Thursday, Feb. 18
Jon Mueller: ‘Communion’ @ Haggerty Museum of Art, 6 p.m.
Jon Mueller’s latest endeavor is, like so many of the esteemed Milwaukee composer and percussionist’s recent projects, a one-off performance. Communion is Mueller’s response to the Haggerty Museum’s current featured exhibition “Carrie Schneider: Reading Women,” a series of large photographic portraits and videos of the artists’ female friends and colleagues reading the works of fellow women. Performed alongside the exhibit’s video installation, Mueller’s one-hour performance will “sonically translate the energy transmission between book and reader, idea and mind,” according to the museum.
Naughty By Nature w/ The Rusty P’s @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
This will make you feel old: It’s been 25 years since Naughty By Nature released their self-titled album for Tommy Boy Records, an instant smash that featured one of the most uplifting hip-hop singles of the era, “O.P.P.” That song kicked off a hot streak for the band that lasted through the mid-’90s, when the band scored another hand-waving hit (“Hip Hop Hooray”) and the pool party anthem “Feel Me Flow.” The group is commemorating its silver anniversary on this tour.
Friday, Feb. 19
Cloud Cult @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Minnesota’s Cloud Cult shares Eels’ love of quirky, electronic beats and cinematic soundscapes as well as Beck’s knack for dynamic, flashy live shows. Much of the group’s early music was inspired by the 2002 death of frontman Craig Minowa’s young son—somber subject matter that only furthers the Eels comparisons—but the band’s visually loaded concerts feel more like colorful birthday parties than funerals. The group’s 2010 album, Light Chasers, found Minowa in unusually high spirits, reveling in the recent birth of his son, and 2013’s Love was a similarly upbeat album, flushed with bright electronics and Arcade Fire-esque grandeur. This month they released their latest record, The Seeker, which was accompanied by a film Minowa wrote starring Josh Radnor of “How I Met Your Mother.”
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Saturday, Feb. 20
Fiesta Mexico-Americana @ Marcus Center, 1 p.m.
Few bands represent the marriage between Mexican and American culture better than Los Lobos, the veteran Chicano rock band that has spent more than 40 years melting together country, folk, soul, cumbia and bolero music. That makes the band fitting headliners for the Marcus Center’s Fiesta Mexico-Americana event, which the venue bills as “a celebration of Mexican American heritage.” The band will be joined on the bill by dancers from the Ballet Folklorico Mexicano troupe.
Dre Day @ Company Brewing, 10:30 p.m.
Few figures loom larger in hip-hop than Dr. Dre, the producer who laid the template for gangsta rap, recorded one of the more replayable rap albums of all time with The Chronic, and sired stars from Eminem to Snoop Dogg. Don’t let his headphone-hawking, Dr. Pepper-drinking later years confuse you: The guy is a god, and if you were a teenager in the ’90s, odds are good you grew up quoting his lyrics. Milwaukee DJs Madhatter and Bizzon will celebrate Dre’s legacy at their second annual Dre Day party, which will feature a VJ set of West Coast hip-hop, Dre-themed karaoke and games (including a 40-ounce ring toss), and specials on forties and gin and juice from the bar.
Christopher Lloyd Goes Back To The Future @ The Riverside Theater, 7 p.m.
Certain films just hold up better than others. Though it’s solidly a product of the ’80s, Back to the Future has proven to be one of Steven Spielberg’s most enduring productions, a family classic that remains as fun to watch today as it was 30 years ago. Fresh off a new round of nostalgia for the film spurred by Oct. 21, 2015—the day that Marty McFly travels to in the series’ second installment—actor Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) will be on hand for this screening of the first film. He’ll share behind-the-scenes stories from the production and will participate in a Q&A with the audience.
Lizzo w/ DJ Sophia Eris and Cavanaugh @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Minneapolis rapper Lizzo may have seemed like an odd choice to open Sleater-Kinney’s heavily hyped reunion tour last year, but she sure rose to the challenge. Her fiery, feisty opening set at the band’s Milwaukee date won her plenty of new fans, and her profile has grown considerably in the year since. In December she released her latest record, Big GRRRL, Small World, a soulful, synth-heavy celebration of femininity that showcases Lizzo’s singing nearly as often as it does her rapping.
Tuesday, Feb. 23
Jason Isbell w/ Shovels & Rope @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell first caught the attention of Southern rock fans as a late addition to the cultishly beloved group Drive-By Truckers. He played with the group for six years, contributing some unforgettable songs to their mid-’00s records, but it wasn’t until he left the band to pursue a solo career in 2007 that he really came into his own as a songwriter. On his heartbreaking 2013 album Southeastern, Isbell shared heartbreaking songs about addiction, illness and sexual abuse. His latest album, Something More Than Free, isn’t quite as heavy, but like all Isbell’s records, it’s got its share of tearjerkers.
Tommy Emmanuel w/ Wisherkeepers @ South Milwaukee PAC, 7:30 p.m.
Over a career that has spanned decades, Tommy Emmanuel has dabbled in jazz, blues, folk and bluegrass, while honing a distinctive fingerstyle technique that has earned him praise from some of the finest guitarists of our time. He’s performed with artists like Eric Clapton, George Martin and John Denver, and struck up a particularly close working relationship with country pioneer Chet Atkins, joining the legend on his final album, 1997’s The Day Finger Pickers Took Over The World. The guitarist has been as prolific as ever in recent years. In 2015, he released a pair of records, his solo effort It’s Never Too Late and Just Passing Through, a collaboration with violinist Ian Cooper and fellow guitarist Ian Date.
Wednesday, Feb. 24
Warren Haynes and the Ashes & Dust Band @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
In a jam scene filled with prolific musicians, few are more ubiquitous than guitarist Warren Haynes. He began his career in the late ’80s as the fresh blood in a reunited Allman Brothers Band, expanded his profile in the ’90s with his more overtly jammy and eclectic Southern-rock group Gov’t Mule and made his presence further felt on the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival circuit with his many solo performances. He also had a long tenure with Phil Lesh and Friends and periodic stints with The Dead. Expect Haynes to include material from his latest studio album under his own name, 2015’s Ashes & Dust, at this performance.
