Photo Credit: Jody Rogac
Friday, May 11
Bob Schneider w/ Mobley @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Bob Schneider has tightened his sound considerably over the years. On his earliest records, the Austin, Texas, troubadour hopped around from genre to genre, touching on classic rock reggae-twinged jam rock, hip-hop-inflected folk and lovelorn ballads. But for his 2006 album, The Californian, Schneider restricted himself to just direct roots rock, resulting in an album that captured the energy of his live shows. Subsequent releases have maintained that energy, including 2009’s Lovely Creatures, a career high that featured some spirited forays into Latin music, and his uplifting new album, Blood and Bones, which reflects on his new life as a husband and a father (“It’s nice to be alive,” he sings). His domestic life hasn’t stopped him from touring. Each year he posts dozens of recordings of his freewheeling live shows to his Bandcamp page.
J100
Joe Richter @ Anodyne Coffee Walker’s Point, 8 p.m.
Milwaukee singer/songwriter Joe Richter’s songs have always captured a sense of joy and hope, and that’s truer than ever on his new album, Revival, his first with a full band. For the album Richter called on some of the city’s most seasoned session players including, on the album’s uplifting lead single “Happy Tears,” fellow songwriter Willy Porter, who lends some memorable guitar. Touching on folk, blues, country and gospel, the record is a testament to the comforts of love. He plays this album release show at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point location.
Flatbush Zombies w/ Kirk Knight and Nyck Caution @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
New York may no longer be hip-hop’s creative center, but there’s still no shortage of young talent coming out of the city. Flatbush Zombies have been one of the better acts to emerge from Brooklyn over the last few years, a group with a clear appreciation for the genre’s past and a clear vision for where they’d like to take it going forward. On their 2016 debut album, 3001: A Laced Odyssey, they resurrect the gritty horrorcore sound pioneered by The Gravediggaz then put their own bleakly psychedelic spin on it, creating an album that feels strangely out of time. The band’s new sophomore album Vacation in Hell is even more expansive, and features guest spots from Joey Badass, Jadakiss, A$AP Twelvvy, Bun B and, most surprisingly, the alternative band Portugal. The Man.
|
|
Saturday, May 12
A Mother’s Day Weekend R&B Tour @ Miller High Life Theatre, 7 p.m.
As ’90s R&B has been rediscovered by a new generation of listeners, SWV have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. One of the best-selling girl groups of all time, the pioneering vocal trio recorded hit after hit in the early ’90s, including “I’m So into You,” “Weak” and “Right Here/Human Nature,” all of which appeared on their 1992 It’s About Time. Since reuniting from a hiatus last decade, the trio has released two solid new albums, 2012’s I Missed Us and 2016’s Still. The group headlines the Mother’s Day weekend show with fellow R&B veterans Kelly Price, Lil Mo, Bobby V (formerly known as Bobby Valentino; he’s the guy who sang the police siren noises on Lil Wayne’s “Mrs. Officer”) and Pleasure P (from the group Pretty Ricky).
Todd Rundgren’s Utopia @ The Pabst Theater, 7 p.m.
To the masses, Todd Rundgren is best known for his catchy, irresistibly silly novelty hit “Bang the Drum All Day,” a song that in no way captures the depth and diversity of his body of work. He’s worked with artists as diverse as Janis Joplin, Badfinger, The Band, Hall & Oates, XTC, Patti Smith, The New York Dolls and The Cars—whom he briefly fronted during a reunion tour—but never let those outside projects get in the way of his own solo career. Many fans, though, feel that Rundgren did some of his best work with his band Utopia, which he’s toured and recorded with intermittently since the early ’70s (although the band’s last studio album, P.O.V., came out in 1985). The current version of the band features longtime members John Wilcox and Kasim Sulton, who sung the band’s biggest hit, 1980’s “Set Me Free.”
Sunday, May 13
Damien Jurado w/ Naomi Wachira @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
Since the mid-’90s, Seattle’s Damien Jurado has been recording pretty songs about ugly emotions, sung mostly in a husky voice that suits his blunt lyrics. After a series of buzzed-about cassette-only releases in the ’90s, he cemented his reputation as one of indie-rock’s great songwriters with a trio of turn-of-the-century releases for Sub Pop, including his breakthrough, Rehearsals for Departure, but he’s done some of his best work for his current label Secretly Canadian, for which he’s released more than 10 records, including his absolutely gorgeous new The Horizon Just Laughed. Few songwriters, from indie-rock or otherwise, have released so many consistently exceptional records.
Tuesday, May 15
David Byrne w/ Benjamin Clementine @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
David Byrne has never been one to coast on past accomplishments, though he could certainly be forgiven if he did. As the leader of Talking Heads, Byrne was responsible for some of the most exciting rock and adventurous pop music of the ’70s and ’80s. That restless spirit has carried through his solo albums, as well as his recent collaboration albums with Brian Eno, Fatboy Slim and St. Vincent. His latest record, American Utopia, is his first truly solo album in 14 years, and at its best it recalls the electrifying art rock of his heyday, especially on the jamming lead single “Everybody’s Coming to My House.” For this current tour with a 12-piece band, Byrne has promised a highly choreographed show that he’s calling “the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense,” which is saying something. As with past tours, the concert will include songs from both his solo career and his days with the Talking Heads.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club w/ Pete International Airport @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
On their turn-of-the-century debut album, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club really did feel like rebels, deftly making the case for loud, psychedelic rock ’n’ roll at a time when it had fallen out of favor. The prominent garage-rock revival of the early 2000s vindicated the San Francisco group, but it also left them without much of an obvious mission statement, putting these one-time insurgents for the first time on defense instead of offense. The band threw a curveball with 2005’s Howl, branching out to explore acoustic blues and folk, but subsequent albums have been less radical, with bluesy undertones mostly drowned out by the trio’s traditionalist, electric rock. Like its predecessors, the band’s new Wrong Creatures is another back-to-basics affair, but it’s a solid one, featuring some memorably moody guitar riffs.
Yonatan Gat w/ Storm Chaser, Soup Moat and Q The Sun @ Cactus Club, 8 p.m.
If you never caught a Monotonix show, you missed out. The American record label Drag City signed the eccentric Israeli garage-rock group Monotonix largely on the strength of the group’s wild live show. The group disbanded in 2015, but their energy lives on in guitarist and founding member Yonatan Gat’s solo work, which builds on the psychedelic punk of his former project while putting his blistering guitar even further front and center. In 2015 he released his debut full-length album, Director, as well as the Steve Albini-produced EP called Physical Copy. His latest album, Cockfight, was released this month and features production from David Berman of the Silver Jews and Calvin Johnson of K Records fame.
