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Photo credit: John Beck
Rostam Batmanglij
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Cowboy Mouth
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Smoking Popes
With all eyes on him ahead of 2020, Joe Biden heads to Milwaukee, while local musicians lead tributes to Woody Guthrie, Thelonious Monk and some of emo’s greats.
Thursday, Feb. 8
Science Strikes Back @ Escuela Verde High School, 5-8 p.m.
Save for snow days and field trips, no days were more fun in elementary school than science fairs, those events where kids illustrate scientific phenomena using household items (at any given fair, about 30% of the projects were some kind of volcano). The Milwaukee arts organization Cedar Block’s Science Strikes back lets adults get in on the fun, contributing their own demonstrations alongside ones from Escuela Verde students. At a time when science often seems under attack, this free event is a reminder of the role it can play in improving our everyday lives.
Friday, Feb. 9
GuthrieUNCOVERED @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
For Turner Hall Ballroom’s Uncovered series, a continuation of Alverno Presents’ popular program, some of Milwaukee’s most prominent musicians curate tributes to some of music’s most influential figures. For this latest installment, upright bassist Johanna Rose will lead a night of Woody Guthrie interpretations, which will feature performances from Rose’s bands Nickel&Rose and Ruth B8r Ginsburg, as well as contributions from Painted Caves, Klassik, Peter Mulvey, Abby Jeanne, Jordan Davis of Space Raft, Hello Death, Kendra Swanson, Chicken Wire Empire, Bo&Airo, Amanda Huff, Scott Hlavenka, Grasping at Straws, Josh Evert of The Fatty Acids, Ernest Brusubardis IV, Viktor Brusubardis and Sugar Ransom. It shouldn’t be much of a challenge for those performers to connect Guthrie’s poetic populism to modern times.
Cowboy Mouth
Cowboy Mouth @ Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, 8 p.m.
However fleetingly, Cowboy Mouth tasted success in the mid-’90s with their minor hit “Jenny Says,” a rollicking example of the group’s rootsy alt-rock, and also the only one to experience radio exposure beyond college stations. Rather than fall into obscurity, though, the group dedicated itself to the road, building a reputation as a reliable live act with an admirable “any and every venue that will have us” mentality. The group’s latest album, 2016’s The Name of the Band Is…, features new versions of some of the band’s most popular songs, as well as three new tunes.
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Nate Wooley’s knknighgh @ Sugar Maple, 8 p.m.
Few modern trumpeters challenge their listeners harder than Nate Wooley, an improvisational jazz artist who has won the hearts of critics in recent years, even earning Downbeat’s coveted Jazz Musician of the Year honors. That flattery hasn’t gone to his head, though. His recent output has been as uncompromising as ever. For this tour, he’s performing with new quartet knknighgh (pronounced “Knife,” somehow), which joins him with three similarly adventurous New York players: alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos, bassist Brandon Lopez and drummer Dre Hocevar. Wooley has written only one very simple composition for the group, though like so much of his work, it lends itself to almost endless exploration.
Saturday, Feb. 10
Valentines Love and R&B Tour @ Miller High Life Theatre, 8 p.m.
A host of R&B singers with ’90s and ’00s hits have come together for this joint tour. Avant, the singer who scored a huge hit with the slow jam, “Separated,” tops the bill, joined by Donell Jones, Case, Jon B, Michel’le and Syleena Johnson, the singer best remembered for her soulful hook on the Kanye West hit “All Falls Down,” and who has since released a series of musically adventurous records of her own.
Thelonious Monk
Dreamland: The Music of Thelonious Monk w/ DJ Tarik @ Company Brewing, 9 p.m.
Led by prolific trumpeter Jamie Breiwick, one of the leaders of the city’s resurgent jazz scene, the Milwaukee quintet Dreamland never disguises their debt to Blue Notes’ heyday albums. At this show, the latest installment of Company Brewing’s Super Club Jazz Night, the group will make that influence even more explicit by paying tribute to one of the label’s greatest artists, pianist and composer Thelonious Monk.
Smoking Popes
Smoking Popes w/ Mark Mallman @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
Picking up in the ’90s where bands like The Replacements and Dead Milkmen left off in the ’80s, Smoking Popes played bold, punk-influenced pop music and fraternized with some of the era’s prominent punk and alternative bands (most notably Green Day). When frontman Josh Caterer tried to bring his newfound Christianity into the band’s secular oeuvre, however, the group disbanded, breaking up in 1999 before they had their own chance to conquer the radio. Their reputation grew posthumously, as bands like Alkaline Trio and Fall Out Boy sang their praises, until 2005 finally brought a well-received reunion that resulted in two new albums: 2008’s Stay Down and 2011’s This Is Only a Test.
Sunday, Feb. 11
Joe Biden @ The Riverside Theater, 7:30 p.m.
It’s one of the great political unknowns of 2020: Will Joe Biden run for president? At age 78, he’d be the oldest president in American history, yet he’s certainly carrying himself like a presidential candidate, with an aggressive schedule of public appearances and even a book tour, which will take him to Milwaukee this weekend. He’ll be promoting his new memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose, about coping with the death of his son Beau and the impact that loss had on the 2016 election. At this appearance, he’ll participate in a discussion moderated by former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.
Enuff Z’nuff w/ Sacred, Well Known Strangers and Dreamhouse @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 6 p.m.
Now decades removed from the MTV success of early singles like “New Thing” and “Fly High Michelle,” Illinois rockers Enuff Z’nuff are still touring behind their brand of glammy hard-rock, and still releasing new records. Their latest, 2016’s Clowns Lounge, compiles some of their earliest recordings from 1988-1989 and features a lead vocal performance from the late Warrant singer Jani Lane. The group is joined on this bill by several Milwaukee-area hard-rock and alt-rock bands to raise money for the St. Anthony Project Homeless Shelter, which gives much-needed assistance to the city’s poor and hungry.
Monday, Feb. 12
Photo credit: John Beck
Rostam Batmanglij
Rostam w/ Joy Again @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Leaving a band as popular as Vampire Weekend, especially on the heels of the group’s most acclaimed album yet, 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City, isn’t the type of thing that a musician does lightly. But for the band’s keyboardist/producer Rostam Batmanglij, it may have been simply a matter of only having so much time in a day. During his run with the band, Batmanglij became an in-demand producer and collaborator, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when he left the band in 2016 to focus on a solo career, while leaving the door open for further collaborations with the group. After a collaborative album with The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser in 2016, I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, he released his solo debut as Rostam last year, Half-Light, an artful electronic-pop project.
Wednesday, Feb. 14
A Very Emo Valentine @ Company Brewing, 9 p.m.
At this show a cast of Milwaukee musicians will pay tribute to some of the most influential emo acts of the last couple of decades—Fall Out Boy, Bright Eyes, Paramore, Panic at the Disco!, My Chemical Romance, etc. The twist? They’re not the first Milwaukee musicians you might expect to dive into such rock-oriented territory. A band comprised mostly of musicians from the local soul and jazz scene will back a cast of singers and rappers including B~Free, Fernando Arias, Yasmeen Daniel, Zed Kenco and Mario Betancourt Lanza.
