This Week in MKE Music: Jan. 8-14, 2026

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

by

WPR Pint-Sized Cello Concerts @ Milwaukee Art Museum, Joe Carducci @ Lion’s Tooth, An Evening with Field Report @ The Argo, G. Love & Special Sauce – Lemonade 20th Anniversary Tour @ Vivarium, Old Sam and the Teardrops @ Villa Terrace and more—This Week in Milwaukee Music!

Thursday, Jan. 8

WPR Pint-Sized Concerts @ Milwaukee Art Museum, 5 p.m.

Malik Johnson is a classically trained cellist, composer, and music producer based in Chicago and Milwaukee, who has worked with the Matt Jones Orchestra. That opened the doors for him to appear on NPR’s Tiny Desk in 2017, record on John Legend’s Christmas album, feature on Kirk Franklin’s Grammy award-winning album Long Live Love, and work with other professional and local recording artists. In Milwaukee, he recently wrote and produced the official theme song of the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum at his 2025 residency.

Peter J. Thomas is a member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and has performed around the world as a multi-genre soloist, clinician, educator and chamber musician. He performs on a fine English cello, circa 1813, by maker Thomas Kennedy and also performs on an electric cello, playing pop covers along with vocals, Thomas regularly performs a wide range of music outside of the symphony at solo shows or alongside various bands around Milwaukee.

Ipek Eginli/James McKain/Evan Palmer/Weasel Walter w/Buttars/Ollman/Smith @  Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 7 p.m.

Energetic improvisation is on the menu for this show. Ipek Eginli is a Turkish American experimental sound artist and pianist/improviser whose work involves electroacoustic free improvisation on piano, voice, modular synthesizers, and no-input mixing boards. James McKain is interested in the notion of deconstructing inheritances of the mediums that he works in.

Brooklyn-based Evan Palmer is a bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator who specializes in improvised music and jazz. Weasel Walter is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser best known for leading the seminal punk-jazz/no-wave/brutal-prog band The Flying Luttenbachers between 1991 and 2007 on 16 full-length releases. Seamlessly uniting the intensity and abstraction of improvised music with the nihilist aesthetics of extreme rock forms.

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Friday, Jan. 9

Joe Carducci @ Lion’s Tooth Books, 5 p.m.

In 1982 Joe Carducci’s Thermidor label released The Oil Tasters album. If that were Carducci’s only accomplishment he’d be a Milwaukee folk hero. His 1990 book Rock and the Pop Narcotic seemed to be a sequel to Richard Meltzer’s rock criticism The Aesthetics of Rock. Carducci’s book “lambasted America’s rock-critical establishment and lashed its sacred cows. The book’s vitriolic tone stemmed from the persecution complex the author acquired at the helm of SST [Records]…” of which he was co-owner. As a writer, Carducci has authored screenplays, essays, reviews and more.

Last summer Jeff Winkowski (Friday’s moderator) chatted with Carducci, who didn’t flinch, “We worked so hard at SST. Then the one guy who got in the door blows his head off. The story of punk from Joey Ramone to Kurt Cobain reads like the screenplay to a bleak ’70s movie.”

Blue Bayou: A Linda Ronstadt Tribute @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Linda Ronstadt’s powerhouse vocals and heartfelt storytelling defined multiple genres–rock, country, folk, and Latin. Featuring singer Tamara Woodruff, Blue Bayou will perform soul-stirring ballads like “Long, Long Time,” “Love Has No Pride” and “I Knew You When” to energetic hits like “That’ll Be the Day,” “It’s So Easy” and “You’re No Good” and duets “Don’t Know Much,” “All My Life” and “Somewhere Out There.”

An Evening with Field Report @ The Argo, 9 p.m.

Field Report returns with an evening made up of two sets of songs that include deep dives into the group’s catalog and live video manipulation. Field Report’s Christopher Porterfield has a knack for taking the reigns of technology. Back in 2020 Field Report released Brake Light Red Tide, the group’s fourth album supporting it with a livestream.

Porterfield spoke about that album, “’Peoria,’” the first song, I always just liked how that word sounded. I thought it was a beautiful word, ‘Peoria.’ I just like how it feels, and I also like giving a shout out to Midwestern towns. I mean the story sort of came to mind, this person who's not sure if they should go leave where they are. A lot of uncertainty. Not sure if they’re leaving for themselves, or for everyone else.

“I like the idea of daylight savings. I must've written half a dozen songs about daylight savings and the idea of losing an hour or getting one back. I think it’s a terrible idea in general, but it’s sort of a romantic thing to write about to use as a measuring stick for life, which doesn’t really care about our conception of hours. It is what it is.

“But yeah, the idea of losing minutes every day, based on our conception of it. So yeah, that one's about getting out, leaving, wondering. In the last verse, there's the line, ‘In my hour of darkness.’ Which is a homage to the Gram Parsons song that he does with Emmylou Harris. And I expect the listener to not only catch it, but then to take everything from that song and add that to the one that you’re listening to, so that's kind of the idea. It’s sort of a footnote, a Wikipedia page, or something. But yeah, that song by Gram Parsons is a relative to ‘Peoria’ to me.”

