Dan Smith and Matt Kimmel. Photo credit: Colleen Durkin for the Chicago Reader

Matt Kimmel and Dan Smith closed a venue last weekend, but this weekend they are opening minds.

The sun set Saturday on Glow Sticks, a DIY noise music space in Wicker Park whose name conjures rave culture, but whose spirit is more akin to a symphony hall. (It’s called noise, but ironically you have to be very quiet to appreciate it.) The usual suspects—the diehards who you’ll always see at these shows, which happen all over the city—are there, and it’s their night.

Kimmel and Smith are among that in-crowd, but they have bigger plans for the music genre that go beyond loft spaces and apartments. This weekend, June 10-12, they are blowing the lid off the underground and sharing it with everyone, with a huge three-day event at the Empty Bottle dubbed Neon Marshmallow Festival.

“I really do believe this is an important event for the city,” Kimmel said. “It’s a rare chance to see some world-class artists.”

Friday marks the second year of the experimental music fest, which brings to light maligned genres, like electro-acoustic, free jazz, and intermix electronic (collectively referred to hereafter as just “noise”) by showcasing some of the genre’s heaviest hitters, like Oneohtrix Point Never and Morton Subotnik, inventor of the synthesizer.

In short, it’s an opportunity to enter a space where it’s a given that traditional music is clichéd and exhausted and to explore sound on the atomic level in hopes of finding something new (mind-altering drugs optional).

Last year, Neon Marshmallow Festival debuted at the Viaduct Theater with more than 90 artists spanned over four days. It took Smith and Kimmel 11 months of planning and promotion, and a boatload of stress and worry (for more background check out the Chicago Reader‘s story). The decision to scale back to three partial days was a reflection the new space—12 hours in the tiny Empty Bottle?—and a desire to tighten the bill and feature the best artists.

“Subotnik alone is worth going,” Smith said. “It’s great to be able to bring all these artists to the city I love.”

Smith, a Chicagoland native, and Kimmel, from Tallahassee, Fla., began collaborating on events in the summer of 2009 after Kimmel booked Smith’s solo synth project Red Electric Rainbow at Century Village, a bygone piece of Humboldt Park DIY venue history.

“Matt first booked me,” Smith said. “No one knew me.”

Two years, two cassette-based record labels (Smith’s Neon Blossom and Kimmel’s Modern Country), a couple regular booking gigs at Beauty Bar and the Burlington, countless DIY shows, and one massive music fest later, the pair are old pros at this. They’re not the only noise game in town, but they are certainly the most prominent.

With so much effort and history under their belts, one can’t help but wonder how they got started in the first place. How does one discover and cultivate a passion for noise?

“For me, it started with guitars and messing around with feedback and circuits,” said Smith, who is also an MRI technician. “I’m like, ‘I’m on to something new!’ My friend showed me some records and was like, ‘No, it’s just noise.’”

Kimmel said he has always liked noisy pop music like the Jesus and Mary Chain, but his love of music can be attributed back to one special person.

“I had one of those Mickey Mouse record players when I was three and my grandma would buy me 45s every time she came to visit,” Kimmel said. “I had a sick record collection by the time I was five.”

His nosedive into the genre took place at New York City’s No Fun Fest in 2005, a fest similar to and an inspiration for Neon Marshmallow Festival. He soon began taping live shows under the moniker Acid Marshmallow and playing in his own experimental groups Miami Beach and Sunglasses.

Looking forward to the future, will there be a Neon Marshmallow Festival next year? It’s hard to say. At this point, Smith and Kimmel would just like to get through this year’s fest.

“I have dreams about this stuff, nightmares,” Smith said. “We’ll see how this one goes.”

_____________________________________________________
Neon Marshmallow Festival
6:00 p.m. Friday, June 10 – 6:00 p.m. Sunday, June 12
Empty Bottle
$25 (Single-day) / $70 (Three-day pass)
21+
_____________________________________________________

Tickets are still available at the event’s website.