Editor's Note: This story is part of our series Kalamazoo After Dark which features lesser-known venues and entertainment opportunities after the sun goes down. See Mark Wedel's reasons for seeking out unique niches in the city's late-night scene in the note below.

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KALAMAZOO, MI — A lot of deliberately crafted noise was coming out of Edison neighborhood bar, The SugarBowl Bar and Grille, on a late August Saturday night.

Inside, it was like in the movie where the alien warship exits from hyperspace, its rumbling engines making ungodly tones, its cannons blasting at the USS Enterprise — that's kind of like how it was when Disco Behemoth took the stage. 

A trombone (Scott Dumas) and trumpet (Jake Lewkowitz) can blast a lot of sound in a small space like The SugarBowl, but when piezoelectric pickups are added to the brass, and those are plugged into racks of effects pedals, the amplified blast combines with the blast coming directly from the horns. James "Jimbo" Bruce backed with fierce drumming.

There was some disappointment that Kalamazoo's long-standing "kings of beastcore," Drink Their Blood, could not be there to close the night. But even malevolent jazz/metal masters are susceptible to COVID. 

This was, of course, Brass Fest, a celebration of bands with brass wind instruments. No, not classical quartets nor straight-ahead jazz. The other groups included experimental tuba-based Three Grebes, metal-ly-shoegaze-with-sax Dead People Park, and ska band Dance Contraption.

“All the things”

The SugarBowl also has less noisy nights. Earlier in August they hosted Mama's Hot Sauce ("scorchabilly" -- rockabilly, but scorchyer), and Out of Favor Boys (longtime Kalamazoo blues/funk/soul). 

Mark WedelBrass Fest, in August, brought out bands with horns.They do host a fair share of metal bands — the intense Lucius Fox was one of the owners' favorite shows. They've had melodic and gentle indie-rock Blood at Ease play. 

Old-school country Daniel Staggs and the Critters is on the schedule for Sept. 19. Sometimes the night's sound is simply a mix of rock and country covers, like from Battle Creek's Barefoot Blond. The bar also started a once-a-month "SugarBowl A-Go-Go," with DJs spinning obscure vinyl. Sometimes there’s a cover for larger shows, but the owners try to keep music nights free.

From karaoke to live music

When Hannah Rice and Andy Craigo bought The SugarBowl in December 2022, "it was a karaoke bar," Rice says.

There was karaoke every Friday and Saturday night. Maybe that's too much karaoke, so the couple brought in bands every Saturday night. Live music spread, sometimes to weeknights, sometimes to  Sundays.

They contacted Jared Koons, of Kalamazoo metal band One with the Riverbed, who contacted all the bands he knew, and suddenly they had a Metal Night on their hands.

Mark WedelAndy Craigo and Hannah Rice, new owners of The SugarBowl. They bought the bar in December 2022. Koons became their main show organizer/booker. He's responsible for Brass Fest. "Metal shows, punk shows, weird shows," are what he brings to The SugarBowl, Koons says. "I've been thinking about doing a weird synth night," he says. Or simply "mixed genre" shows, to avoid having the bar being tagged as "the metal place."

"We love an eclectic mix of music. But it's got to be good. So we wanted blues bands, bluegrass, metal, punk, country, you know, all the things," Craigo says.

Whatever the sound, whatever the noise, they wanted something original, bands creating their own sounds.

"Original music," is Craigo's quest. "You can go to so many bars and see cover bands all the time. We'll get some cover bands in here from time to time, and that's awesome. But it's those nights where we're doing the bands with all the original music, original sets, that's what I'm probably happiest."

High-end sounds in a neighborhood 'dive bar'

"One thing about this building is all music sounds great in here. Every genre of music that we have had in this building, it just sounds so good," Rice says.

"And it's the wood walls with the concrete block behind them, and the ceiling tiles that just soak it all in — it's not echoey like you think it would be," Craigo says.

The building wasn't designed to be acoustically perfect for scorchabilly or doom metal when it was built around 1958. The SugarBowl was, and is, a neighborhood bar, a rarity in Kalamazoo as such notable dives like The Home Bar and The Corner Bar became distant, hazy memories.

Mark WedelThe original back bar dates back to the original SugarBowl of 1943. It was rolled down Portage Road from the old bar to the current SugarBowl in 1958.The original SugarBowl operated as far back as 1943, as far as the owners can figure with the help of Kalamazoo Public Library records, near Portage Road and Dewey Avenue. 

The couple have heard the stories from older customers: In 1958 the original back bar, all antique wood, mirror, and cut glass cabinets, was rolled down Portage from the old to the new SugarBowl on Washington Avenue, guys taking beers from it for a break halfway.

The bar has a history, and an ambiance, something that Rice and Craigo didn't want to change when they bought it.

It's... It's a dive bar, if we can say that?

"Oh, we are," Rice says, matter-of-factly.

Mark WedelDead People Park"I think there was this old stigma surrounding this bar from the '80s into the early '90s of, 'oh, this is where you go if you're looking for a fight, or you want to buy drugs or you're up to no good, basically," Craigo says.

"And so we get a lot of people now that come in here and go, 'Man, I haven't been in here in 30 years.'" 

Rice and Craigo only changed the food, the entertainment, and expanded the liquor and beer selection. 

The bar seemed brand-new to them — they only discovered it just before they bought it. 

Craigo was born in South Bend, Indiana, and went to work as a baker and cook in Portland, Oregon. The pandemic ruined business for him, so he came back to the Midwest and met Kalamazoo native Rice.

Experimental tuba-based Chicago-Kalamazoo trio, Three Grebes"One night we were sitting at a bar downtown, and I was like, there's got to be something cool that reminds me of a lot of the dive bars that I went to out in Portland," Craigo says.

