WIUX, IU’s student-powered radio station and media organization, will present the 37th Culture Shock music festival on April 12 in Dunn Meadow. The free annual festival will feature independent and touring acts as well as local Bloomington and student-led bands to celebrate the end of the school year and another year of WIUX. The music festival is open to all and is not ticketed.
Jim Kerns and John Polak founded the first Culture Shock Music Festival in 1986. In 1986, the station was known as WIUS, which was formed from the merger of two radio stations in 1967, making it the largest student-owned commercial carrier for a current campus station in the world.
Established in 1962, WIUX is an award-winning college radio station and IU’s largest student media organization. The board of Directors, on-air DJ’s and hosts, as well as organization and administrative committees, consist entirely of students. WIUX’s two stations, 99.1 FM WIUX-LP Bloomington and B-Side Internet Radio, are on air 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This year’s lineup features Full Body 2, Tobacco City, Sleeper’s Bell, Bats, WIND and Mourning Star.
Mourning Star will open the festival and play from 12:45-1:20 p.m. The Bloomington-based, student-led indie “stargaze” band won this year’s WIUX Battle of The Bands fundraiser event by popular vote this past October.
The band consists of vocalist and songwriter Anna Prager, guitarist Thom Kitchel, bassist Nova Hardie and drummer Cam Parker. Mourning Star released its first EP “flowers for yr friends” in December and have since been touring around the Midwest.
WIND, a Bloomington-based post-hardcore band will play from 2-2:35 p.m. The band released a track in 2023 recorded live titled “live at the blockhouse early 2023” on bandcamp.
Nashville, Tennessee-based Bats will play from 3:30-4:05 p.m. Bats is the project of musician Jess Awh, a singer-songwriter who began playing with a band in 2021. Her music is inspired by her experiences growing up in Nashville and incorporates western acoustic touches into her unique dreamy rock sound. Bats’ third album “Good Game Baby” was released in March 2024.
Sleeper’s Bell, a folk-duo hailing from Chicago will take stage from 5-5:40 p.m. Sleeper’s Bell, made up of vocalist and songwriter Blaine Teppema and guitarist Evan Green, released its debut album “Clover” Feb. 7, 2025.
Tobacco City, a psychedelic alt-country band, will play from 6:30-7:10 p.m. The band sings songs inspired by classic American country music with a glossier, lilting shoegaze ambience. The band toured with alt-country trailblazer Orville Peck in 2023 and its latest album “Horses,” released March 7 received a 7.3 score in a review from Pitchfork.
Full Body 2 will close the festival at 8:45 p.m., performing until 9:30 p.m. Full Body 2 is an experimental shoegaze trio based in Rochester, New York, that combines digital rock and electronic sounds with shoegaze melodies. The band released the EP “infinity signature” in November 2023 and a live at sessions album, “Full Body 2 on Audiotree Live” in March 2024. The band will play at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival London on Nov. 8.
