Photo: Beatallica.org
Beatallica
Beatallica
A free concert in memorial for the Waukesha parade tragedy, a Celtic Christmas music livestream, and more jazz than you can shake a stick at—and more This Week in Milwaukee!
Thursday, Dec. 9
The Laramie Project @ The Milwaukee Youth Arts Center
First Stage’s Young Company, the Theater Academy’s award-winning training program for advanced high school actors, will present The Laramie Project as their first Performance Project for the 2021/22 season and first in-person production since the pandemic began.
Written by award-winning playwright Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project, and directed by First Stage Young Company alum Elyse Edelman, this riveting production tells the story of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, an openly gay college student, who was brutally beaten in October 1998 and left to die on the plains outside Laramie, Wyoming.
Hailed as one of the most captivating and encompassing pieces of contemporary theater, The Laramie Project is a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which it is capable.
Through December 12. More info firststage.org
Peter Mulvey @ Wheel & Sprocket, 6:30 p.m.
Peter Mulvey - Who's Gonna Love You Now?
Peter Mulvey returns to Milwaukee for a show at Wheel & Sprocket in a benefit for the Chris Kegel Foundation. The singer-songwriter has done “a dozen and a half tours by bicycle, just a guitar and a bag of clothes.”
As a socially conscious artist, how Mulvey dealt with the pandemic was no surprise. “I was lucky in that I have an audience across the U.S. and Europe, which I’ve built in three decades of touring,” he said. “They all helped sustain me through my Patreon page and through livestream concerts. In the spirit of that I made each of those shows a benefit, for food banks and music venues and civil rights organizations.”
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For this show, Mulvey will be playing songs from his upcoming album with SistaStrings, Love Is The Only Thing
MKE Unplugged Presents: Buffalo Nichols with special guest Stephen Hull @ Jan Serr Studio, 7:30 p.m.
Buffalo Nichols - Lost & Lonesome (Live in Mississippi)
Carl “Buffalo” Nichols was the first solo blues artist signed by the renegade record label Fat Possum in nearly 20 years shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/lost-lonesome-by-buffalo-nichols-fat-possum/ The Milwaukee native took the long route to the Oxford, MS record label. Currently based in Austin, TX, as half of Nickel & Rose he honed his chops performing across Europe.
Nichols said, “Part of my intent, making myself more comfortable with this release, is putting more Black stories into the genres of folk and blues. Listening to this record, I want more Black people to hear themselves in this music that is truly theirs.”
Friday, Dec. 10
“Christmas in the Basilica,” Bel Canto Chorus @ Basilica of St. Josaphat
One of Milwaukee’s favorite holiday concerts is back! It has become a holiday tradition for thousands of patrons around the Milwaukee area. And this year, with a livestream option, the Bel Canto Chorus hopes to bring the holiday spirit to thousands of new patrons all over the world. Featuring Fredrik Sixten’s “Magnificat” along with traditional Christmas carols performed by chorus, organ and brass.
Through Sunday. More info here belcanto.secure.force.com/ticket/?mc_cid=45a8f1ffe9&mc_eid=2470dd253f#/events/a0S4T000000BULDUA4
Green w/Elephonic and Cabin Essence @ Anodyne on Bruce St., 8 p.m.
Chicago’s Green has been releasing records since 1986. No strangers to Milwaukee, they haunted long-gone stages at The Toad Café and The Unicorn. Write them off as simply pop music and you’ll overlook influences as varied as Gram Parsons, Randy Rhoads, Curtis Mayfield and Prince. Then again, you’d not be wrong to call them one of the finest power pop bands to ply their craft.
Just in time for the pandemic, leader Jeff Lescher released All Is Grace, a rewarding and complex album that deserves further investigation. The long-running band headlines with former Green guitarist Mike Jarvis’ Elephonic shepherdexpress.com/music/artists-beating-covid-19/elephonic-comes-to-life-during-a-pandemic/ and Nick Maas’ quartet Cabin Essence.
Saturday, Dec. 11
Beatallica @ The Bend (125 N. Main St., West Bend), 7:30 p.m.
Forged from the influences of two of history’s greatest bands, Beatallica’s appreciation and reverence to The Beatles and Metallica is on display with the recently released The Devolver Album. Their wit, creativity, subversiveness, and flair are as sharp as the point they make. Beatallica destroys the boundaries of creativity and reveals how original compositions of music can be crafted for those who identify with humor and biting commentary.
Zappafest @ Club Garibaldi, 8 p.m.
