Western Union
Sunday, January 18 // Door at 6:30 PM // Show at 7 PM // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Louie and Kimberlee are founding members of Montana’s hottest Texas swing band Western Union, with bandmates David Horgan and Beth Lo from one of Montana’s most renowned jazz and R&B bands-the Big Sky Mudflaps. They have the distinction of being the only Montana band to play at the Montana Folk Festival (July 2016) in addition to opening for Marty Stewart (Sept 2015) and Colorado’s renowned Hot Rize (July 2015). Where jazz meets country, Western Union is Montana’s favorite “countrypolitan” western swing band, specializing in classic Texas Swing & Honky Tonk music. With electric and acoustic guitars, standup bass, pedal steel guitar, and drums – plus sharp-as-a-tack lead vocals and vocal harmonies — Western Union delivers the true-blue sound of grassroots America. All tickets are general admission. Artist Supporter Tickets are a way for patrons to provide more financial support to performers. For further information, accessibility, and inquiries please visit https://www.zootownarts.org/meet-the-zacc/about/.
Open Mic
Wednesday, January 21st // Door & Sign-up at 7 PM // Free & Open to the Public! Come join us! All talents welcome.
Soft Landing Benefit Show w/ Pilots We’ve Known, Deathcare Industries, Perfect Blue, and Stuck Up
Thursday January 15 // 7:00 Doors // 7:30 Show // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Pilots We’ve Known is a post-punk/post-hardcore band from Missoula, Mt. purpose-built in early 2017 as an emotional outlet against the noises of our time. They use elaborate arrangements, angular chords and riffs and dynamic vocals to produce an emotional cacophony as the backdrop to attention-grabbing lyrics. After a three year hiatus Pilots We’ve Known are back at it with a crushing-loud vengeance. Deathcare Industries is a Missoula-based band that mixes the energy of metal with the rhymic and lyrical style of Hip Hop. They’ve been described as “New Nü metal”. They are loud, just how you like it. Perfect Blue is a genre-bending, instrumental post-rock quartet from Missoula, Montana. Their music blends elements of post-punk, psych, shoegaze, folk and black metal for an eclectic spectrum of sounds moving between somber, intricate passages to dark, heavy soundscapes. The band’s debut album, “Empress,” is now available everywhere. Stuck Up is old-school punk served up scalding hot and hairy by ex-members of [any three bands].
Sunday Swing! w/ Ed Norton Big Band
Sunday, January 11 // Door & Lessons at 6:30 PM // Show at 7 PM // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter **Dance lessons with Lindy Hop begin at 6:30** Get your dancing shoes on and spend a Sunday with hits from Ed Norton Big Band in The Show Room at the ZACC! The Ed Norton Big Band was founded around 1987 after trombonists Tom Wogsland and Scot Ray performed in the pit Orchestra for Missoula Children’s Theatre’s first production of The 1940’s Radio Hour – and didn’t want to stop. Since then the 18 piece band, made up of Missoula musicians from multiple generations, has been a staple of traditional and modern big band music throughout western Montana. Ed Norton Big Band has a long history of entertaining audiences of all ages from birthday parties, fundraisers, Out to Lunch, Second Sunday Jazz, and First Night. For further information, accessibility, and inquiries please visit https://www.zootownarts.org/meet-the-zacc/about/.
Golden Mean w/ Look Busy
Saturday, January 3rd // Door at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $10-$20 Artist Supporter Golden Mean features original compositions by Bill Kautz inspired by questions, conversations, harmony, discord and the search for authenticity. The music features thoroughly composed melodies while integrating improvisation in various structures. Golden Mean is Bill Kautz, trumpet and cornet; Steve Kalling, double bass; Aria Peters, violin; Hannah Ransom, percussion and Jake Ransom, vibraphone. Shuffled and reshuffled from an endless stack of blank paper, scribbled with a thousand thoughtless notes, and emerging from a dramatic cloud of chalk dust, Missoula’s LOOK BUSY (Ken Grinde, Matt Riley, Johannah Kohorst, Drew Fetherolf) meld driving pop and lofty ballads to achieve new dimensions of appearing businesslike and occupied.
