Thursday, Aug. 4
Milwaukee Comedy Festival @ Multiple Venues
For years, Milwaukee’s comedy scene was the redheaded stepchild of the city’s greater arts scene, never a source of pride despite hosting some considerable talent. That’s changed over the years, thanks in part to the efforts of the Milwaukee Comedy Festival to show that the city’s comedians can hang with the best in the country. Now in its 11th year, the four-day festival (five if you include the opening-night ceremony at Lake Front Brewery on Wednesday, Aug. 3) hosts a wide variety of sketch, improv and stand-up comedy at Next Act Theatre, The Underground Collective and Turner Hall Ballroom, which will host the festival’s headlining comedian on Sunday night, Jen Kirkman. Top stand-ups from Chicago, New York and Portland, Ore. will also be featured over the festival’s four-day run.
Mile of Music @ Multiple Appleton Venues
Milwaukee is rightly celebrated as the city of festivals, but some of our neighbors hold their own as well. Case in point: Appleton, Wis., which for four years running has hosted a remarkably stacked, free music festival called the Mile of Music. It was always a huge undertaking, but this year’s festival is downright massive, with some 240 artists playing more than 850 live sets at 70 venues. Dozens of Milwaukee acts will be featured as well as artists from all over the globe. For the complete lineup, visit mileofmusic.com.
Friday, Aug. 5
Urban Island Beach Party @ Lakeshore State Park, 5 p.m.
Just off of the Summerfest grounds, Milwaukee houses a curiosity that’s easy to overlook and even easier to take for granted: Wisconsin’s only urban state park, Lakeshore State Park. For six years running, NEWaukee has thrown a big fundraiser for the park that takes full advantage of its unique location. This year’s installment of the Urban Island Beach Party features music from live acts including R.A.S. Movement, Foreign Goods and Natty Nation; kayaking and paddle boarding, outdoor yoga, hula and fire dancing, a limbo contest and conga line and food and refreshments from a variety of local vendors, including a pig roast from Iron Grate BBQ. The best way to get there by far? By bike—the park is just off the Oak Leaf Trail.
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L7 w/ Radkey @ The Rave, 7 p.m.
Some of the most exciting music of the early ’90s was neither underground nor mainstream but rather existed in the increasingly blurred lines between the two. L7 spent most of their career in that grey area. Pairing the spirit of riot grrrl punk with the heavy, sludgy sounds of grunge, they enjoyed some major-label success with their Butch Vig-produced 1992 album Bricks Are Heavy, but like their peers Nirvana, they never seemed comfortable in the spotlight. (That frustration, in part, may explain an infamous incident where singer-guitarist Donita Sparks removed a tampon on stage and tossed it at a restless crowd at the 1992 Reading Festival). The group disbanded in 2001, but reunited in 2014.
White Lung w/ Greys @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Plenty of punk bands can sound fresh for an album, but it’s much harder to sustain that thrill of multiple records. Canada’s White Lung have made it look easy, cranking out four wonderful, no-frills records that draw equally from hardcore and ’80s underground rock; the latest is this year’s Paradise. Like its phenomenal 2014 predecessor Deep Fantasy, which Rolling Stone crowned one of the 40 greatest punk albums of all time, it’s a blistering record loaded with pointed feminist themes. The band plays this $10 show at Turner Hall Ballroom.
Saturday, Aug. 6
Deerhoof w/ The Blank Spell and The Blisters @ Mad Planet, 9 p.m.
Lead by singer Satomi Matsuzaki’s disarmingly sweet schoolgirl voice, Deerhoof have cranked out some of the most skewed, noisy art-rock of the last couple decades. Though they began to mellow on a string of poppier, more accessible albums that began with 2003’s Apple O, earning in the process successively bigger audiences, recent albums have returned them to the rawer, heavier sound that made them cult heroes. This year, they’ve released a pair of records: the exploratory Balter/Saunier, a highly experimental collaboration with composer Marcos Balter and the contemporary classical outfit Ensemble Dal Niente, and the refreshingly rock-minded studio album, The Magic.