The Ike Willis Project - Biznis as Usual
A Milwaukee institution, Zappafest celebrates its 23rd installment and once again features vocalist Ike Willis who began playing with Frank Zappa’s band in 1978. Willis will be backed by Gozortenplat. Paulette D'Amour and The Swivels, led by Zappafest alumnus Chris Peterson, open the night’s festivities.
Sunday, Dec. 12
53212Marketplace Holiday Market @ West River Collective (3700 N Fratney St.), 11 a.m.
Riverworks presents another 53212Marketplace with over 20 local vendors. Find unique locally made and fair trade gifts. Artisan foods, art, jewelry, body products, candles, home goods and more. Check out the new brewery Amorphic Beer, as well as coffee and bakery provided by Riverwest’s newest coffee shop The Daily Bird. Masks highly recommended.
A Gift To The Waukesha Community: Free Christmas Concert @ Carroll University’s Shattuck Music Center (218 N. East Ave., Waukesha), 2 p.m.
“Comfort and Joy” was the theme of the tragic Waukesha Christmas Parade cut short by senseless violence. The Wisconsin Philharmonic, also known as the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra, would like to return a small measure of comfort and joy to the Waukesha area community by offering free admission to their annual Holiday Concert.
A Christmas concert of beloved music, including a performance by three area high school choirs, is being offered to the Waukesha area community at no charge, as the Wisconsin Philharmonic’s gift to the community, with the hope of bringing a bit of healing through music of the season. As part of Waukesha’s music community, Wisconsin Philharmonic wants to support the student musicians and all others who were marching in or attending the parade. The orchestra will perform Scandinavian and other Christmas music, and feature the women’s choirs from Brookfield East, Brookfield Central and Germantown High Schools.
To obtain a free ticket, please call the Wisconsin Philharmonic at 262-933-0972. Additional information is available at the website: www.wisphil.org. Carroll University protocols require all attendees to wear masks while inside a building. This will include all the musicians who will also be wearing masks during the performance.
From Milwaukee to the World: A Celtic Music Holiday Celebration – livestream 2 p.m.
CelticMKE has a long tradition of hosting concerts in their Great Hall to celebrate the holiday season with the local community. This year, CelticMKE is excited to celebrate, virtually, with people across the world, with an hour and half long program spotlighting the wonderful talent that’s right here in Milwaukee.
“We are blessed to have so much talent here in our own local community. This program is our way of not only saying thank you to these artists, who have entertained us over the years at Irish Fest and around Milwaukee with their music, but of also showcasing their talents to the world,” said CelticMKE’s Barry Stapleton.
Settle in and enjoy 18 Irish and Celtic artists including Frogwater, Evan and Tom Leahy, Ian Gould and Tallymoore perform a mix of holiday music, with a dash of traditional Irish music. The concert will stream for free on CelticMKE’s YouTube channel youtu.be/TXxaEYW_c6g.
WMSE’s “Big Band Grandstand,” The Chicago Jazz Orchestra Salutes Woody Herman @ Turner Hall, 4 p.m.
Longtime DJ Dewey Gill returns to host an event spotlighting the music of Milwaukee legend, bandleader Woody Herman. Over the course of a career that started in the late ‘30s and lasted half a century, Herman led a succession of Thundering Herds that played a wide spectrum of popular music from blues to bop to rock and beyond. The songs most closely associated with Herman include “Woodchoppers’ Ball,” ”I’ve Got the World on a String,” “Apple Honey,” “Summer Sequence,” “Four Brothers,” “Caldonia” and the group’s theme song, “Blue Flame.” Let’s also note, for the sake of synchronicity, that Herman also played Frank Zappa’s “America Drinks and Goes Home.”
Mars Williams Presents An Ayler Xmas @ Sugar Maple, 4 p.m.
What do you get when you mix the music of avant garde saxophonist Albert Ayler and traditional Christmas and Hanukkah songs? Mars Williams and company do their best to blur boundaries and defy expectations. And don’t bet against him riffing on “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses, the song you already know him from.
shepherdexpress.com/music/music-feature/mars-williams-blends-albert-ayler-with-christmas
Tuesday, Dec. 14
Rick Springfield @ The Northern Lights Theater, 8 p.m.
Over the past four decades, Rick Springfield has worn many hats as an entertainer and performer. He has sold 25 million albums and scored 17 U.S. Top 40 hits, including “Jessie’s Girl,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “An Affair of the Heart,” "I've Done Everything for You,” “Love Somebody,” and “Human Touch.” He’s an accomplished actor and in 2014, Springfield was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located around the corner from the first apartment he lived in when he first arrived in the U.S. from Australia in 1971.
Also Wednesday.
