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Cairns
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Samantha Fish
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Smoking Popes
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King's X
Milwaukee’s Cairns celebrate the release of their gorgeous new album, while John Legend gets in the holiday spirit.
Thursday, Dec. 6
Cairns
Cairns w/ Marielle Allschwang and Old Earth @ Anodyne Coffee, 7 p.m.
The dream-pop project Cairns began as a solo outlet for Milwaukee musician John Larkin—a veteran of bands like Gauss, YYLA and Calliope—before expanding into a full band itself. The project’s early EPs were decidedly lo-fi affairs, some of them recorded partially on a VHS player, but Cairns’ new debut full-length Entanglements is far more expansive, a rich, immersive experience filled with unhurried jazzy instrumentation. Despite the fuller sound, the hazy, muted atmosphere of the group’s lo-fi early recordings remains. This is uncommonly intimate music. Cairns is joined on this release show for the album by a pair of indelible Milwaukee songwriters, Marielle Allschwang and Old Earth.
Radio Milwaukee Music Awards @ 88Nine Radio Milwaukee, 6:30 p.m.
More than 8,000 people voted for their favorite Milwaukee artists, albums and songs in this year’s Radio Milwaukee Music Awards, and the station will announce the winners at this awards presentation at its 220 E. Pittsburgh Ave. studio. The event will feature live performances from House of Renji, Paper Holland, Amanda Huff and Dramatic Lovers. The station will also be giving out its Humanitarian Award and Critics Choice Award, as well as Rising Star and Milwaukee Music Ambassador honors. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
King's X
King’s X @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Maybe it’s for the best that King’s X never found the mammoth success that many of their metal peers did in the late-’80s, since unlike many of the hair-metal acts they were passed over in favor of on MTV, they’ve gone on to become an enduring cult act. A could-have-been breakthrough single in 1989, “Over My Head,” wasn’t enough to turn the band into a top-tier headliner, and their even catchier 1990 follow-up single “It’s Love” arrived during a time when the band was sidelined with management issues. In 1994, when grunge was finishing off the remnants of ’80s hard-rock, King’s X received prestigious opening slot on a Pearl Jam tour, but even that exposure didn’t do much to change their commercial fortunes. It’s been a decade since the band released a new studio album, but in 2012 they delivered the solid live set Burning Down Boston.
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Friday, Dec. 7
Smoking Popes
Smoking Popes w/ Dramatic Lovers @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 7:30 p.m.
Picking up in the ’90s where bands like The Replacements and Dead Milkmen left off in the ’80s, the Smoking Popes played bold, punk-influenced pop music and fraternized with some of the era’s prominent punk and alternative bands (most notably Green Day). When frontman Josh Caterer tried to bring his newfound Christianity into the band’s secular oeuvre, however, the group defaulted in 1999, breaking up before they had their own chance to conquer the radio. Their reputation grew posthumously, as bands like Alkaline Trio and Fall Out Boy sang their praises, until 2005 finally brought a well-received reunion. This year the group released its third album since reuniting, and the first album recorded with its original lineup in 20 years, Into The Agony.
Cache Navideño @ Latino Arts Auditorium, 7:30 p.m.
For more than 20 years, conguero Cecil Negron and his Latin music ensemble Cache MKE have been performing traditional Latin sounds around Midwest stages, drawing from Afro-Caribbean sounds as well as salsa and Latin jazz. The percussive sextet, which has performed at local festivals including Jazz in the Park, has lined up a special holiday set for this performance at the Latino Arts Auditorium.
The Big Wu w/ Pat Ferguson & The Sundown Sound @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Just how long have the Big Wu been at it? They were the very first group ever to take the stage at Bonnaroo, during the festival’s first year. Their storied set opening the Tennessee music festival in 2002 in front of tens of thousands of eager attendees helped make them rising stars in the jam scene and one of the Midwest’s most popular jam acts. For years the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers-inspired group curated a music festival of its own, the Big Wu Family Reunion, which, while not as gigantic as Bonnaroo, became one of the Midwest’s most celebrated jam festivals. These days the group doesn’t tour as aggressively as it used to, though they still play often around the Midwest.
Tuesday, Dec. 11
Samantha Fish
Samantha Fish w/ Jonathan Long @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Samantha Fish’s spirited 2009 live album Live Bait helped her attract the attention of the German blues imprint Ruf Records, which signed her and paired her with a pair of two other young blues guitarists, Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde, on the 2011 album Girls With Guitars. Fish has since rotated through a variety of different collaborators on her subsequent albums for the label. Her 2015 album Wild Heart was grounded in roots rock, but she took a harder, more aggressive turn on her latest record, 2017’s Chills & Fever, which she recorded in Detroit with members of the blues-punk band Detroit Cobras.
Wednesday, Dec. 12
John Legend @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
John Legend is the first to poke fun at his image as a silver-tongued, ivory-tickling crooner. He’s parodied his image on Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special, where he sang a typically sensual song about nutmeg, and in his own video for his 2008 hit “Green Light,” which opened with him boring a party with a quiet rendition of his signature ballad “Ordinary People.” But in truth it takes talent to make schmaltz sound as alluring as Legend does, and his buttery voice flatters even the hokiest material. Case in point: Legend’s new Christmas album, A Legendary Christmas, which features renditions of the expected standards (including “Silver Bells” and a brassy, non-depressing version of the Charlie Brown staple “Christmas Time Is Here”) and cameos from Stevie Wonder and Esperanza Spaulding. The EGOT-winning entertainer will perform some of that holiday material at this show.
Estas Tonne @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
After years of performing around the globe, the Ukrainian-born guitarist Estas Tonne first caught the attention of the masses in 2012, when a video of one of his virtuosic street performances went viral, eventually garnering more than 50 million views. The meditative acoustic guitarist identifies as a nomad, not claiming any country as his home, and his music reflects that global mindset, drawing from Flamenco, Latin, classical and gypsy music.
