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Lorde
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Betty Who
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Paula Poundstone
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South City Revival
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Tyler The Creator
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Photo credit: Bryan Parker
Yonatan Gat
March hits the ground running with concerts from Lorde, Nightmares on Wax, Yonatan Gat and Tyler, The Creator.
Thursday, March 1
Lorde
Lorde w/ Run the Jewels and Tove Styrke @ BMO Harris Bradley Center
New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde was only 16 years old when she recorded her Grammy-nominated debut album Pure Heroine, but that didn’t stop its hip-hop-inspired lead single “Royals” from becoming an international hit and making Lorde the youngest act to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart since Tiffany in 1987. In case there was any doubt, Lorde proved she wasn’t a one-hit wonder on her sophomore album Melodrama, an even more critically acclaimed, pop-centric album that featured some of her strongest, more pointed songs yet and cemented her as one of the most important artists of her generation. For this tour, she’s joined by the rap duo Run the Jewels (RTJ), who have now released three albums of feral, hard-knuckled hip-hop, each of which has been ravenously devoured by their cult following. Their songs should sound especially massive clashing against the walls of the soon-to-be-demolished Bradley Center.
Friday, March 2
Nightmares on Wax w/ Air Credits @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
Better known by his stage name Nightmares on Wax, British DJ George Evelyn has spent much of his career ahead of the trends. A trip-hop pioneer, he was one of the first DJs to fuse electronica and house music to hip-hop, and one of the first recording artists on the renowned electronic label Warp Records. Over the years his Nightmares on Wax project has evolved from a DJ-driven enterprise into more of a collaborative band effort. While still grounded in hip-hop, his new album Shape the Future draws heavily from classic soul, funk and R&B.
Saturday, March 3
Photo credit: Bryan Parker
Yonatan Gat
Yonatan Gat w/ Gallery Night and Soup Moat @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
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If you never caught a Monotonix show, you missed out. The American record label Drag City signed the eccentric Israeli garage-rock group Monotonix largely on the strength of the group’s wild live show. The group disbanded in 2015, but their energy lives on in guitarist and founding member Yonatan Gat’s solo work, which builds on the psychedelic punk of his former project while putting his blistering guitar even further front and center. In 2015 he released his debut full-length album, Director, as well as the Steve Albini-produced EP called Physical Copy.
African Drum and Dance Conference @ Silver Spring Neighborhood Center
Spearheaded by the Ina Onilu Drum and Dance Ensemble and The Village Drum Company, the Gathering of the Drummers Drumathon returns to Milwaukee’s Silver City neighborhood for a second year. The only drum conference in the United States focusing on West African drums, the event will feature two days of drum and dance performances, as well as drum and dance classes taught by West African instructors, for both adults and children. (Also Sunday, March 4).
Julian Lynch and Apollo Vermouth w/ Big Syn, So Zuppy and Peacebone @ High Dive, 9 p.m.
Two of Wisconsin’s most consistently fascinating experimental artists, Julian Lynch and Apollo Vermouth work from very different raw ingredients, with Lynch preferring acoustic instrumentation and repurposed folk sounds and Apollo Vermouth tending toward synthesizers and ambiance. It should be interested, then, to see what they come up with during their collaborative set at the top of this bill, which also features several experimental pop acts from around the Midwest, including Chicago’s Big Syn.
Paula Poundstone
Paula Poundstone @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
With her gentle observations on children, cats and the absurdities of everyday life, Paula Poundstone was one of the more visible comedians of the ’90s, appearing regularly on HBO, “The Tonight Show” and “Hollywood Squares.” She’s still a fixture on late-night TV, but these days many of her fans know her from the radio, where she’s a frequent panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” news quiz. She’s also an author. Last year she followed up her 2006 There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say, which included ruminations on her career and motherhood, with a new book of autobiographical comic anecdotes, The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness.
South City Revival
South City Revival and Motel Breakfast @ Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall, 9 p.m.
