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Photo credit: Sølve Sundsbø
P!nk
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Photo credit: Brenton Giesey
Hunter Hayes
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mewithoutYou
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Partner
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Old Time Relijun
Milwaukee producers take center stage as Big Beat MKE returns for its second season.
Thursday, May 2
Big Beat MKE @ The Wicked Hop, 9 p.m.
Milwaukee music fans of a certain age fondly remember the Miltown Beat Down, the annual producer battle that brought together the city's hip-hop community for a solid decade. That event ended in 2015, but last year a predecessor carried on in its footsteps: Big Beat MKE, which returns for a second season at the Beat Down's former home, Wicked Hop's Jackalope Lounj. Founded by the Milwaukee music website Breaking and Entering, the event doesn't veer too far from the old Beat Down formula. The weekly competition pits 16 Milwaukee music producers spanning hip-hop, EDM and beyond. The tournament runs through June 20.
Photo credit: Sølve Sundsbø
P!nk
P!nk @ Fiserv Forum, 7:30 p.m.
After a decade of touring behind multi-platinum albums, P!nk knows how to entertain an arena crowd. In an era where Top-40 tastes change rapidly, her hybrid of pop and glam rock has proven surprisingly resilient, changing little from album to album but sounding fresher for it. 2012’s fiery The Truth About Love yielded some of the biggest hits of her career, including the bitter “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” and the ballad “Just Give Me a Reason,” a duet with fun singer Nate Ruess, while 2017’s Beautiful Trauma was the world’s third best-selling record that year. Last week, she released her most recent album, Hurts 2B Human, which features collaborations with singers Khalid and Chris Stapleton and a single co-written by Ruess, “Walk Me Home.”
Old Time Relijun
Old Time Relijun @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
Even on K Records, a label filled with oddities, Old Time Relijun stood out. The Olympia group’s jumpy blend of jazz, funk and punk was all the more striking for its low production values. After a decade of relative silence and inactivity, the band returned this spring with a new record, See Now and Know, which picks up right where they left off, filtering the worldly pop sensibilities of Talking Heads through the noisy filter of no wave—as always, the music is an acquired taste. During their downtime, bandleader Arrington de Dionyso immersed himself in the music of Indonesia, Japan and Morocco, and some of those influences shine through in unexpected ways.
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Starz w/ Electric Revolution @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Starz came from unlikely origins for a hard-rock band. The core of the lineup had played in the ’70s pop band Looking Glass, best remembered for their schlocky 1972 hit “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).” But when singer Elliot Lurie left that band, the remaining members linked with new singer Michael Lee Smith to form a band with a decidedly harder edge. Inspired by groups like Kiss and Aerosmith, Starz recorded four late-’70s studio albums—Starz, Violation, Attention Shoppers! and Coliseum Rock—that paired loud guitars with huge hooks and were credited as influencing the hair-metal sound of ’80s acts like Mötley Crüe, Poison and Twisted Sister. Since reuniting in 2003, they’ve toured regularly.
Saturday, May 4
Photo credit: Brenton Giesey
Hunter Hayes
Hunter Hayes w/ Levi Hummon @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
One of Hunter Hayes’ first big breaks came in 2011, when he was selected as the opening act for Taylor Swift’s world tour, which seemed fitting given how more than a few critics had compared Hayes’ pop-minded, teen-friendly approach to country music to Swift’s. On 2014’s Storyline and 2015’s The 21 Project, the country star didn’t do much to downplay those comparisons—he’s still singing big, chorus-heavy songs intended to have as much impact on pop radio as country radio—but unlike his former tourmate, he isn’t likely to abandon his rural base in favor of New York City any time soon. Both albums opt for more of a live-band feel than his 2011 self-titled debut, frequently showcasing Hayes’ twangy electric guitar.
