Last summer, Grand Rapids resident John Hanson and a crew of DIY-minded organizers came to the realization they had all the right pieces for putting together a righteous music festival.

Here at REVUE, we've decided to slow it down a little bit with the dizzying, whimsical sounds of Thirty Steps To Forward.

Ask any musician: Passing down rich music traditions ensures that eager new generations of players will continue to be inspired to greatness – or, at the very least, find joy in jams and making musical noise.

Shad's music contains a secret weapon as unlikely as his upbringing: heart. The rapper, who was born in Kenya and raised in Ontario, might never have had the chance to turn his hobby into a career if not for a talent competition held by a local radio station. Winning the competition allowed Shad to record a debut album in 2005 and since then, he has recorded three more full-length albums and won Rap Recording of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards, beating out Drake.

If you're not familiar with the 1988 album Vivid by Living Colour, you're either a hermit living in the wilds of Appalachia, or simply too young to remember. Vivid not only hit No. 6 on the Billboard 200 that year, it also went double platinum.

Since 1999, Killswitch Engage has been widely recognized as one of the bands that helped propel metalcore into the mainstream with its 2002 album, Alive or Just Breathing. That very same year, however, lead vocalist Jesse Leach decided to part ways with the group rather unexpectedly, leaving the rest of the band scratching their heads.

If you want to break out, you have to hustle, at least according to hip-hop artist Grieves. Before signing with independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment in 2010, Grieves (real name Benjamin Laub) was simultaneously writing new music, playing gigs and trying to get his material heard by as many people as possible.

We haven't heard much from Cymbals Eat Guitars, the NYC-based indie rock outfit responsible for 2009's Why There Are Mountains and the 2011 follow-up Lenses Alien. What's a young band to do after getting stamped with a "Best New Music" label by the hype machines? For CEG, personnel changes and relocating back to Brooklyn have kept the group busy and given them something of a new look.

If you keep your ear to the local music scene, you are probably already aware of Grand Rapids hip-hop artist Rick Chyme.

If you are not, this is him in a nutshell: A crazy talented artist; long beard; says "5iveit" a lot. So, what does "5iveit" even mean? Chyme's got your answer

Days and nights filled with art and music. What more could a child want? Oh, some early holiday festivities with good old Santa. It's never too soon to start sucking up...