Baristas serve pie as the walls shake with noise at Urban Foxes coffee shop near downtown Jackson. It’s nighttime, and the 88-year-old house with hardwood floors and lots of windows is now a venue for an alternative music show where local artists shred electric guitar against recordings of cicadas and static.

T-shirts for Mississippi band Filth Eternal sit on a merch table next to a used copy of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Audience members wear orange paper wristbands. Outside, artists smoke cigarettes and pull equipment out of cars. After the show ends, all proceeds are donated to the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi.

The July 25 show was one of many in Jackson’s DIY scene. Jackson DIY is decades-old and encompasses a wide range of alternative music genres, including punk, metal, noise and hardcore, as well as independent publications, like zines.

DIY stands for “do-it-yourself.” According to Lucy Isadora, one organizer of Jackson DIY shows, the style is characterized by a lack of industry influence on artists. Local people organize shows and post flyers to Instagram. Isadora often hosts traveling artists at her house. Bands split money made from shows, which generally have an entry fee of $10 to $15.

Isadora has booked bands like Alien Nosejob at the bar and restaurant CS’s and annually organizes the punk show Brisket’s Birthday Bash to honor her dog, Brisket. 

“Obviously, my dog does not go to his birthday party because it’s a punk show, and, like, that’s not really fun if you’re a dog,” Isadora said. “But, every year that we’ve done it, we’ve been able to raise a decent amount of money for animal shelters.”

Arin, who goes only by her first name, started attending Jackson DIY shows two years ago and now covers the scene in her publication JXN Underground. She also books performances and hosts local artists on her podcast. She said traveling bands love Jackson once they play a show.

“I guess it’s that old Southern charm, but they’re always so pleased to be here. And I think it works out well that way, because this scene is so small,” Arin said. “It’s very intimate. Everybody really does know everybody.”

Though local and tight-knit, Jackson’s DIY scene has attracted bands from as far away as Poland. Punk artists have been playing in Mississippi’s capital city for decades. 

J.D. Burns has attended punk and hardcore shows in Jackson for over 20 years. Arin called him an “old head.” 

Burns said some of his first shows were at a “really seedy, kind of dangerous bar” called W.C. Don’s. He explained how, unlike today, Jackson punk bands in the early 2000s had a reputation for being rowdy and intoxicated.

“They were much more bratty, drunk, older people, not quite street punk, not mohawks and chains and leather jackets, but just gnarly, gnarly people,” Burns said.

Bands used to appear in weekly show bills released by the Jackson Free Press, now known as the Mississippi Free Press.

Churches also served as DIY venues in the Jackson area in the early 2000s, when there was a boom in Christian metal and hardcore. Since the bands were Christian, churches allowed them to play.

W.C. Don’s and many of the old bars are closed, and churches no longer have metal shows, Burns said. Now, bands advertise themselves on Instagram, and many of today’s venues, like Sunflower Oven and Urban Foxes, allow fans of all ages.

“Right now, Jackson has the best, most diverse scene that it’s had in a long time, maybe ever,” Burns said. “We can also acknowledge that it’s all based on experience.”

The flyer for the July 25 DIY show at Urban Foxes depicted a black cat in an ornate flowery frame with the headline: “A Night of Noise Benefitting Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi.” The show was pay-what-you-can, and attendees were invited to donate shelter supplies such as cat food instead of money.

Four artists played: Raven Weather, that which waits beyond sleep, INDOLE and The Sky Imposed its Will ….

The acts belong to the experimental noise genre, where artists integrate noises that are sometimes thought of as nonmusical into their work. 

Before the first set, INDOLE, whose stage name refers to an aroma chemical found in both feces and flowers, sat by the front steps.

Show attendees could also pull zines from Landmass Library, which is run by Isadora and distributes free DIY publications. 

One zine, written by a punk ER doctor, discusses what to expect when visiting the emergency room. Other zines focus on immigrants’ rights, queer issues and Black Lives Matter – topics Isadora said “are really important to me but are getting squashed by the current administration.”

Many of the night’s music artists belonged to multiple projects at once. Burns, who runs the noise project “that which waits beyond sleep,” is also in the band Kicking. 

“Please put in your article that I think everyone should start a band,” Isadora said. “And, even if your band sucks, I will come see your band at least once. But, if you suck, I might not come back again.”

Isadora bought a guitar so she could learn to play for Hammer and the Tools. She is left-handed, but, initially, had mistakenly bought a right-handed guitar. She gave that guitar to Arin, who is now learning to play. 

Arin explained that, for people interested, the best thing to do is just go to a show.

“I certainly didn’t know that I was going to be doing all this when I went to my first show,” Arin said. “I was just trying to get out of the house, so it can really open up some doors that you might not even consider.”

Correction 8/14/2025: This story has been updated to show that J.D. Burns is also in the band Kicking.