This Week in Milwaukee: Nov. 3-9, 2022

Here are the Milwaukee events we are looking forward to coming up this week.

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The 13th annual Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, Tales of Laughing Fox, Pupy Costello & The New Hiram Kings tribute to Hank Williams, Elephonic plays a matinee, Lost Tribes of the Moon album release, Will Sheff’s post Okkervil River-era stops in town, Country/Americana artist Jim Lauderdale and more—This Week in Milwaukee!

Thursday, Nov. 3

“Tales of Laughing Fox: A Cultural Performance” by Michael Laughing Fox Charette @ UWM Waukesha (1500 N. University Dr., Waukesha), 7 p.m.

Here is a tie-in to the 13th annual Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books  sewibookfest.com/about-us/ . Michael Laughing Fox Charette, an Ojibwe artist, storyteller, poet, and member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, is a self-taught Native flute player. He enhances his stories with hauntingly beautiful flute and drum performance. Growing up surrounded by the beauty of Lake Superior and the woods led him to dedicate his gifts as an artist to gently teaching about Native history, culture, and spirituality. His work as both a visual and performance artist is varied and tied together by the traditional wisdom of the Anishnaabe people, which is respectfully incorporated into his work.

Also see Saturday’s event Southeast WI Festival of Books Indigenous Authors Panel.

Pupy Costello & The New Hiram Kings: Hank Williams Tribute @ Story Hill Firehouse, 6 p.m.

It remains difficult to comprehend that Hank Williams was only 29 when he died on New Year’s Day in 1953. His career—more like a quasar—lasted merely six years, yet he remains chiseled on the Mount Rushmore of American popular music history. His songs are being covered to this day; his very ethos inspired the Outlaw Country movement as well as the Americana genre. Radio shows of his performances have been unearthed and released to critical acclaim. No less than Bob Dylan and Jack White oversaw a 2011 project of artists completing and recording “lost” unfinished Williams’ lyrics for an album project.

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The legacy of the Hillbilly Shakespeare will be celebrated, thusly, when Madison’s purveyors of honky-tonk sounds, Pupy Costello & The New Hiram Kings play a show in homage to the man whose middle name was aptly, King.

Latin Jam hosted by Cecilio Negrón Jr. @ The Jazz Estate, 8 p.m.

Instructor of Percussion at Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, co-founder and percussionist with long-running Latin Jazz group De La Buena, Cecilio Negrón Jr. will be joined by Jeno Somla on piano and Don Jose Acevedo on bass.

Friday, Nov. 4

A Night of Funk and Soul - The People Brothers Band w/Mas Soul @ The Cooperage, 7 p.m.

The People Brothers Band are a staple of the Midwest’s vibrant music scene. Featuring some of the best vocalists and musicians in the region, the PBB have blossomed into a unique brand of Rhythm and Soul dedicated to uplifting the hearts and minds of audiences. The group’s core mission is to bring people together by spreading love through music. Coupled with their energetic live shows and infectious stage presence, they are guaranteed to bring the party.

Saturday, Nov. 5

Southeast WI Festival of Books Indigenous Authors Panel Saturday @ 10:15 a.m., (Room N125, 1500 N. University Drive, Waukesha).

The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books is an annual community celebration of literacy and the arts, where local and national authors and readers of all ages come together to enjoy presentations, performances, creativity and conversation. As part of the festival an Indigenous Authors Panel will feature the Louis V. Clark III, (the University of Arkansas along with the Sequoyah National Research Center published his chapbook “Two Shoes.” This work received an Oneida Fellowship Award and a Wisconsin Arts Board Award. In 2016 the Wisconsin Historical Society Press published his memoir in poetry and prose “How to be an Indian in the 21st Century”; past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets, Kimberly Blaeser; and Matthew L.M. Fletcher who teaches and writes in the areas of federal Indian law, American Indian tribal law, Anishinaabe legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal ethics, and he sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

Elephonic @ Liliput Records, 2 p.m.

Milwaukee’s sprawling chamber-pop band Elephonic play an afternoon matinee for this stripped down acoustic/strings/keyboard show.

Whiskey Belle's 10th Anniversary Concert w/ Brendan Cleary @ Great Lakes Distillery, 7 p.m.

Before they sail off on a vacation cruise in February, Milwaukee’s WhiskeyBelles and Great Lakes Distillery team up to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the trio’s first album, Whiskey Woman. To celebrate, they are releasing their new whiskey: Still & Oak Whiskey—Touch of Honey. Much like the WhiskeyBelles, this new whiskey has a little bit of honey sweetness and a bit of whiskey.

All Synths Day 2022 @ X-Ray Arcade, 6 p.m.

Celebrate the 6th annual All Synths Day with Robot Witch, Blood, Incekt and Goth Barge DJs.

Lost Tribes of the Moon w /High Gallows, Emissary and  Cryptual @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.

Originally scheduled for May, Milwaukee sextet Lost Tribes of The Moon play an album release show. Brimming with talent, mixing doom, metal (both black and heavy), prog, folk and experimental sounds on their new album Chapter II: Tales of Strife, Destiny and Despair, the group is led by guitarist Jon Liedtke (Gozortenplatt) and includes familiar faces: bassist Chris Ortiz (Xolotl, Magnetic Minds, vocalist Julie Brandenburg (True Heart Susie, Liquid Pink), producer/drummer Shane Hochstetler (1/4 of the bands who played or recorded in Milwaukee in the last two decades. That’s an exaggeration, but not by much.) High Gallows and Emissary are also celebrating the release of a split 7".

Sunday, Nov. 6

Will Sheff @ Colectivo Back Room, 7 p.m.

After nine critically acclaimed albums, 20 bandmates, countless bars and clubs and theaters and festivals—after two full decades, Will Sheff is letting Okkervil River drift out to sea with Nothing Special. The album marks the acclaimed indie songwriter’s first release under his own name.

Written through a period of painful loss and deep transformation and recorded with a mix of old friends and new, the record represents more than just a change in name; it’s an act of liberation and self-determination, an emotionally raw reckoning with grief, identity, and hope that blurs the lines between fiction and autobiography, surrealism and humor, stoicism and a deepening spirituality.

Wednesday, Nov. 9

Jim Lauderdale w/Jim Hoehn @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Since his 1991 debut album Planet of Love, Jim Lauderdale has become something of an ambassador for country and Americana music, collaborating with Ralph Stanley, Robert Hunter, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and John Oates. As much a fan as keeper-of-the-flame, his new album Game Changer (his 35th) draws from songs he’d written over the past several years. “There's a mixture on this record of uplifting songs and, at the same time, songs of heartbreak and despair—because that's part of life as well,” he says. “In the country song world especially, that's always been part of it. That’s real life.”