Center Street Daze @ Center Street, noon
The Locust Street Festival may be Riverwest’s signature summer event, but Center Street Daze arguably does an even better job capturing the quirky spirit that makes the neighborhood a sure treasure. In addition to all the great local music you’d expect from a Riverwest street party—a whopping six stages of it—the event features a number of tournaments and competitions, including a push cart race, a street pool tournament, a dodgeball tournament and a pinball tournament.
Sunday, Aug. 7
Jen Kirman w/ Allison Dunne @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
A sort of Joan Rivers for the modern age, stand-up comedian Jen Kirman is best known for her regular appearances on “Chelsea Lately,” though comedy buffs know her from a host of appearances on other late-night shows, including “Conan” and memorable spots on Comedy Central’s “Drunk History.” Her stand-up sets regularly take aim at institutionalized sexism, a target she also repeatedly touched on in her 2013 book, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids.
Jay Farrar @ The Pabst Theater, 7:30 p.m.
When creative differences finished off the seminal alt-country group Uncle Tupelo in 1994, its members split into two groups, with Jeff Tweedy exploring more pop-minded styles in Wilco, and the band’s other singer-songwriter, Jay Farrar, sticking to his original country muse in Son Volt. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Son Volt’s beloved debut album, Trace, and to celebrate the band will release a double-disc, deluxe edition of the record in October. But first, Farrar will play the album front-to-back at this show, where he’ll be joined by his Uncle Tupelo bandmate Eric Heywood and multi-instrumentalist Gary Hunt.
Monday, Aug. 8
KISS w/ Caleb Johnson @ BMO Harris Bradley Center, 7:30 p.m.
With their face paint, flamboyant outfits and flaming guitars, KISS branded themselves as the most theatrical rockers of the ’70s. Following a string of moderately successful records, the risky double live album Alive! brought the band the massive commercial breakthrough they had been seeking all along, and the KISS franchise has been running strong ever since (though many fans prefer to forget the period in the ’80s when the band abandoned their signature makeup). Founding members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss left the band early last decade, but Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons carried their own on the group’s latest records, 2009’s Sonic Boom and 2012’s Monster, both of which sounded like music they could have recorded during the group’s ’70s heyday.
Tuesday, Aug. 9
Berlin w/ A Flock of Seagulls @ Wisconsin State Fair Main Stage, 7 p.m.
With its striking accompaniment from legendary electronic music pioneer Giorgio Moroder, Berlin’s Top Gun soundtrack hit “Take My Breath Away” remains one of the most iconic singles of the ’80s—and also one of the only songs ever to win both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Unfortunately, Berlin wasn’t around long enough to enjoy that song’s success; they broke up in 1987 before their victory lap was even over. They’ve reformed in various configurations over the years, though, and these days original singer Terri Nun leads a more dance-minded version of the band.
Bobby Long @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Bobby Long’s first major break came from, of all places, the first Twilight film, which included a Robert Pattinson cover of a song Long had co-written, “Let Me Sign.” As it turns out, Long and Pattinson went way back—both were aspiring musicians who shared open mics together. While Pattinson went on to become a sparkly vampire, Long continued pursuing his original dream, touring aggressively and self-releasing albums until he landed a home on Dave Matthews’ ATO Records, where he released his 2011 full-length A Winter Tale. He released his latest record, 2015’s Ode to Thinking, for Nashville’s Compass Records.
Wednesday, Aug. 10
The Fixx w/ Mike Benign Compulsion @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
British rockers The Fixx have spent more than 30 years and 12 albums penning contemplative lyrics that give their catchy pop songs a purpose beyond their surface hooks. The band remains best known for their saucy, New Wave-era funk number “One Thing Leads to Another,” among other early-’80s hits. But unlike most of their peers from that time, they never broke up and instead continued to record a vast library of smart art-rock albums. Expanding on the emotional motifs of their recent work, the group’s 2012 full-length Beautiful Friction coated darker themes of economic woes and social jadedness with perseverant hope.
