When he’s out and about in Kalamazoo, little kids will sometimes see Richard Bowser, his portly stature and flossy white hair and beard, and think: Santa Claus.
And Bowser, a man with a sense of humor and fun, will engage them.
“Have you been good?” he’ll say. If it’s summer, he lets them know he’s on vacation from the North Pole.
But Bowser is, in real life, a cultural Santa Claus for the region.
The 56-year-old musician/radio personality/DJ/culture vulture is a real deal bohemian who lives it.
He’s a Jackson native who came to Kalamazoo to go to Western Michigan University in 1977 and never left. The place agreed with him and he agreed with it. He’s lived in the same house in a woodsy neighborhood since 1997. Suitably, it’s a 10-minute walk from the Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital; Bowser’s day job is with Van Buren Community Mental Health.
Inside the house, there are records. Vinyl stuff, from stacks of 78s (Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle and Roll”) and 45s (Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s “Alice Long”) to long players of everything from Earth to the Germs to King Crimson to obscure ’80s hardcore bands. It is a tribute to decades of taste.
“It’s funny now to see the return of vinyl,” he says. “I never really stopped buying vinyl, and always thought everything about it is better.”
Bowser has freely given his time to his town, region and state, usually with little or no pay. It’s not the money, it’s the art.
On a given weekend, he might spin discs at an afternoon event then head over to a basement to play a party with his band. He gets paid for weddings and some events, and not for others.
“It depends on the audience and what it’s for,” he says.
In the fall of 2004, Bowser would drive from Kalamazoo to Lansing to play for five people at Mac’s Bar in the Moogalators, a three-piece noise ensemble that featured his childhood friend and former VA bandmate, Ken Knott, stalking the stage with a toy raygun and muttering cryptic slogans. Bowser donned a Devo-esque yellow plastic hazmat gown and drum kit. Yeah, he plays drums, too.
They’d play, receive no money, and he’d drive back, getting home at 4 a.m. just in time for a couple hours of sleep before heading to work.
Over the years, he’s done this dozens of times.
“Sometimes you have to sacrifice a couple things to have that kind of fun. Like sleep.”
Today he continues to devote Sunday nights to his Sounds in Space: A Revolution in High Fidelity radio show from 6–8 p.m. on WIDR. His latest musical venture is Brown Company, a space rock quintet thick with aged prog rock/heavy influences from Captain Beyond to Blue Cheer.
“I have a good job and for me the whole thing is that if you’re going to try to make money off art, you’re going to have to water it down,” Bowser says. “And if you can make a living, then have your art, you’ll be more free to do what you want to do.”
