Variety rules this popular festival being held at Bell’s in Kalamazoo, with national and regional shoegaze, dream pop and noise bands taking center stage. See the schedule, check out videos of featured acts.
Kicking It All Off: Grand Rapids’ Houseplants gets Kalamashoegazer started on Saturday.
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The venue may have changed but the amount of talent may just be getting better.
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Just days away from the opening notes of the 11th annual Kalamashoegazer festival being played at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe and founder and festival organizer April Zimont couldn’t be more excited.
A major reason for that excitement is that Chicago dream pop band Whimsical — an act that hasn’t taken the stage together since 2003 — will be performing behind their recently finished album, Sleep to Dream, which according to the band was 90 percent done when they called it quits 13 years ago.
The foursome — with a Lush meets Cranberries feel to their sound — is touting the completion of the project and the reunion as not just a return, however, but “a full-blown resurrection” and has plans to release another full-length album next year full of new material.
Joining Whimsical at the top of the bill will be fellow Chicago act and well-known shoegaze band, Airiel, which is making a return visit to the festival and just released the double LP Molten Young Lovers earlier this month, the band’s first release in 10 years.
Whimsical
Brooklyn’s Dead Leaf Echo is also back this year and Milwaukee’s Brief Candles and Buffalo’s gothic/post-punk favorites Orations, which just put out debut release Wych Elm in 2016, will also hit the stage on Saturday.
“I try to really get a variety of different types of bands from noise stuff to traditional shoegaze to a couple dream pop bands, some female fronted, some male, just to truly showcase the whole spectrum of what the genre is,” Zimont said. “When we started this festival, my brother (co-founder Mark Andrew Morris) and I just wanted some way where we could get all these bands that we had played with in other cities and toured with, here to Kalamazoo.
“I wouldn’t say we have a real shoegaze scene here but we have a lot of people who are fans of that style of music in Kalamazoo. The audience has really been amazing over the years, and people traditionally have come from all over, from the West Coast, all over the Midwest, the Northeast, everywhere.”
GRAND RAPIDS AND KALAMAZOO REPRESENTATION
From a regional perspective on this year’s bill, Grand Rapids’ Houseplants will get things started at 4:30 and will be followed up by Kalamazoo’s own Crash City Saints, which just released its latest album, “Are You Free,” on St. Marie Records earlier this year.
Tambourina
K-zoo’s Tambourina, made up of four of the six former Glowfriends members, including Zimont and Morris, along with their spouses, Adam Zimont and Holly Klutts-Morris, will hit the stage at 7:30.
“This feels like a new band with the four of us,” Zimont said.
“It’s a bit poppier than glowfriends was. We’re more of a dream pop band now and since it’s just the four of us, we felt we kind of needed a restart. We’ve got all new material and a new sound. It’s a really different thing.”
Translation: For those wondering. Don’t expect to hear any glowfriends songs from Tambourina.
Crash City Saints
In addition to the move to Bell’s, after three straight years at Louie’s and previous stops at The Strutt, The Grange Hall, Kraftbrau and Old Dog, this year’s festival will also feature dj’d music by Philly Peroxide, who will be spinning classic shoegaze, nu-gaze and dream pop in between bands.
There will also be plenty of video cameras on site as Zimont says plans are in the works for a festival documentary, which is being shot by pro skater and videographer Dave Engerer.
Tickets for the festival are available for $15 and selling quickly; get tickets and details online here. Doors open at 4 p.m. and attendees are encouraged to arrive early for opportunities to get free raffle tickets as there will be plenty of giveaways throughout the night from record labels, music companies and artists.
VIDEO: Airiel, “This is Permanent”
VIDEO: Dead Leaf Echo, “Strawberry Skin”
VIDEO: Whimsical, “Lost and Found”
VIDEO: Houseplants, “Honey Garden”
VIDEO: Crash City Saints, “The Hour of the Wolf
Copyright 2017, Spins on Music LLC