They looked up Kalamazoo bars online and saw one that was particularly dive-y that neither had been to.

"Let's go and just have one drink. And we walked in, and she — "

"-- the second we walked in here, I looked around and I was like, Andy's never going to want to leave!" Rice says. 

"And so now... he never leaves here."

"I took a walk, and to myself, I said,
 I'm going to go someplace I've never been before."

Craigo spends much of his time in the SugarBowl kitchen, making what they call "high-end bar food."

Before Brass Fest starts, I have the fried chicken sandwich and fries. Very good, not pretty, messy, with a nice spicy sauce, the fries seasoned. High-end? Compared to what the SugarBowl served before the new owners, it was.

Mark WedelMarty Burgess and Pixie. Burgess has been a familiar face at Kalamazoo shows since 1984. "The kids are doing it -- I love it!" Burgess says. "Punk rock is alive and well in Kalamazoo."Scenesters I recognized from long ago show up. The former soundman for a large local brewpub. Women who used to be on Kalamazoo's ladies' roller derby team. A kid who used to book shows in Kalamazoo, with friends at the SugarBowl celebrating his... 48th birthday? Time flies.

There's the always-recognizable Ike Turner, drummer for a thousand bands it seems, and instructor in the history of rock for Kalamazoo Valley Community College. He's with Three Grebes, featuring Beth McDonald, "a classically trained tuba player gone awry" from Chicago. Fronting the trio is Franki Hand. 

Hand shouts spoken word, repeating like a mantra, "I took a walk, and to myself, I said, I'm going to go someplace I've never been before." She plays accordion, Turner takes his shirt off to shoot at his drums with a NERF gun like some commando, and McDonald backs it all with an improvised tuba.

There is a type of performance that, maybe you're not going to buy the record, but you feel lucky to be seeing people doing art that you've never seen before. It's like seeing a strange animal in the wild. Fascinating, amazing, but don't pet that thing, it might bite.

Mark WedelDisco Behemoth closed Brass Fest, blasting a sound akin to an alien warship. Dead People Park was a bit less avant-garde, but their style is another that goes beyond any one-word genre label. Ethan Scissions (guitar) Grayson Barbone (sax), Ryan Fluek (drums), and Haley Steinkamp (bass, electric cello) have called themselves a "shoegaze band with jazz influences," and that may be correct. 

But the dreamy shoegaze built to a metallic intensity, a swirling noise that was otherworldly. Freaky sax in a fractured funk. A tune announced as "a new one about sandworms" working up into a sandstorm. Please, someone, get them to do the soundtrack to the next "Dune" movie.

Grand Rapids band Dance Contraption followed. They simultaneously fit and didn't fit the night.

Horn-based third-wave ska seems natural for a Brass Fest. They’ve opened for reggae legends The Wailers and Michigan favorites Mustard Plug. Dance Contraption brings the party, is upbeat, danceable, and accessible, and seems to cause some of the audience, there for freakier, artsier sounds, to lose interest.

Old scene, new scene

But speaking of familiar scenesters, there's Marty Burgess dancing enthusiastically to the ska.

After the set, Burgess goes outside the door for a smoke break with Pixie, also known as Heather. 

Burgess talks about going to his first punk shows in 1984, a teen from Battle Creek crossing over to Kalamazoo to see Black Flag, Minutemen, and other punk bands at SPA's (Students for Progressive Action) Western Michigan University concerts.

Mark WedelThe horns of Disco Behemoth warming up in The SugarBowl parking lot.He never stopped going to shows. Pixie came out of California to live here in the 2000s and found a music scene she could get into, even in the sleepy Midwest.

I tell them it seems like I've got to get out and search for events like this, now. I feel so old, I have no idea what the scene is, where it's at, or if it's even happening. What kind of music do the kids even play these days? Ever since COVID, I've lost track —

Burgess starts making slashing motions at his wrists and the mention of the virus. The pandemic stopped his show-going for a while. "COVID f---ed me up! I was so depressed. Because I always go to shows. And COVID messed me up."

There were no more loud, obnoxious, weird, or simply good and unique bands playing dives, it seemed. But Burgess and Pixie say a scene has slowly come back, first at underground clubs like The Run-Off and basement shows, then at Papa Pete's, Up and Under, and The SugarBowl.

Mark WedelDisco Behemoth merchAnd there are a lot of young bands, like Disco Behemoth, which Burgess was excited to see, making new forms of noise.

"The kids are doin' it! We're old as f---! But the kids are doing it — I love it!" Burgess says. "Punk rock is alive and well in Kalamazoo."

We go back in the bar, to be blasted with Disco Behemoth's death horns. 


A little background: Mark Wedel decided he needed to get out of the house.

As a freelance arts and entertainment writer in Kalamazoo from 1992 to 2015, Wedel had weekly events to cover. But in recent years, he has been very inactive in seeing local shows. Partly due to that pandemic thing. 

Kalamazoo's nightlife struggled, too, for a couple of years after COVID. But now there seems to be a resurgence. R'n'B bands and hip hop DJs at Dabney & Co. LGBTQ+ friendly dance and drag parties at the Club Vortex. Local punk rock and metal bands at the old Edison Neighborhood bar the Sugarbowl Bar and Grille.

Larger, long-standing venues like Bell's Eccentric Cafe and The State Theatre have been back to business, too. But Wedel wondered about the smaller venues, the more unique events. 

He wondered, what's happening in town? Why don't we know about it?

Oh, right — he's a journalist, it's kinda his job to get out of the house, to see if there's really a nightlife in Kalamazoo. So, let's start a series for Second Wave, to take regular looks at where people are dancing, grooving, mingling.