Grounding their rootsy rock ’n’ roll and alt-country in bluesy licks and weepy pedal steel guitar, the Chicago quintet South City Revival recall bands like The Record Company in their bear-hug embrace of traditional American music. Last year the group released its self-titled debut EP, 21-minutes of rustic rock that sounds right out of a particularly bustling roadhouse. They should fit right in here in Milwaukee, where this style of country-twinged rock always goes over well.
Sunday, March 4
South City Revival
Tyler, The Creator w/ Vince Staples and Taco @ The Rave, 7:30 p.m.
Few rappers from the last decade have been trickier to pin down than Tyler, The Creator, the figurehead of the Los Angeles hip-hop collective Odd Future and also its most difficult artist. On a series of compelling but difficult albums, Tyler lashed out at the world, often in vulgar, homophobic terms. But his latest album Flower Boy adds another ripple to his image: Many fans and critics read the album as Tyler’s way of coming out as gay or bisexual, a reading he hasn’t explicitly confirmed or denied. Whether that absolves him in the eyes of listeners offended by his previous work remains to be seen, but it’s one of his strongest albums, and features some inspired guest spots from Lil Wayne, A$AP Rocky and Frank Ocean. On this tour he’s joined by Vince Staples, a rapper loosely associated with Odd Future who released one of the most compelling albums of 2016 with his Def Jam debut Summer ’06, a complicated, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City-esque account of growing up amid the background of drugs, gangs and violence. He followed it up last year with a more overtly arty, electronic album, Big Fish Theory.
Tuesday, March 6
Betty Who
Betty Who w/ Pretty Sister and Spencer Ludwig @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m. - POSTPONED
A big viral hit can open a lot of doors. Australian electro-pop singer Jessica Newham, better known by her stage name Betty Who, discovered that first hand in 2013 after a video of a man proposing to his boyfriend in a Utah Home Depot with the help of his choreographed friends charmed the internet. The cast was dancing to Betty Who’s perky track “Somebody Loves You,” which quickly shot up the iTunes charts. Days later, the singer inked a contract with RCA Records, which released her album the following year. In 2016 she scored her biggest hit yet, with a trancy, uplifting cover of Donna Lewis’s 1996 pop hit “I Love You Always Forever.” The track peaked at number one on the dance charts, and cemented her diehard following in LGBT circles. She returns to Milwaukee after a member show headlining the opening night of PrideFest last year. [This show has been postponed due to illness and rescheduled for Thursday, June 21.]
Robert Cray Band @ Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, 8 p.m.
For most of his career, blues guitarist Robert Cray has been almost as fascinated by soul music—and in particular the punchy sounds of Memphis soul—as he has been in electric blues. Those soul influences have been even more pronounced on his latest records, especially last year’s Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm, which Cray with Grammy Award-winning producer Steve Jordan and Hi Rhythm Section, the band that helped the unmistakable sound of Memphis’s Hi Records, best captured on classic albums by singers like Al Green, Syl Johnson and Ann Peebles.
Wednesday, March 7
Kyle Kinane @ Turner Hall Ballroom @ 8 p.m.
If you watch Comedy Central, you’ve heard Kyle Kinane before. Since 2011, he’s served as the station’s commercial announcer. And if you watch the station enough, you’ve probably seen him, too. The Chicago stand-up has been featured on “Comedy Central Presents,” “Drunk History” and “@midnight,” as well as the animated oddity “TripTank.” Cord-cutting comedy fans, meanwhile, may know him from his many podcast appearances on shows like “WTF with Marc Maron,” “The Nerdist Podcast” and “Getting Dough with High.” In 2016 he released his third comedy special, “Kyle Kinane’s Loose in Chicago.”
Ex Fabula: Karma @ Sugar Maple, 7 p.m.
Attendees never know quite how any given Ex Fabula “StorySlam” will play out. At each event, interested storytellers place their names in a hat. A select number will be picked to tell an autobiographical five-minute story, based on each installment. For this installment at the Bay View beer bar Sugar Maple, that theme with be “karma,” so expect plenty of tales with ironic twists. Not interested in going on stage? The audience can also submit very stories written on slips of paper, which the night’s emcee will read to the crowd.
