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Photo credit: Olivia Bee
Kesha w/ Savoy Motel @ The Rave, Thurs., Oct. 19 at 8 p.m.
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Herbie Hancock @ The Pabst Theater, Fri., Oct. 20 at 8 p.m.
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Craig Finn & The Uptown Controllers w/ John K. Samson @ Cactus Club, Sun., Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m.
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Girlpool w/ Palm and Lala Lala @ The Back Room at Colectivo, Sun., Oct. 22 at 8 p.m.
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Photo credit: J Fasano
The Dead Boys
The Dead Boys
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alt-J w/ NoMBe @ The Riverside Theater, Mon., Oct. 23 at 8 p.m.
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Photo credit: Emma Swann
Hamilton Leithauser w/ Courtney Marie @ Turner Hall Ballroom, Tues., Oct. 24 at 8 p.m.
Janet Jackson, Kesha, Pinegrove and Girlpool highlight a week of big concerts in Milwaukee.
Thursday, Oct. 19
Kesha w/ Savoy Motel @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
For a time it seemed Kesha would never even get to release a new album. After the divisive pop singer came forward with accusations of sexual assault and emotional abuse against her longtime producer, Dr. Luke, earning the support and sympathy of many of her fellow pop stars, she launched a legal campaign to free herself from her contract with Sony Music. She may have lost that battle, but she won the war: Dr. Luke has been all but blacklisted from the music industry, while Kesha was free to release a new album on her own terms. Nodding to classic rock ’n’ roll, soul and country and featuring guest spots from Dolly Parton, the Dap-Kings Horns and Eagles of Death Metal, this year’s Rainbow proves what an electric presence Kesha can be when she’s given the chance to actually sing.
Friday, Oct. 20
Andrew W.K. w/ Iron Pizza @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
In the decade since his major-label debut, I Get Wet, made him an instant icon, hard-rock animal Andrew W.K. has followed some curious whims. He became a motivational speaker, began making regular appearances on Fox News’ “Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld,” hosted the Cartoon Network game show “Destroy Build Destroy,” recorded a Kit Kat jingle, produced an album for reggae legend Lee “Scratch” Perry and, most bizarrely, released an album of solo new-age piano music—2009’s 55 Cadillac. All those extracurricular activities seem to have kept him away from the studio, since he hasn’t released a full-length album this decade, but he’s finally announced plans for a new one, which he plans to release next March.
Herbie Hancock @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
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Herbie Hancock emerged as one of the great pianists of the post-bop era while supporting Miles Davis. By the ’70s, Hancock was a respected solo artist and leader of the jazz-fusion movement, recording the 1973 masterwork Head Hunters and continuing to explore new electro-jazz sounds through the 1980s, when he fused R&B, funk and hip-hop together on his 1983 hit “Rockit,” one of the first major singles to use turntable scratches. In the decades since, he’s returned to more traditional jazz sounds, but he’s still capable of grand ambition. His most recent major work was 2010’s The Imagine Project, an expansive, world music-inspired album that featured collaborations with John Legend, P!nk, Dave Matthews, Chaka Khan, The Chieftains and many African musicians.
Pinegrove w/ Florist and Lomelda @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
New Jersey’s Pinegrove earned an instant cult following with last year’s breakthrough album Cardinal, a wordy, twanged-out hybrid of indie rock and alt-country, peppered with nods to emo forbearers like Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. The band is celebrated for their live shows, where their digressive, disjointed tunes turn into cathartic crowd singalongs. The spirit of those concerts was captured impressively on a live album the band released early this year, Elsewhere.
Saturday, Oct. 21
Milwaukee Polka Riot @ Kochanski’s Concertina Hall, 6 p.m.
When you picture a polka band, there’s a good chance you’re picturing men of a certain age, dressed in the traditional attire of a previous age. That’s not always the case, though: There are polka bands that look outside the box. Some of them have come together for the Milwaukee Polka Riot, an event described as “the world’s first and only alternative polka festival.” Among the performers are November Criminals, a polka/hip-hop band; Cheese of the Goat, a polka/metal project spearheaded by Frank Chandek of Dr. Chow; polka rock ’n’ rollers The Polkaholics; and Preomnor, who fuse zydeco and Cajun music with hardcore.
