This Week in MKE Music: February 8-14, 2024

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

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Surf’s up! Art and music, Black Violin blurs genres, Irish dance, Western Swing, Jerry Grillo, Sam Llanas’ birthday show and Steve March-Tormé celebrates Valentine’s Day and more—This Week in Milwaukee!

Thursday, Feb. 8

Messer Chups w/Paulette D'Amour @Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Hailing from Saint Petersburg, Russia, Messer Chups (roughly translated as knife lollipops) combines surf rock and traditional Russian music, as well as using samples from historical recordings, lounge music, and vintage film soundtracks. Their live shows feature projections of old horror and sci-fi movies. Opener Paulette D'Amour is local music history with a resume that includes The Dummy Club and Dr. Chow’s Love Medicine.

Friday, Feb. 9

WMSE – Art & Music 2024 @ The Pritzlaff Building, 6 p.m.

An art auction featuring over 200 album-sized pieces of art created by locally and nationally recognized artists, hip-hop DJs, Non-Pop! Radio and a special musical performance accompanied by live art by NINETEEN THIRTEEN. More info here: wmse.org/art-music.

Black Violin @ Marcus Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m.

Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste, aka Black Violin, invokes a musical fusion of exquisite classical sounds and exhilarating hip-hop beats. This musical hybrid is something Marcus and Baptiste first began forming in high school, when one day Marcus had an idea for how to incorporate violin into the Busta Rhymes song “Gimme Some More.”

That musical idea, however, was put on hold when, in 2004, after winning the Showtime at the Apollo talent competition, Marcus and Baptiste were introduced to the manager of Alicia Keys and were then hired to join her band for a performance during the 2004 Billboard Music Awards. The duo played Milwaukee last year: shepherdexpress.com/music/music-feature/black-violins-unique-fusion-of-hip-hop-and-classical.

Saturday, Feb. 10

February Céilí Dance @ CelticMKE (1532 Wauwatosa Ave., Tosa), 7 p.m.

Get ready for St. Patrick’s Day. CelticMKE's Irish School of Music presents monthly traditional Irish social dances called céilís (pronounced "kay-lee") with live music accompaniment. This month the music is by the Providence Céilí Band with caller Kim Griffin, who calls the dances. Beginners and all ages are welcome, and instruction is provided all evening.

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Reverie Road @ Irish Cultural and Heritage Center (ICHC), 7:30 p.m.

Reverie Road is a new Celtic trad band of former members from well-known groups Solas (John Williams on accordian and Winifred Horan on fiddle) and Gaelic Storm (Katie Grennan on fiddle), plus concert and Indian raga pianist Utsav Lal. It’s their first tour and a brand-new album and judging from their already-released single “The Gap of Dreams,” this promises to be a great show from some veteran players.

The Best Westerns @ Falcon Bowl, 7:30

“Easier to describe than to define, Western swing is ballroom dance music with a Western flair, played primarily on stringed instruments.”-Guy Logsdon, Oklahoma Historical Society. Naturally, an historic bowling alley in Riverwest would be the spot to catch a western swing band that features members who played with Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys and Asleep at the Wheel. Bandleader Mark Hembree (shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/milwaukees-mark-hembree-was-on-the-bus-with-bill-monroe), steel guitarist Eddie Rivers and the crew will offer up an evening of stellar sounds.

Jerry Grillo – “Decades Tour” @ Bar Centro, 8 p.m.

Jerry Grillo made the best use of his early retirement. After ending his career as an MPS teacher, he focused on his first love. He’d sung in musical theater after school, and with a cover band, Sweet Earth, but with his career behind him, Grillo had time to study the craft of jazz vocals. He found opportunities to entertain at jazz clubs and piano bars and just enough success to sustain a prolific sequence of half a dozen albums released from the ‘90s through the ‘00s.

He also wrote and recorded a song, “My Hometown Milwaukee,” in the manner of Frank Sinatra’s “Chicago.” Mayor Cavalier Johnson proclaimed May 13, 2022, as “My Hometown Milwaukee Day” and presented Grillo with a plaque at City Hall. And Grillo isn’t done yet. (shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/jerry-grillo-counts-down-the-decades)

The Record Company @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.

Local success stories don’t get much better than Chris Vos of The Record Company. “Guys like me don’t get nominated for Grammys,” former Milwaukeean Vos thought. “That’s something I never thought would come to pass in my life, I never had considered the possibility of that ever happening.” Years ago, the guitarist Chris Vos was a regular at the open mic at Linnemann’s each Wednesdays before he got his chops together to front the Los Angeles-based, band The Record Company.

Sam Llanas Band @ Linnemann’s Riverwest Inn, 8:30 p.m. 

Sam Llanas, formerly of the BoDeans, recently released a new single, “Hideaway,” that features drummer Guy Hoffman and bassist Bob Griffin who played alongside Llanas on The BoDeans’ debut album Love & Sex & Hopes & Dreams. The track reunites the three in the studio for the first time since 1987. Back in October Llanas’ setlist leaned heavily into that album; “Hideaway” sounds like it could have been an outtake from those long-ago sessions.

For this show, the birthday boy will be backed by Sean Williamson, Shane Thew and Matthew Rhyner.

Sunday, Feb. 11

Jady w/Emmett Mulrooney, Colin Bracewell and Secret Menu @ Cactus Club, 7 p.m.

A quartet of young acts on the rise. Emmett Mulrooney’s indie, bedroom pop sound is attracting attention from around the globe. A pop artist from Minneapolis by way of Windsor, Ontario, Colin Bracewell blends inspiration from the likes of Justin Vernon and John Mayer, though his music holds a raw and unabashed post-Frank Ocean R&B quality. Columbus, Ohio’s Jady and locals Secret Menu round out the bill.

Tuesday, Feb. 13

The Kills: God Games Tour w/ The Paranoyds @ The Rave, 8 p.m.

Things have changed a bit since Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince played Cactus Club. The Kills’ Jamie Hince recently spoke about the new album God Games said in an in interview with The Current, “It was written at a weird time as everybody went through that same thing from 2020 … I’m an atheist. But when I was writing songs, I kind of realized I’m thinking about a higher power. I don't believe in God, but in my creative life, I kind of involve him. And so, I wanted to write these kinds of godless spiritual kind of things, kind of like atheist gospels was the idea of some of the songs I was writing.”

Wednesday, Feb. 14

Steve March-Tormé - “The Glory of Love” @ Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 1 p.m.

Up until he was about 15 years old the dream was to play Major League baseball, yet March-Tormé comes to the family business honestly. His father, the legendary singer-drummer-composer Mel Tormé and stepfather Hal March, the actor and television game show host.

March-Tormé brings his Valentine Day-themed “The Glory of Love” show, drawing from the Great American Songbook to Brookfield: shepherdexpress.com/music/music-feature/steve-march-tormes-valentine-show-the-glory-of-love.