This Week in MKE Music: March 14-20, 2024

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

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Luna’s sonic bliss, Bristlehead’s roots rock, Lynne Arriale returns, St. Patrick gets his due and more —This Week in Milwaukee!

Thursday, March 14

Luna @ Vivarium, 8 p.m.

Pioneering indie trio Galaxie 500 set the template and when that group dissolved, Dean Wareham further refined the sound with Luna. Extant from 1991 to 2005, the group reunited in 2015. Plying the urban twin guitar-based dream jangle sound of Velvet Underground (Luna toured with VU’s Lou Reed), Television (TV’s Tome Verlaine collaborated with Luna) and The Feelies (Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski was a Luna member), the quartet delivers sonic bliss in the live setting.

Bristlehead @ Linneman’s Riverwest Inn, 8 p.m.

If you could take the combined musical experience of Dave Braun, Bob Jennings, Bruce Dean, and Mike Fredrickson have and somehow lay it end to end to end, it would reach around the sun and back to Earth. Fredrickson’s songs, f’rinstance last year’s Home For Lunch (shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/mike-fredrickson-heads-home-for-lunch), combined with a local Wrecking Crew is a great way to kick off the weekend.

The Lynne Arriale Trio @ bar centro, 8 p.m.

Lynne Arriale returns to Milwaukee with her 17th album as a leader. Being Human, addresses a troubled, divided world with an exquisite suite of optimistic, deeply felt compositions and celebrates the ways that our lives are enriched by acts of passion, courage, love, persistence, heart, soul, curiosity, faith and joy. The trio explores these life-affirming facets of humankind.

Friday, March 15

Miles Nielsen & The Rusted Hearts w/Louie and the Flashbombs @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Rockford, Illinois-based Miles Nielsen has spent nearly a decade performing for audiences with music that draws from the prime years of Western-influenced rock music and ‘60s soul, claiming influences as diverse as Otis Redding’s classic sound and Jellyfish’s cult power pop recordings. For Nielsen, music is the family business. No stranger to Milwaukee, he moonlights with wife Kelly Steward, brother Daxx and dad Rick in The Nielsen Trust. His grandfather, Ralph Nielsen, had a recording career and owned a music store in Rockford, IL, where Miles’ dad learned a trick or two about being in a band.

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This show is also a preview for Louie & The Flashbombs’ upcoming album Bang!Which gets released in early April.

Paul Cebar and John Stano @ Café Carpe, 8 p.m.

Paul Cebar’s solo shows offer a glimpse into the depth of a songwriter who is often consumed by the big groove of his shows with Tomorrow Sound. When not tending to his duties as Honorary Director of the 2024 Shawano Folk Music Festival, John Stano delivers his story songs. During the lockdown Stano played a marathon three hour farm concert: shepherdexpress.com/music/artists-beating-covid-19/john-stanos-marathon-farm-concert-flexes-his-musical-muscle.

VomBom w/Delicious Monsters and Spidora @ Quarters Rock and Roll Palace, 8 p.m.

Madison’s VomBom take no prisoners. Milwaukee’s Spidora has set out to update their version of Tropicália and Delicious Monsters traffic in the kind of art-damaged punk that blends melody with a jagged sense of urgency.

Saturday, March 16

20th Anniversary Artists Party @ Art Bar, 6 p.m.

Keeping Riverwest weird for at least two decades, Art Bar celebrates the array of artist who have shown their work with free drinks from 6-8 p.m. and music from Jazz Flux Quartet.

KMFDM w/ Cyanotic @ The Rave, 8 p.m.

KMFDM—originally Kein Mehrheit für die Mitleid, loosely translated by the band as “no pity for the majority” or according to urban legend “Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mod”—was founded in 1984 as a performance art project in Paris. As a gateway to industrial music blurring genres with electronic body music and even reggae and dub, the group has also been fiercely political, with many of its lyrics taking stands against violence, war and oppression.

Sunday, March 17

St. Patrick's Day Guide 2024

They say everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, and here in the City of Festivals we know how to do it right. Parades, concerts, food and dancers—here is our guide to all things green shepherdexpress.com/culture/st-patricks-day-guide including events beginning with Danú at Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts on Thursday.

Monday, March 18

Striped Cow w/ Mizzy, I H8 It Here, Aergo and Big Fat Tony @ X-Ray Arcade, 6:30 p.m.

A Monday night music festival in Cudahy. Five acts ranging from shoegaze to sasscore to psych-punk.

Killer High Life w/ The Living Johnsons and DaCapo @ Cactus Club, 7 p.m.

Killer High Life brings indie/emo rock sound and The Living Johnsons' sound toys with the dichotomy between pop vocals/melodies and harsh, experimental instrumentals with fuzzy bass tones and heavily distorted guitars. DaCapo plays its debut show.

Wednesday, March 20

Crum Crum Duo @ Thurmans 15, 7 p.m.

Brett Westfahl (trumpet) and Peyton Lencho (bass) of The Breadmen bake up some tasty improvisational grooves in the mid-week gig at the Brady Street neighborhood nightspot.