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Bastille
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Yo Gotti
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Photo credit: Djosefin Maurer
Otep
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Cedric Burnside
Har Mar Superstar does Dirty Dancing while Jake “The Snake” Roberts appears at Club Garibaldi. It’s another weird week in Milwaukee.
Friday, Nov. 23
Bad Bunny @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
Since 2016, Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny has been a fixture of the Latin music charts, but 2018 was the year that he announced himself as a Top-40 force to be reckoned with. His upbeat collaboration with Cardi B and J Balvin, “I Like It,” peaked at number one on the Billboard charts, and last month, he released a new party single, “Mia,” that would almost certainly have become a hit even without its slam-dunk feature from Drake. The single is currently charting all over the globe. The 24-year-old Bad Bunny hasn’t even released an album yet, but when he does, it’s all but guaranteed to be a smash.
Yo Gotti
Yo Gotti w/ Moneybagg Yo and Jeezy @ Miller High Life Theatre, 8 p.m.
Generations collide on this rap tour. Two titans of their respective cities, Memphis’ Yo Gotti and Atlanta’s Jeezy (he dropped the “Young” years ago) are joined by one of rap’s rising stars, Moneybagg Yo. After a long run of electric mixtapes and collaborations with rappers like Lil Baby and Gunna, Moneybagg Yo released his debut studio album, Reset, earlier this month. Yo Gotti and Jeezy, meanwhile, should have plenty of new material to perform; both rappers released solid new albums last year.
Har Mar Superstar and Sabrina Ellis Do The Songs of Dirty Dancing w/ CLOSENESS @ The Cooperage, 8 p.m.
As his stagey alter ego Har Mar Superstar, Sean Tillmann pays homage to sensual R&B in the most over-the-top fashion imaginable. In recent years, though, Har Mar’s act has seemed a lot less tongue-in-cheek. Earlier this year, he sold out the Back Room at Colectivo with a revue celebrating the music of Sam Cooke, and now he’s returning to Milwaukee with this latest tribute. Joined by Sabrina Ellis (of the projects A Giant Dog and Sweet Spirit), he’ll be performing songs like “Hungry Eyes” and “Be My Baby” from the iconic 1987 soundtrack to Dirty Dancing, as well as new material from Heart Bones, his duo with Ellis. Also on the bill is CLOSENESS, the wife-husband duo of indie-rock veterans Orenda Fink of Azure Ray and Todd Fink of The Faint. Last year, they released an EP of rich, psychedelic electro-rock called Personality Therapy.
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The R&B Cadets @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Few bands cast a bigger shadow over the Milwaukee music scene than The R&B Cadets. Though their initial run only lasted for a few years in the early ’80s, the group served as a launching pad for some of the city’s most prominent musicians, including John Sieger (who went on to form Semi-Twang), singer Robin Pluer and Paul Cebar of the Milwaukeeans and Tomorrow Sound fame. For the last several years, the group has reunited for Thanksgiving weekend shows at Shank Hall, reprising the festive soul and rock music that made them such an enormous live draw nearly four decades ago. (Also Saturday, Nov. 24.)
Guerilla Ghost @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
In the spirit of classic Definitive Jux releases, the Milwaukee industrial-rap duo Guerilla Ghost plays nervy, political hip-hop that’s completely unbeholden to genre conventions. On their new album, Perpetually Sad Motion Machine, the duo dials up the anger, assailing fascism, a broken health care system, patriarchy and rape culture (the latter on a furious track featuring Lindsay DeGroot of the Milwaukee punk group Fox Face). The record also features appearances from Lorde Fredd33 and Carnage the Executioner. For this Black Friday release show (we’re guessing the timing is a coincidence, given the band’s anti-consumerist leanings), Guerilla Ghost will be supported by Devils Teeth, Taiyamo Denku, Taj Raiden, Nicholas Elert and the Dope Folks DJs.
Saturday, Nov. 24
Jake “The Snake” Roberts @ Club Garibaldi, 7 p.m.
Outside of perhaps Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker, few ’80s wrestlers embodied the cartoonish, action-figure aesthetic of WWF wrestling’s heyday like Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Like too many of his costars, the cult wrestler fell on hard times in the late ’90s, battling health problems and struggling with addiction, but at this appearance, he’ll focus on some of the lighter tales from his years in the ring. As part of his “Dirty Details Tour,” he promises a night of uncensored stories and comedy that proves the WWF was every bit as ridiculous behind the scenes as you imagined it was.
Tuesday, Nov. 27
Bastille
Bastille w/ Young The Giant, Bishop Briggs, Grandson @ The Rave, 7 p.m.
Each year, local alternative station FM 102.1 recruits some of the biggest names in modern rock for its Big Snow Show winter concerts at the Rave. This year’s concerts kick off with a bill featuring two of the most festive alternative crossover acts of the last few years: Bastille, the world-inspired band behind up-tempo hits like “Pompeii” and “Bad Blood,” and Los Angeles rockers Young The Giant. Bishop Briggs and Grandson round out the bill.
Hip Hop Nutcracker @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
Peter Tchaikovsky’s Christmas ballet classic The Nutcracker has been reinterpreted so many times that it shouldn’t surprise anybody there’s a touring hip-hop version of the piece. It features a remixed score, live DJ, an electric violinist and a team of a dozen dancers blending classical and modern choreography. Perhaps most notable, though, is the appearance from one of hip-hop’s founding fathers, Kurtis Blow, who will perform a short opening set in addition to rapping the show’s introduction.
Photo credit: Djosefin Maurer
Otep
Otep w/ The World Over @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
The Los Angeles alternative metal group Otep received an early career boost thanks to the support of Jack and Sharon Osbourne, who featured them on their influential Ozzfest tour after discovering them as an unsigned band in the early ’00s, but it was singer Otep Shamaya’s fierce vocals that have helped them retain such a wide a following. In the years since their Ozzfest break, the group has toured with Static-X and was nominated for a 2010 GLAAD Media Award. Shamaya’s interests aren’t limited to metal; she’s also a spoken-word artist who has appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry” and lent her voice to video games and movies, including The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. Her band released its latest album, Kult 45, this summer.
Wednesday, Nov. 28
Cedric Burnside
Cedric Burnside @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
The grandson of one of the most celebrated bluesman ever, R.L. Burnside, and the son of drummer Calvin Jackson (an influential blues player in his own right), Cedric Burnside has done his family legacy proud. The drummer/guitarist has played with acts as diverse as Widespread Panic, Jimmy Buffett, Bernard Allison and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, while garnering serious acclaim for his own records. His 2015 disc, Descendants of Hill Country, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. He followed it up this year with another record of the traditional, no-gimmick blues he’s known for, Benton County Relic.
