Published in the Quad-City Times on Oct. 9, 2024

At any given Void Church show, Adam Wesconsin can be seen darting to the side of the Raccoon Motel stage a probable dozen times. 

Each time, he’ll turn a fog machine dial at stage left. The smoke engulfs the band. They usually have a look of surprise on the first press.

More fog, more fog, and then a little bit more fog, to be safe. With each gloomy gust, the Motel looks a little bit less like a place you might see a folk singer, and a little bit more like a black hole. It’s comforting. 

So what is Void Church? It’s a local music collective that books dream-pop, shoegaze, industrial and goth shows in the Quad-Cities, and Wesconsin is its founder. The Church got its start at the end of 2022, shortly after Wesconsin — a Davenport native — came back home after living for many years in Oregon, Washington and South Dakota. 

He’s worked as a journalist, a barista and — very briefly — a ghost hunter on a schticky SyFy Network TV show in 2013. October is the perfect time of year to revisit those episodes. But it’s also the perfect season for a Void show. 

After all, kids dress up on Halloween to feel like they’re someone else for a night. Local music fans go to a Void Church show to feel like they’re somewhere else for a night. It’s all about escape. 

“You got to have the fog, you got to have the extra lights,” he said. “You do the stuff to make those shows special.” 

It may seem difficult to draw a sonic line between, say, the Cocteau Twins and an industrial goth band, two polar ends of the Void repertoire. But Wesconsin sees one there. 

“The unifying element is definitely the dreaminess, this transportation to another world outside of your day-to-day,” he said. 

Wesconsin, who works a full-time job for a local creative agency on top of his Void Church pursuits, has a knack for making wise points with a smile on his face.

While dining at Miss Phay Cafe in Davenport, he stumbled onto a big question. 

“How cruel it is that all of us are born on this planet feeling special, feeling inspired, feeling like we’re different than everybody else, like our hearts and our heads have something truer than true to say to the rest of the world? And then we all have to make money to eat and have health insurance,” Wesconsin said, his voice accelerating. 

“I really feel like it’s important for each and every person to find whatever those things are that are special to them, and to find their voice and put their voice out there.” 

In a way, Void Church feels like Wesconsin’s voice. It is, literally, at times — his band Giallows plays Void gigs relatively often. But you can see his stamp on every corner of the venue when a show comes together. A neon-lit headstone hangs at the back. Candles sit subtly between the stage monitors. That fog is a sigh of relief each time Wesconsin turns it up. 

He’s quick to note, though, that Void shows are team efforts. Wesconsin’s Giallows bandmate Devin Alexander is the head of interior decor and Kailey Doubleyou is his “partner since day one” and “coolness barometer.” 

Doubleyou, he said, is leading the charge toward the latest Void Church collaboration with The Last Picture House. She’ll be DJing alongside a showing of “Donnie Darko” on Oct. 22 on the boutique cinema’s rooftop. 

That event is a full circle moment for Wesconsin. 

“Arguably, without ‘Donnie Darko,’ Void Church would not exist,” he said. “I didn’t know about Joy Division until I heard ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ drop in the party scene in ‘Donnie Darko,’ so that was my gateway into that stuff.” 

Void Church will wrap up their October schedule with an Oct. 30 show at Raccoon Motel, headlined by Eric Andre collaborator David Liebe Hart and opened by Drugwarp, Del Rockford and Blist Her. Interlay, MX Lonely and Humid are playing the venue as a Void show two days later. 

Wesconsin’s hope for Void is that their shows attain a sort of local platform, regardless of which bands are on the bill. Inspired by Wake Brewing’s status in metal music, or Raccoon Motel co-owner Sean Moeller’s status when it comes to booking upcoming indie and alt-country groups, Wesconsin sees Void Church as a curator for the “Donnie Darko” generation. 

He hopes it can be a safe space for folks from marginalized groups or alternative lifestyles. The fog is meant to embrace you. When Wesconsin was a Quad-Cities kid 25 years ago, he had to drive to Peoria or Chicago to feel that. Now, it’s right here in a local music fan’s backyard. 

“It’s awesome seeing, for all ages shows, 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kids come out and this is one of the first shows they’ve ever seen,” he said. “It’s like people’s lives are changing by coming to these things. My life was changed when I saw some of the first shows I went to, you know? 

“That sort of thing inspires me to keep going, when it becomes really hard and when I get bogged down.” 

In a way, Wesconsin says, Void Church has saved him, too. He’s open about his struggles with ADHD, and seeing Void thrive helps to quiet the noise. 

“When you grow up with ADHD, and you don’t know that that’s what it is, you kind of internalize these thoughts that, like, you can’t do as much as other people and you don’t know why,” he said. “But like, I don’t know how, but all of these plates that I’m spinning? Not one of them has fallen.

So this October, I say: turn that fog up and pray to the Void. Its darkness is capable of beating darkness.