Growing up, Patrick Cleland was a lanky kid from Grand Rapids who loved nothing more than playing basketball. On bus rides to and from games and around the house, he toyed with on-the-spot rhymes for the hell of it. To him, it was fun and it made his friends laugh.

On Saturday, Sept. 21, Cleland (better known today as hip-hop artist Rick Chyme) will take what was once an offhand habit to the streets of ArtPrize in a big way, by tackling the world record for the longest freestyle with a target time of 17 hours.

For Grand Rapids songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Nathan Kalish, show No. 146 of 2013 at The State Room in Salt Lake City, Utah, came off as a rousing and satisfying affair amid a hectic year of touring the United States and Europe. After all, the drummer for the Deadstring Brothers got a chance to play an extended one-hour opening set for a sold-out crowd with frontman Kurtis Marschke and bassist J.D. Mack, both Detroit natives.

When it comes to seeing live music, a little dose of shut-the-hell-up-and-pay-attention is a good thing. This is not a concept lost on West Michigan, which has seen its share of listening rooms find success over the recent months and years.

Last summer’s much-expanded Cowpie Music Festival didn’t work out the way organizers hoped. Plagued by heavy rains on the festival’s opening day at Shagbark Farm south of Grand Rapids, the turnout for the 43-band lineup covering 17 genres fell far short of expectations.