This Week in MKE Music: January 2-8, 2025

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

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This Week in MKE Music

Kick off the new year with jazz, blues, an N/A fest, a benefit at Falcon Bowl and more—This Week in Milwaukee Music!

Thursday, January 2

Martini Jazz Lounge: Cream City Hot Club @ Transfer Pizzeria Café, 6:30 p.m.

Veteran Jazz guitarist and fellow Capricorn, Paul Silbergleit, kicks off the Transfer stage for 2025 with a birthday show that will summon your first head-change of the year. Expect the usual virtuosity, curiosity and playfulness--prodded along by Silbergleit’s well-chosen conspirators, Clay Schaub on bass and Devin Drobka on drums.

Friday, January 3

Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Escorting 2024 to the door with a trip to New Orleans, Paul Cebar Tomorrow sound gets 2025 off on the good foot. Cebar, Reggie Bordeaux, Bob Jennings and Mike Fredrickson have a new album primed for a spring release. The group has been known to stretch time and space at their Shank Hall shows. (shepherdexpress.com/music/concert-reviews/paul-cebar-brings-outer-space-music-to-shank-hall)

Saturday, January 4

N/A Day @ The Cooperage, noon

The fourth annual N/A Day: the Dry January Beverage Festival—sponsored by Athletic Brewing Company, Clausthaler, Visitor, and Gruber Law Offices—will offer an opportunity to enjoy unlimited samples of more than 50 products in the wide-ranging, ever-evolving, and rapidly-growing non-alcoholic drink market. WMSE’s Christreater will DJ the event. The menu includes non-alcoholic beer and seltzer, kombucha, mocktails, non-alcoholic wine and spirits, craft soda, energy drinks, CBD products, and more.

OPC Trio @ Motor, 5:30 p.m.

OPC Trio aka Jim Ohlschmidt, Craig Panosh and Steve Cohen play a blend of blues classics, Americana and originals. At a low-key Summerfest show (shepherdexpress.com/music/concert-reviews/ohlschmidt-panosh-cohens-cruise-through-the-blues) the trio didn’t rush a damn thing in a set that was a history lesson as well a primer in how to keep the music fresh. Recalling ‘80s-era Summerfest performances of the great Carl Perkins, Ohlschmidt reinvented “Blue Suede Shoes” as a slow-burn swampy blues. They relocated “That’s All Right Mama” somewhere between a gentle samba and the theme from Midnight Cowboy with Cohen’s atmospheric harmonica on full display.

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Holler Home – A Benefit for Southern Appalachia @ Falcon Bowl, 6:30 p.m.

Here is a chance to pitch in. In September, Hurricane Helene was the deadliest to strike the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina. To help support the region as it continues to recover, a group of local roots musicians are offering up a night of live music.

The lineup includes Joseph Huber Band, Old Pup, The Big Heart Kind, King Courteen, Dandy L. Freling and Bitch Creek.

Sunday, January 5

Third Coast Blues Collective @ Ope Brewing, 3 p.m.

Third Coast Blues Collective—the pooled talents of Matt Liban, Kurt Koenig, Greg Koch and Jimmy Voegeli—is a loosely affiliated group of musicians, whose collected hours playing music, if laid end-to-end-to-end, would reach from the Earth to around the sun and back.

Tuesday, January 7

Mas Verde w/Kent Avenue Carpool and Torcado @ Cactus Club, 8 p.m.

Here’s an all-local triple bill with Mas Verde’s rock, Kent Avenue Carpool’s ethereal psych sound and Torcado’s blend of indie, funk, alternative, and blues.

Wednesday, January 8

Lumberjacks in Love @ Milwaukee Rep, through January 12

What’s a lumberjack in love supposed to do while living the bachelor life? Harry Cherkinian wrote about Lumberjacks in Love: shepherdexpress.com/culture/theater/the-burly-bachelors-of-lumberjacks-in-love.

Think the north woods of Wisconsin in 1912, where this quartet of quirky, burly men revere their singlehood yet are pining (yep, bad pun) for the “females of feminine persuasion.” From the start this tongue-in-both-cheeks parody, has the laughs rolling and rolling like lumber down the river. And it never stops, much to the delight of the audience. More info here: milwaukeerep.com/shows/show/lumberjacks-in-love.