway)

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It’s been a busy summer for DIT (K). No Fun House opened, La Iglesia just had it’s last show. By the time everything is said and done, we will have had 3 DIT weddings (can I get a hell yeah?), and we’re even gonna put on an avant-garde music festival right here in Kalamazoo.

Yes, this summer has been (and will continue to be) pretty hectic, and it won’t be slowing down any time soon. Dates for the No Fun House and other venues are already filling up through September, and new bands from new cities are getting on contact every week. By the time school starts back up for some of the young whipper-snappers here in town, we should have a veritable slew of excellent shows lined up, so you scholarly cats can start off the Fall semester right.

Until then, though, there’s still a lot of great music to catch here in the Zoo. This week yet, Coma Nova, The Doctor, and Manic Zamboni are  gonna lay it down hot and heavy at the Strutt Thursday night. Saturday, Chris Bathgate and distant-traveling Dave Dondero will cool The Strutt right back down with a couple acoustic guitars and some excellent music.

If you missed Run Forever, Brandon Reid and The Almanac Shouters last night, then you goofed up. But that’s alright. Life’s hard. Just don’t let it happen again, eh?

Spreading The Love

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The good people over at WIDR have given us the official seal of approval! Check out their home page for some good words about the blog. If you don’t know what WIDR is, you should probably do yourself a favor and start tuning the radio dial to 89.1 fm every day. It will change your life.

Also, keep your eyes pealed for an upcoming write up on DIT and The No Fun House in the Kalamazoo Gazette.

No Fun at the No Fun House

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Between 7:30p and 9p, the power went out on Allen boulevard, and I guess two-piece bass-and-drum electro-rock outfits aren’t usually prepared with a translatable unplugged act for such occasions as a venue’s power being out. So, We’re Wolves and As Above, So Below went back to whatever it is they do on a stormy Kalamazoo Friday night, while The Lorax Tree unfortunately had to make the long drive home to Ohio. Hopefully we’ll get these guys back in the near future, but until then, I guess we’ll just have to sate ourselves with the myspace.

Meanwhile, the myriad late-comers and hangers-on such as myself were treated to a small show on the No-Fun House’s front porch by Benji Puppies and his sticker-covered acoustic guitar. He upheld the newly-formed tradition (developed on Rotten Wood Moon’s most recent tour). Often times the ‘traditions’ that folks develop during strange circumstances (particularly where they must spend a lot of time with the same small group of people) are completely unintelligible to anyone that isn’t directly involved or ‘in the know’, but this little gem of a bit is not so obtuse. It goes as follows: if there’s nothing much else to do, grab a six-string and rattle off acoustic covers while replacing select words with the term ‘bacon’, syntax be damned. I certainly laughed, and a few of us fools even joined in on the thing. Delightful.

It was a pleasant sort of time at the No Fun house (though most certainly, nobody was having any fun). All things considered though, It would have been great to rock it with The Lorax Tree. There’s more stuff coming up here in the Zoo, though, so if you still have some rockin’ to do (and I know I do), you’d best check out Astroline, Doby Watson, and The Daredevil Christopher Wright at the Strutt this Wednesday. Gotta get that led out somehow.

Isn’t it hard enough?

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So some crazy stuff has been happening in downtown Kalamazoo in regards to parking. We’re going to get right down to the bare bones of the operations here at DIT because we don’t like to mess around.

First off: Downtown Kalamazoo Inc. (DKI) tried to hike some parking fines back in December of 06, but that was a no-go. Somehow a bunch of people got charged the higher rates anyways, even though DKI never got any approval from the City Commission. DKI says that they’ll refund the ($80,000) difference to some people who got hiked charges, but, “The amounts will depend upon the number of citations a driver paid and how long it took them to pay the tickets after they were issued.” In short, not how much they got screwed, just how much the government decides to give them back from what they got screwed.

Secondly: DKI is going to “hike a host of parking fees, ranging from an expected 25-cent jump in the cost of an hour’s parking at a short-term meter to a 5 percent hike in the cost of monthly parking passes at public lots and ramps.” Which, according to the Facebook group “Isn’t It Hard Enough To Park On Academy“, is going to cost any employee of a downtown business $1.50 an hour, or $12 a day for an 8 hour shift. And especially on Academy street, where they will be adding approximately 40 new parking meters.

Oh, and they are going to lay off staff at parking ramps by changing their starting time from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Oh, and DKI President Kennith Nacci said “parking fines are not considered a significant revenue generator for the downtown group…”

Oh, and Kalamazoo Noise picked up on it as well so you can tell this is pretty major.

Do It Together!

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Like what you see here at the DIT Kalamazoo blog? Interested in getting involved? Have a show you’d like help promoting? Have a band you’d like us to book? Do you love the Kalamazoo music community and want to see it grow stronger by everyone joining hands in a spirit of ‘Do It Togetherness’?!?!?

Then join us for one of our weekly meetings! Every Sunday, 2pm at 632 Locust, we here at DIT Kalamazoo meet up and talk about booking and promoting local shows, ideas for posts on this blog, ways to improve our community and how to kill Superman and take over the world once and for all.

Newcomers are welcomed and encouraged. Even if you just want to sit in the corner and try to figure out what the heck we’re trying to do, come on over. If you’ve ever felt like you wanted to do more for Kalamazoo music, this is your chance. Or, if you just want us to book your band so that you can become world famous and be the envy of all your friends, this is your chance. We’re getting new show requests every day from touring bands from all over and we need all the help we can get.

Any questions can be directed to: ditkalamazoo@gmail.com

See you at the meeting.