Dylan Bautista & Loren Stillman
Thursday, January 8 // Doors at 7:00 // Show at 7:30 // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter Saxophonist Loren Stillman and pianist Dylan Bautista team up for an evening of inventive interplay and spirited improvisation, blending their original music with select jazz standards.
Flask w/ Candygram
Thursday, January 7 // Doors at 7:00 // Show at 7:30 // $10 // $15-$20 Artist Supporter One Week In and You Already Regret Your Resolutions – A rock show featuring catchy progressive punk pranksters Candygram and FLASK, a new project by Andrew Hunt, Mathew Bainton, Oscar Hunt and Cannon Pearson. Absolutely guaranteed to be a show that has guitars, amps, drums and people singing words and things. Oh and bass too. And keyboards. Come abandon your resolutions or learn to live with them.
Doom Scroll w/ Big Mosquito & Minot
Sunday, March 22 // Door at 7:00 PM // Show at 7:30 PM // $12 ADV // $15-$20 DOS Doom Scroll describes its acoustic punk sound as “aggressive, melodic punk/crust wave” with complex instrumentation and layers of harmonies knitted from decades of music appreciation and performance. Coming soon to your sleepy, unsuspecting town. The adolescent neanderthals themselves, Minot. These overgrown-teenaged garage punk muffins bring their sonic take on the raw, the cheap and the lo-fidelity. The three-piece from Missoula, MT embodies the primitive, sloppy roots of everything that is, Budget Rock. A poorly contained train wreck influenced by punk, 60s garage pop and country blues. Big Mosquito is a local Missoula ska outfit bringing a mix of authentic ska and high energy, with renditions and covers of such classics as The Skatalites, The Specials, laurel Aitkens, Phyllis Dillon/Freddy McKay, ect. Plus originals and more lively tunes like Murphy’s law’s 1%. Big Mosquito’s goal is to bring authentic ska and love for roots music to the forefront of our rising youth movement in Missoula and beyond. Big Mosquito is made up of Zane Lambert, Cameron Doucette, Evan Wright, Spencer Nelson, Nick Mogensen, Jacob Tirado, Rhett Matthew, and Danny Boatwright.
PONS w/ Dorris Doom & (latent)
Friday, January 2nd // 8:00 Doors // 8:30 Show // $15 IF YOU STOP YOU DIE -Rock n’ Roll will never be a lazy game. PONS is here to set the record straight. Channeling the wild, untamable spirit of the masters of the road that came before them, PONS brings a relentless, “NO MERCY” approach to DIY touring. Burning more calories in one night than most bands do in a year, PONS doesn’t play music—they detonate on stage.Named “NYC’s Hardest Working Band” in 2022 (and a blistering runner-up in 2023) by Oh My Rockness, PONS has earned their place as one of the most vital and chaotic forces in the NYC underground.In 2024, PONS evolved into a solo project of visionary frontman Jack Parker, and the transformation is nothing short of a sonic nuclear meltdown. A storm of sound, fury, and passion so fierce, a PONS show can only be described as sublime madness. It’s angular. It’s aggressive. It’s a relentless sonic assault that drags you into the future, kicking and screaming.Sharing the stage with heavyweights like Gogol Bordello, Lambrini Girls, Geese, Vundabar, and A Place To Bury Strangers, PONS take no prisoners. Leaving behind a trail of smashed gear, contorted bodies, blinding lights, and frenetic, throttling beats, it’s pure glam-rock bravado colliding with punk’s raw edge and electronica’s dystopian pulse.Taking cues from the anarchic swagger of Iggy Pop, the electronic chaos of Suicide, the slick groove of LCD Soundsystem, and the haunting, glitch-filled world of Crystal Castles, PONS spits the digital bile of our decaying, internet-saturated world straight in your face.BEAR WITNESS TO PONS.
Holiday Groove with the Missoula All-City Jazz Program
Monday, December 15 // Doors at 7:30 // Show at 8:00 // Free & Open to the Public! Join the Missoula All-City Jazz Program for their first performance of the 2025-26 year with an evening of great jazz. The Middle School and High School musicians will be joined by members of the UM Jazz Program performing new and old standards from the history of jazz.