Cullah & The Comrades w/ Thriftones and Clear Pioneer @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
Genre-busting Milwaukee singer Cullah is a restless soul, a natural crooner whose tastes lean toward a little bit of everything. His records blend soul, electronic, trip-hop and blues, modernizing classic sounds in the spirit of The Black Keys while drawing from outside influences that group has never touched. No matter what style Cullah is tackling, though, he makes it funky. He’ll share this record release show with his latest project, Cullah & The Comrades, along with the Milwaukee electro-rock band Clear Pioneer and local rockers Thriftones.
Dane Cook @ The Riverside Theater, 7 p.m.
Dane Cook was one of the most prolific comedians of the ’00s, and perhaps not coincidentally, also one of the most hated. Critics loathed his unpretentious, every-bro observations, and his fellow comedians shun him with a distain once reserved only for Carrot Top. Despite all the vitriol, though, Cook was one of the first comedians of that era to fill arenas—for a while, he even drew audiences to some of the worst-reviewed films of his generation, like Employee of the Month and Good Luck Chuck. Cook is well aware of his low critical standing, though: He addressed it in his 2009 comedy special Isolated Incident, and he stood up for himself in an unexpected cameo on “Louie,” a show written by one of his biggest detractors, Louis C.K.—in a segment that now seems ironic, given C.K.’s own fall from grace.
Sunday, May 5
Buckethead @ The Rave, 7:30 p.m.
Buckethead is one of the most distinctive guitarists of his time, not only sonically but visually, given how he blurs the line between music and performance art by wearing an eerie, Halloween-inspired white face mask and a KFC bucket on his head. You’d also be hard pressed to find a guitarist with a more versatile resume. Since the 2000s, he’s played with artists as diverse as Serj Tankian, Les Claypool, Mike Patton, Iggy Pop, Guns N’ Roses (during perhaps the oddest era of that band’s history) and actor Viggo Mortensen. Last year, he released his 305th and 306th albums—yes, you read that right—which were titled Fourneau Cosmique and Dreamthread.
Forever infamous for his turn-of-the-century show “Politically Incorrect” (and the controversies that show spawned), Bill Maher hasn’t left political humor behind. The proud libertarian has continued hosting a political roundtable for HBO, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and touring behind a stand-up set that focuses heavily on Washington, D.C., dysfunction. Like all TV comics of his sort, Donald Trump has given him plenty to work with in recent years.
Monday, May 6
Partner
Partner w/ Telethon and Kat and the Hurricane @ Cactus Club, 8 p.m.
“Gay but not for each other,” is how the Canadian alt-rock duo Partner describe themselves, and sure enough, musicians Josée Caron and Lucy Niles draw inspiration from a wide range of queer music icons, from k.d. lang to Melissa Etheridge to Prince, beefing up all those sounds with a heavy dose of classic rock. The duo’s 2017 record In Search of Lost Time paired their cheeky songs with seriously heavy riffs, and on stage, the band has been known to shred even more, thanks to their expanded five-piece lineup. They’ll share this show with Milwaukee power-pop heroes Telethon and the exploratory Janesville folk-pop duo Kat and the Hurricane.
mewithoutYou
mewithoutYou w/ Cursive and The Appleseed Cast @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
For years, brothers Aaron and Michael Weiss exorcised their demons in the band The Operation, setting low expectations for their experimental side project, mewithoutYou. To their surprise, it became more successful and creatively gratifying than its predecessor. The Philadelphia-based rock band released its debut full-length, [A→B] Life, in 2002, then it picked up critical steam with its second release, 2004’s Catch for Us the Foxes, produced by Brad Wood (Smashing Pumpkins, Sunny Day Real Estate). Their albums have grown denser, musically and lyrically, in the years since, while the band has only grown more acclaimed. Their 2018 album, [Untitled], garnered some of their most glowing reviews yet. They’ll share this bill with emo heroes Cursive, the Saddle Creek veterans who reconnected with their roots on their latest album, Vitriola. It’s their first record, since their breakout 2003 album The Ugly Organ, to feature a cellist. Kansas emo stalwarts The Appleseed Cast kick off this incredibly loaded bill.