Sunday, Oct. 22
Janet Jackson @ BMO Harris Bradley Center, 8 p.m.
Crafted with the help of producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson’s propulsive mix of hip-hop, R&B, dance and pop made her one of the biggest female artists of the ’80s. She carried her audience with her through the ’90s, as she dropped the mechanical rhythms of her first records for a softer, more soulful sound, and strong sales of her 2000s records affirmed her as one of modern pop’s most enduring stars—though between a notorious Super Bowl mishap and the death of her brother, Michael, that last decade was at times difficult. Lately, though, she’s had reason to celebrate. She re-teamed with Jam and Lewis for a rock-solid 2015 album, Unbreakable, and this January, at age 50, she gave birth to her first child. With her current tour, she makes good on the one she had to cancel after her pregnancy.
Craig Finn & The Uptown Controllers w/ John K. Samson @ Cactus Club, 7:30 p.m.
Celebrated by fans as literary rock ’n’ roll saviors and derided by detractors as a glorified bar band, Brooklyn’s Hold Steady divide their time between rousing tales of spiritual redemption and the American dream and more commonplace accounts of passing out at concerts, stumbling around drunk or making out at a detox tent—stories that lyricist and frontman Craig Finn packs with allusions to the works of Jack Kerouac and fellow Minnesotan John Berryman. Finn’s voice is the driving force behind that band, so it goes without saying that Hold Steady fans will find much to love on his solo albums, including 2015’s mellow Faith in the Future and this year’s ambitious We All Want the Same Things, which, while less rowdy than some of Hold Steady’s most charged records, includes the same redemptive storytelling.
Girlpool w/ Palm and Lala Lala @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
The songs of the L.A. indie-folk duo Girlpool often sound in conflict with themselves, as if they can’t decide whether they want to be soft or loud. Many are both. The pretty-but-edgy tunes on the duo’s acclaimed new album, Powerplant, teeter on the edge of a breakdown, with many giving away to an eruption of tense, grungy guitars. They sound more like a rock band now than they did on their 2015 debut album, Before the World Was Big. This year, they’ve been touring as a five-piece, with a drummer and synth-saxophone player, but the same sense of whispered intimacy remains.
Monday, Oct. 23
The Dead Boys w/ The DUIs @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Like many bands from the earliest days of punk, Cleveland’s The Dead Boys didn’t record all that much: just the classic, utterly vital 1977 debut Young, Loud and Snotty and its less essential, but still frequently great 1978 follow-up, We Have Come for Your Children. In the decades since, labels released various rarities, demos and live albums as the band reunited for infrequent live shows, but the band never got around to releasing a third full-length until just this fall, when Plowboy Records issued Still Snotty: Young, Loud and Snotty at 40, a song-for-song rerecording of the band’s debut. New singer Jake Hout takes over for the band’s original singer Stiv Bators, who died in 1990.
alt-J w/ NoMBe @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
With all due respect to British music fans, they aren’t particularly picky about their buzz bands. Every month, the U.K. press hypes some hot new thing that usually turns out not to be all that hot or all that new. But sometimes they get it right. Named for the keyboard shortcut that produces the ∆ symbol, alt-J have proven to be one of the more lasting British buzz bands. After earning a whole lot of attention stateside for their shimmering 2012 debut, An Awesome Wave, which invited plenty of Radiohead comparisons, they released an even catchier sophomore album in 2014, This Is All Yours. The band kept the momentum going this spring with their third album, Relaxer, another weird-but-not-too-weird set of modernist alt-rock.
Tuesday, Oct. 24
Hamilton Leithauser w/ Courtney Marie @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
The Walkmen’s frontman Hamilton Leithauser is one of the rarest things: a band leader whose solo albums are meaningfully different from his band’s. After his band’s hiatus, Leithauser struck out on his own with his 2014 debut, Black Hours, which he recorded with members of The Shins, Dirty Projectors and Fleet Foxes. He showed particular chemistry with one collaborator: Rostam Batmanglij, formerly of Vampire Weekend. In the spirit of David Byrne’s albums with Brian Eno, Leithauser and Rostam shared billing on their 2016 album, I Had a Dream That Your Were Mine, which earned both artists some of the strongest reviews of their career.