Saturday, Jan. 10

MELT @ Canni Infusion Bar & Café, 4 p.m.

“It started out of necessity,” explains The Demix of MELT, the intermittent showcase for Milwaukee electronic and experimental musical talent that marks its 15th anniversary with its 62nd event.

Of the array of talent coming to Canni under MELT's auspices, Demix elaborates, “In this show alone we have rap, techno, ambient, DJs (of whom The Demix is one), classically trained musicians and many things in between.

“I was trying to figure out how I fit into Milwaukee’s musical landscape and how to create opportunities that didn’t really exist for me at the time.” In his creation and curation of MELT, The Demix has forged for himself and other musicians opportunities using synthesizers, turntables and electronic enhancements of acoustic instruments in an outlet for those with ears for unconventional sounds.

G. Love & Special Sauce – Lemonade 20th Anniversary Tour w/ Makua @ Vivarium, 7 p.m.

G. Love & Special Sauce are creators of their own genre, “The Hip-Hop Blues.” Known for their unique and laid back, rootsy sound, which encompasses Delta blues, hip hop, rock & roll soul and funk, this show celebrates G. Love’s second solo studio album.

Hairball @ The Riverside Theatre, 7 p.m.

Hairball is an immersive rock and roll spectacle that captures the spirit of an era. As Hairball celebrates 25 years, they continue to deliver their signature, electrifying homage to the biggest names in ‘80s arena rock. Recreations of Van Halen, KISS, Motley Crue, Queen and more, complete with larger-than-life pyrotechnics, lights and pure rock energy.

Sunday, Jan. 11

Milwaukee Musaik and Violins of Hope @ Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 7:30 p.m.

Note: the early show is sold out and the 7:30 p.m. show has been added. More info here https://www.wilson-center.com/calendar/2026/1/11/milwaukee-musaik-and-violins-of-hope

An orchestra of men in prison stripes waited for the trains at Auschwitz, ordered to serenade the new arrivals, lulling the captives into a false sense of calm. Many Jews sent by the Nazis to the camps carried their violins with them. After the Holocaust, some of those instruments were collected by a family of luthiers in Tel Aviv for a project called Violins of Hope. Dave Luhrssen wrote about the exhibit “Violins of Hope” at Jewish Museum Milwaukee; the exhibit displays musical instruments that survived the Holocaust in the context of history.

Milwaukee Musaik presents a powerful tribute to the resilience of the human spirit as part of Violins of Hope-Wisconsin presented by Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO). Featuring instruments that were and played during the holocaust by Jewish musicians and others targeted by the Nazis, this poignant performance honors history through music, ensuring the voices of the past are honored while inspiring hope for the future.

Old Sam and the Teardrops @ Villa Terrace, 2 p.m.

Catch a matinee performance from Old Sam and the Teardrops as part of  “The Art of Sheet Music” exhibition, which runs through Jan. 18.

The first hit song by a Milwaukeean was written by Charles K. Harris. His melancholic, romantic “After the Ball” sold five million copies—not records but sheet music. The success encouraged Harris to leave the Midwest in the 1890s and set himself up as a music publisher in New York’s “Tin Pan Alley,” a district named for the tinny sound of made-for-order tunes pounded out by aspiring writers on cheap pianos.

The success of “After the Ball” was an inspiration point for the Villa Terrace exhibition “The Beat Goes On! The Art and History of Sheet Music, 1897-1957.” “I started the exhibit with ‘After the Ball’ in mind because of its Milwaukee connection. We tried to draw on local sources when possible,” says Annemarie Sawkins, co-curator with Martha Chaiklin. The exhibit includes artifacts from songs commissioned for Milwaukee’s centennial celebration and concludes with sheet music, and an autographed electric guitar, from the “Wizard of Waukesha,” Les Paul.

Monday, Jan. 12

Open Mic with Max Niemann @ Bremen Café, 10 p.m.

Is your New Year’s resolution finally taking it to the stage? Here’s a chance to start your week and 2026 off on the good foot with host Max Niemann of Diet Lite. There’s also a comedy open mic at 8 p.m.

Tuesday, Jan. 13

The Lehman Trilogy @ Milwaukee Rep, though Feb. 8

In 1844, a young man from Germany stands on a New York dockside dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers, and an American epic begins. Winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Play, The Lehman Trilogy travels over the next 163 years. The Lehmans transformed a small storefront into an unstoppable investment superpower—until a collapse that pushed the global economy to the brink of destruction. With three extraordinary actors portraying over 50 characters, this universally acclaimed play tests the bounds of the American dream and the limits of epic theatricality

Wednesday, Jan. 14

Dried Fruit w/ our Vanity, Hyperbolic and Bowvee @ X-Ray Arcade, 6 p.m.

Milwaukee’s our Vanity is an alternative rock band that blends psychedelic rock, shoegaze and folk rock, to create an innate sense of longing that reflects the upbringing of its members. Colombian American indie pop outfit Bowvee is the creation of Nick Bove, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jangly guitars and bright synths lead their first album “Cool Guy.”