Grant Kammer

Ape Not Kill Ape, or how to DIY in farther-away lands

As a troubled youth with an anarchic streak and an interest in punk rock, I found a home in the Grand Rapids DIY community. Here, I fell in love with house shows and hung out with a lot of kids who dressed in all black. I love this city, but the problem is: when you stay in one spot for too long, you forget what you have. It can be hard to remember that most towns don’t have the opportunity to see live music. Having only lived in Grand Rapids my whole life, I saw the same people play in the same bands for years. In this limited worldview, I observed what I felt was a homogenous aesthetic develop.