Photo Credit: Alex Marks
Gloss Weekend returns for a four-day run in Riverwest, while jazz great Terence Blanchard and indie-rockers Wye Oak come to town.
Thursday, May 17
Gloss Weekend @ multiple venues
No Milwaukee record label in recent memory has left quite the same mark on the city as Gloss Records, which over the last four years has cultivated a roster featuring many of the city’s most popular bands, as well as a quite a few fascinating cult favorites. Once again this spring the label will showcase its talent at its annual Gloss Weekend celebration, a four-day festival spread across several Riverwest venues. NO/NO, (ORB) and Dashcam kick things off Thursday, May 17 at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn. The party heads to Club Timbuktu on Friday for a show featuring Lorde Fredd33, Soup Moat, Sex Scenes and Storm Chaser, while Saturday features Surgeons in Heat and Wet Piss (from Chicago) at High Dive and a four-band lineup at Mad Planet that includes a reunion performance from The Delphines. Moon Rats and Gnarly Davidson (from Kansas) close out the festival Sunday at High Dive. Select shows will feature DJ performances from Dripsweat, Luxi, Luvseat and Uncle JBYRD. Weekend passes are $25; entry to individual showcases is $10.
Terence Blanchard featuring The E-Collective @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Photo Credit: Henry Abebonojo
Trumpeter Terence Blanchard got his first big break in the early ’80s, when he replaced Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, but for many listeners he’s better known for his many collaborations with Spike Lee. Blanchard has written the score for every one of the director’s films since 1991’s Jungle Fever, including memorable ones for Malcolm X, Clockers and 25th Hour. Throughout his storied career he’s been nominated for 12 Grammys, and taken home five of them. His most recent studio album is 2015’s Breathless, which he recorded with his new band The E-Collective, which will accompany him at this show. Earlier this year Blanchard and the group released a live album, simply titled Live.
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The Mutineers @ Boone & Crockett, 8 p.m.
The Portland husband-and-wife country duo The Mutineers fashion themselves as a modern Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and their vocals can’t help but recall those of that iconic couple. But their music is more rowdy, raucous and untamed than anything the Cashes ever recorded; it owes as much to modern punkabilly as it does outlaw country. The two showcased their loud spin on country-rock on their revved-up 2017 album, Live at B-Side. They’ll play this show at Boone & Crockett’s just-opened new location at 818 S. Water St.
Friday, May 18
Wye Oak w/ Palm @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
Photo Credit: Alex Marks
Wye Oak has never been afraid to mess with a winning formula. On their earliest records, the Baltimore-born indie-rock band laced their spine-chilling dream-pop with some blistering guitar riffs from singer Jenn Wasner. That guitar was the defining quality of 2011’s masterful Civilian, the album that introduced Wye Oak to a bigger audience than ever, but for 2014’s divisive follow-up Shriek, Wasner abandoned the guitar completely, letting her bass and drummer Andy Stack’s thick synthesizers carry the record. 2016’s Tween split the difference between those two albums (it was comprised of eight songs the band wrote then shelved between the two) but this year’s wonderful new The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs mines new muses altogether. Forgoing the murky, mysterious sounds of its predecessors, it spotlights some of the band’s brightest, most direct songwriting yet.
Robert Elder @ Boswell Book Company, 7 p.m.
Over his career in music journalism, Robert Elder has interviewed and photographed artists like Dave Navarro, Marilyn Manson and Pearl Jam. For his latest project, the book The Mixtape of My Life: A Do It Yourself Music Memoir, the Chicago author looks at music’s power to evoke emotions and memories. The book features more than 200 questions and prompts designed to get readers to chronicle their lives through music (it features lots of dinner-party questions like “What was the first record you owned.”) At this appearance Elder will play some music, share some memories and invite the crowd to share their own.
Listening Party @ Twisted Path Distillery, 8 p.m.
The Milwaukee folk-rock trio Listening Party should sound right at home to fans of The Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Avett Brothers and other similarly bombastic folk and bluegrass revival bands, though the band puts a hopeful, redemptive spin on the music that’s all their own. The trio will celebrate the release of their latest set of passionate ballads and toe-tapping shanties, Less is More, with this free show at the Twisted Path Distillery, though if you miss it you’ll have plenty more chances to catch them this summer. They’re also playing Summerfest (Wednesday, July 4); Bastille Days (Friday, July 13); Ayre in the Square (Saturday, July 14); and Wisconsin State Fair (Wednesday, Aug. 8).
Saturday, May 19
Pabst Milwaukee Brewery Street Festival @ Pabst Milwaukee Brewery, noon
Buoyed by some truly perfect weather, last year the Pabst Milwaukee Brewery and Taproom drew more than 7,000 people to its street party celebrating the opening of the new microbrewery. Thankfully, it wasn’t just a one-off event. The Pabst Street Festival returns this year for a lineup (presented by the Cactus Club) that features Platinum Boys, Zed Kenzo, Mary Allen and The Percolators, Ric Wilson, Caroline Smith and No Stress Collective. Chicago rapper Nnamdi Ogbonnaya headlines. There will also be a marketplace showcasing area artists and artisans, food trucks and, of course, beer from the brewery. There will be an after party inside the brewery at 9 p.m. featuring the funk/soul spin The Get Down.
Sunday, May 20
Joey Bada$$ w/ Boogie and Buddy and Chuck Strangers @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
There’s nothing all that novel about looking to classic East Coast rap for inspiration—rappers have been going back to basics for as long as there have been basics to go back to—but Joey Bada$$ does it better than most. Released when he was still a teenager, his debut 2012 mixtape 1999 made a splash with its jazzy vibe and lively samples. He’s updated his sound quite a bit in the years since, without ever completely turning his back on the Golden Age spirit that made that debut so charming. Last year he released his sophomore commercial album, All-Amerikkkan Badass, an overtly political affair that meditates on what it means to be young and black in America.
Josh Rouse w/ Bobby Flowers and Dan Hinz @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
Roots-pop singer-songwriter Josh Rouse’s army brat upbringing led him to write a series of inspired concept albums about the many places he’s lived. His 1998 debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska honored his native state, while 2005’s Nashville reflected on his move to Tennessee. Rouse’s recent albums have explored the culture shock following an even more dramatic relocation to Spain, where in 2007 he recorded an EP with his soon-to-be wife Paz Suay, She’s Spanish, I’m American. His latest album, this year’s Love in the Modern Age, is one of the most daring of his career. Leaving behind the relaxed, ’70s singer/songwriter vibe of some of its predecessors, the album indulges in the rich, sophisticated, synth-soaked sounds of ’80s acts like The Blue Nile and Soft Cell.
Wednesday, May 23
Ana Popovic w/ Young Revelators @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Ruben Tomas
Even before Ana Popovic released her first album, she was in the company of some blues greats. In 2000 the Serbia-born singer/guitarist appeared on a Jimi Hendrix tribute album alongside established players like Buddy Miles, Eric Burdon and Taj Mahal, and over the 10 albums she’s released since she’s proven herself one of the most virtuosic blues players of her generation. Her most recent album, 2016’s Trilogy, is a triple album with each disc dedicated to a different style (funk and soul on the first disc, blues rock on the second and jazz on the third). It features guest spots from guitar greats Joe Bonamassa and Robert Randolph, drummers Bernard Purdie and Cody Dickinson (of North Mississippi Allstars) and rapper Al Kapone.
