This Week in MKE Music Oct. 1-7, 2026

Here are the shows we are looking forward to this week.

This Week in MKE Music

Thursday, Oct. 1

Stallis Cowboys w/ Bryan Cherry @ Patti’s Power Plant, 7 p.m.

While Stallis Cowboys keep clocking live shows, they are biding their time to officially document anything with a legit release. On the other hand, Bryan Cherry is a musician and poet who never seems to take a break. With a dozen releases of original music, he dropped Surveillance: Live @ The Jamb! in July with the poetry-music project Ash Circle. That recording captures the group’s debut performance.

Friday, Oct. 2

Them Coulee Boys w/ Long Mama @ Vivarium, 8 p.m.

Eau Claire’s Them Coulee Boys’ name is a nod to the glacial melt-carved river valleys they call home, known by early French fur trappers as coulees.

With four full-length albums and an EP behind them, including 2019’s Die Happy (produced by Trampled by Turtles’ Dave Simonett) and 2021’s Namesake (produced by Grammy winner Brian Joseph), the band has garnered international attention and toured with Trampled by Turtles, Los Lobos and Old Crow Medicine Show

Saturday, Oct. 3

Beet Street @ South Wentworth Avenue between Potter Avenue and Russell Avenue

The annual collaborative neighborhood block party started in 2016 to celebrate the season with live music performances from local and international artists, delicious food and drink, unique learning opportunities and activities with a few dozen citywide organizations and a maker’s market.

This year’s music includes Zambian groove-masters W.I.T.C.H.(aka We Intend to Cause Havoc), Automatic, Zed Kenzo, Line Dancing, Tyler Band and DJ Cozmiika.

Eric Ruth Celebration of Life @ Y-Not II Tavern, 2 p.m.

Road manager and member of the Primitive Broadcast Service family, Eric Ruth, died unexpectedly in August. From the band’s Facebook page, “Eric was that person you know who almost always does more than asked. If a touring band needed a place to crash, Eric would offer his place. If we were out of T-shirts before a tour, he would take it upon himself to design a new one and get it to production (that’s the shirt he designed in the photo.) When our 3rd album, Monsters, seemed destined to remain forever an afterthought, Eric insisted on helping to pay for it. This was the Eric Ruth that a lot of people knew. This was who he was.”

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Fred Stonehouse @ Tory Folliard Gallery, 1 p.m.

This artists’ reception and Q&A with Fred Stonehouse, led by Derrick Buisch marks “The Book of Imaginary Beings,” a new exhibition of paintings by Stonehouse, on display through Oct. 10.

The exhibition takes its title and inspiration from Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’s celebrated Book of Imaginary Beings, first published in 1957. Borges’s book brings together an extraordinary collection of mythical creatures drawn from folklore, legends and literature from around the world, described with his characteristic wit and imagination.

In 2021, Stonehouse released the album Accident Prone. Listen to it here https://northerngothic.bandcamp.com/album/fred-stonehouse-accident-prone

Obscure Birds w/ The Riverwest Aces @ Linneman’s Riverwest Inn, 8 p.m.

Grab live image here https://www.obscurebirds.com/epk

A rara avis by any other name, Milwaukee’s Obscure Birds celebrate a decade of obscurity with this show. Last year the group released the album Hatch.

Rally For The Valley @ Downtown Menasha, 2 p.m.

Here’s a worthy reason to take a road trip. On July 27, a devastating tornado pummeled Menasha and changed lives across the Fox Valley. Butch Vig might be the biggest name, but this concert offers over eight hours of music for a cause. Artists include Charlie Berens, Butch Vig, Soul Asylum, Fountains of Wayne, Max Collins of Eve 6, Cory Chisel, Freedy Johnston, Phil Johnston, Hang Ten, LOLO, KAMI and Rucksack Revolution.

Steel-guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and film-maker Frank Anderson will playing with a few of the acts and he shared his thoughts about playing the benefit concert.

“It means a lot. I love Menasha,” he says. “It has the best fish fry bar in the Valley, the best library and THE classic butter burger joint (Mihms). I like to call Menasha ‘The Venice of the Fox Cities’ due to a particular view of its main canal that I'm fond of.”

Anderson lives in nearby Appleton and said the tornado began in his neighborhood and “doubled down in a mere half mile and made a bee line across the Fox River into Menasha. The destruction left anyone who saw it speechless and people who could least afford it were hit the hardest.”

More info here https://rallyforthevalleywi.com/

Sunday, Oct. 4

Americana Matinee: Amy LaVere & Will Sexton w / very special guests @ The Cooperage, 4 p.m.

If the world were a fair and just place, Amy LaVere and Will Sexton would be household names and you’d be familiar with their music—soulful vocals, superior musicianship and gritty songwriting.

As it stands, a previous appearance set up in the corner at Boone & Crocket was more like an intimate house concert.

Starcrawler w/ Runner and Bobby @ The Argo, 8 p.m.

It’s fitting that Starcrawler was formed in Los Angeles. Already looking like stars and grabbing the best of Iggy and the Stooges, Alice Cooper and The Runaways (all bands that left substantial DNA in that city), they crawled and trawled the rock and roll detritus of LA’s legendary Sunset Strip scene.

And Starcrawler knows their history. In April the band released the Record Store Day 7” Starcrawler Sings Elvis Presley covering “Baby Let's Play House” / “Blue Moon” and back in 2018 Arrow de Wilde fronted the MC5’s victory lap destroying “High School.”

Monday, Oct. 5

Kowloon Walled City w/ Great Falls @ X-Ray Arcade, 6 p.m.

In the world of heavy music, few bands embrace dynamics and negative space like San Francisco’s Kowloon Walled City.

Since forming 15 years ago, the band has increasingly refined its deconstructed approach to noise rock, math rock, and doom, landing them on stages with similar boundary-pushing bands like Neurosis, YOB, Sleep, Sumac and Thou. Seattle post-hardcore group Great Falls rounds out the bill.

Tuesday, Oct. 6

The Bourbon Jockeys @ Anodyne Coffee Roasting, 6 p.m.

WMSE’s Local/Live serves up a shot of blues, R&B and swamp pop with The Bourbon Jockeys. For this show and live broadcast, the band will be playing original music from their forthcoming LP, Gotta Stand Up.

Wednesday, Oct. 7

Rhett Miller w/ Louie Lucchesi & Mike Benign @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Best known as singer-songwriter with alt-country band Old 97’s, Rhett Miller put his stamp on over a dozen albums and EPS with that group. In addition, Miller has released nine solo albums. No stranger to the East Side club, this looks to be Miller’s sixth solo stop at Shank Hall.  Moonlighting from Louie & The Flashbombs, opening duo Louie Lucchesi and Mike Benign bring songwriting experience from a resume that includes Crime Family, Brother Louie, The Mike Benign Compulsion, Blue in the Face and Arms & Legs & Feet.