Photo by Reto Sterchi
Sturgill Simpson @ Turner Hall Ballroom, Dec. 5
Thursday, December 4
Shakey Graves with Sean Rowe and Esme Patterson | Turner Hall Ballroom | 8 p.m.
Alejandro Rose-Garcia is an actor that viewers may or may not recognize from modest parts in TV shows like “Dallas” and “Friday Night Lights” (he played The Swede), as well as this year’s Sin City sequel A Dame to Kill For, but he’s earned more recognition off screen for his music as Shakey Graves. Rose-Garcia brings an actor’s intensity to his solo acoustic project, channeling pain and fear into Americana songs that take cues from murder ballads and hobo-folk traditions. This year he released his latest album, And The War Came, which smolders with conflicted feelings and dark thoughts.
To find out more, click here.
Best of Milwaukee Music Awards | 88Nine Radio Milwaukee Studio | 7 p.m.
Each year Radio Milwaukee honors its favorite local music with its Best of Milwaukee Music Awards. This year Radio Milwaukee shook up the voting process for those awards, calling on listeners to nominate bands, albums and songs, then turning to a panel of experts assembled from both inside and outside of the station to pick the winners. Those winners will be announced at this awards party at the station’s Walker’s Point studio (220 E. Pittsburgh), which will feature performances from GGOOLLDD, Webster X, The Delta Routine, The Living Statues and DJ Strehlow.
To find out more, click here.
Chris Botti | The Riverside Theater | 8 p.m.
Jazz sales aren’t what they used to be, but those lean times haven’t hurt Chris Botti’s sales much. The jazz-pop trumpeter, who has performed with Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin and Natalie Cole, among many others, is a reliable top-seller whose tenth and latest album, Impressions, debuted at the top of the Billboard Jazz chart. It features covers of songs fans might expect, including “Summertime,” “Over The Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World,” and some they might not, like Michael Jackson’s R. Kelly-penned “You Are Not Alone.”
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To find out more, click here.
Friday, December 5
Sturgill Simpson with Lucette | Turner Hall Ballroom | 8 p.m.
Kentucky songwriter Sturgill Simpson grew up on the free-spirited sounds of outlaw country and brings that old-fashioned sensibility to the music he records as a solo artist. His debut LP High Top Mountain garnered ample comparisons to Waylon Jennings, which was likely no accident, since he recorded the album with one of Jennings’ guitarists, Robby Turner, along with seasoned session musician Hargus “Pig” Robbins, who has recorded with genre legends like Alan Jackson, Loretta Lynn and David Allan Coe. Simpson updated his approach ever so slightly with his follow-up record, this year’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, which throws in the occasional splash of psychedelic rock to balance out the honky tonk.
To find out more, click here.
Saturday, December 6
Bro Safari with Craze, Ape Drums and UFO! | The Rave | 8 p.m.
Critics of dubstep’s louder, heavier incarnations have coined a derisive term for the genre: “brostep.” Not all artists see the term “bro” as an insult, though. A veteran of the Atlanta drum and bass group Evol Intent, producer Nick Weiller embraces the word and all the alpha-male qualities it evokes with his project Bro Safari, which pairs hard dubstep drops with the slick trap sounds of Atlanta’s rap scene. After headlining one of the Rave’s Stellar Spark New Year’s Eve parties a couple years back, Bro Safari returns to the venue with Animal House Tour, featuring Craze, Ape Drums and UFO!, all acts that share the same frat-rocking mentality.
To find out more, click here.
Catacombz with Dogs in Ecstasy, Orb and Spero Lo Menzo | Riverwest Public House | 9 p.m.
As the “z” in their name made clear, Milwaukee psych rockers Catacombz never took themselves too seriously, preferring to splash around in the genre’s lighter, quirkier waters over diving head first into the genre’s heavy deep end. That approach made them outsiders in a genre that already consisted largely of outsiders, but their experimental tendencies made for some seriously killer grooves on albums like 2010’s Mother Tongue and its even catchier 2012 sequel Mother Tongue 2. After a long stretch of inactivity, the group announced this year that it will be disbanding following this final show at the Riverwest Public House.
To find out more, click here.
Milwaukee Wave Home Opener | UW Panther Arena | 6:00 p.m.
The longest-running indoor soccer team in the United States, the Milwaukee Wave has earned increased attention since Sue Black purchased the team last year, and nobody can say they don’t deserve it. The team has a long history of winning and has claimed six championship titles (last year they came close to a seventh, but fell short in the semifinals). They’re looking to contend again this season, their first since moving to the Major Arena Soccer League, so they’ll have plenty to celebrate tonight when they take on the St. Louis Ambush at this season’s home opener.
To find out more, click here.
Sunday, December 7
Hover Craft | Turner Hall Ballroom | Noon - 6 p.m.
Each year around the holidays, the Hover Craft art fair and market brings together dozens of Milwaukee vendors in an effort to showcase unusual local goods and to make holiday shopping a whole lot easier. In addition to mountains of jewelry, the 70 vendors at this year’s market will also offer boutique soap, hand-crafted journals, designer pillows, knitted hats and mittens, rustic wallets and coffee mugs, pottery of all types, quirky baby accessories and even locally constructed terrariums. There will also be DJs, food and a full-service bar. Admission is $3.
To find out more, click here.
Tuesday, December 9
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy | Potawatomi Hotel & Casino | 8 p.m.
The California big band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy can claim as much credit as anybody for popularizing the swing revival in the 1990s, thanks to their star-making appearance in Swingers, where they performed their signature songs “Go Daddy-O” and “You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby).” While the masses lost interest in swing music once the novelty wore out, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has carried on as a popular touring act, and like their fellow swing revivalists in the Brian Setzer Orchestra, they’ve shown a particular interest in Christmas. Last year they released their third album of holiday music, It Feels Like Christmas Time, and they’ll share some of those songs at this show, which they’ve billed as their “Wild & Swingin’ Holiday Party.”
To find out more, click here.
Wednesday, December 10
Neil deGrasse Tyson | The Riverside Theater | 8 p.m.
As a general rule, astrophysicists aren’t famous, but Neil deGrasse Tyson is a rare exception. The host of “StarTalk Radio” and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson took his profile to new heights this spring by hosting Fox’s update of Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking 1980 documentary series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” introducing Sunday night viewers accustomed to watching cutaway-laden cartoons to the intricacies of our universe—a noble pursuit if there ever was one. This week Tyson will appear at the Riverside Theater for two nights of lectures. His first, on Wednesday, Nov. 10, will examine some of the biggest recent scientific discoveries and how they have reshaped our understanding of the universe, while his Thursday, Nov. 11 lecture is titled “Science as a Way of Knowing” and will explore how science has been so successful at explaining the world.
To find out more, click here.
