Photo by Pooneh Ghana
Thursday, May 28
Bully w/ Whips @ Cactus Club, 9:30 p.m.
“Band to watch” is generally a pretty obnoxious term that turns music into a horse race. Mostly it exists to give critics a reason to pat themselves on the back for predicting a band’s success. But sometimes the term is justified nonetheless, conveying genuine excitement for a band that’s on the brink of being discovered. A staple of this year’s “bands to watch” lists, Nashville’s Bully are weeks away from releasing their debut album Feels Like, and it’s a doozy of a record, a ripping throwback to the emotional alterna-punk of the ’90s. Expect it to make a star of band leader Alicia Bognanno, whose fierce voice, feisty lyrics and sweet way with a melody have already earned her a folder’s worth of comparisons to Kurt Cobain. This is one of the year’s most visceral albums.
Alan Parsons Live Project @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
Move over T-Pain, Lil Wayne and even Roger Troutman. Though all of those artists are pioneers in the use of the voice-manipulating vocoder, Alan Parsons was using the studio device before any of them, incorporating it into his 1976 Alan Parsons Project song “The Raven.” Of course, as a dutiful prog-rock band, the Alan Parsons Project used all sorts of cutting-edge (and sometimes not-so-cutting-edge) studio technology during the ’70s. These days, Parsons, who earned his first studio credit when he was just 18 years old (on The Beatles’ Abbey Road, of all records), continues to tour with an altered version of his signature band, now called the Alan Parsons Live Project.
Friday, May 29
Black and Brown Comedy Get Down @ BMO Harris Bradley Center, 8 p.m.
Along with Steve Harvey and the late Bernie Mac, Cedric “The Entertainer” and D.L. Hughley were part of a tour captured in a 2000 Spike Lee film called The Original Kings of Comedy that changed the way comedy was marketed, inspiring countless other joint comedy tours. Cedric and Hughley are sticking to a similar format for their latest tour, billed as the “Black and Brown Comedy Get Down,” which will join them with four other major comedy draws: Mike Epps, Eddie Griffin, George Lopez and Charlie Murphy.
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John Mulaney w/ Max Silvestri @ The Pabst Theater, 7 and 9:30 p.m.
“Saturday Night Live” writer John Mulaney quickly established himself as one of the show’s most valuable behind-the-scenes players, co-creating Bill Hader’s “Weekend Update” nightlife correspondent Stefon, and in recent years Mulaney has emerged from behind the writers’ room to claim the spotlight for himself. Unfortunately, his first major starring vehicle wasn’t especially good. His Fox sitcom “Mulaney,” a loose “Seinfeld” rip that cast Mulaney as a boring, lightly fictionalized version of himself, earned almost universally scathing reviews, even from some of the comedian’s biggest supporters. The show was unceremoniously canceled in January. Thankfully, that leaves more time for Mulaney to perform on stage, where he’s much more in his element.
Saturday, May 30
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds @ The Pabst Theater, 8:30 p.m.
After two turbulent decades marked by in-fighting between co-leaders Liam and Noel Gallagher, Oasis finally split in 2009. Most of the band continued on as Beady Eye, a Beatles- and Stones-minded group designed to let Liam live out his rock star fantasies. His brother Noel, meanwhile, founded Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, indulging his introspective side on the group’s 2011 self-titled record, an often grandiose pop record in the spirit of Oasis’ most sweeping works. It’s a gorgeous album from start to finish, though it lacks the big guitars and ripping tempos that drove Oasis’ most popular albums. The good news? The group’s latest album, Chasing Yesterday, remedies that, bringing some welcome rock ’n’ roll energy to the mix.
Ministry w/ Hemlock @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
Outside of Nine Inch Nails, perhaps no other act changed the shape of industrial metal music more than Ministry, one of the genre’s earliest pioneers. After a nearly 30-year run, however, the band appears to have entered its final stretch. Guitarist Mike Scaccia died in 2012, suffering a heart attack on stage while performing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. To honor his memory, Ministry leader Al Jourgensen has announced that the band’s 2013 effort From Beer to Eternity, which contains the last material he recorded with Scaccia, will be the group’s last album, though the band has continued touring in support of it. Whether Jourgensen will change his mind about the band’s end remains to be seen (he’d already broken up the band once in 2008), but Ministry fans would be wise to see this show regardless, because it could be their last time playing Milwaukee.
Sunday, May 31
Sebadoh w/ Stranger Cat @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.
These days seemingly every ’80s and ’90s indie musician is playing with a reunited band, but Lou Barlow has the distinction of playing in not one but two such acts. Since the mid-’00s, Barlow has been recording spectacularly good albums with Dinosaur Jr., and shortly after that group’s reunion, he also reformed his other band, Sebadoh, the group he dedicated the ’90s to after his acrimonious split from Dinosaur Jr. Since reuniting, Sebadoh haven’t been as prolific in the studio as Dinosaur Jr., but they did release one solid album in 2013, Defend Yourself, which finds Barlow (and to a lesser extent fellow songwriter Jason Loewenstein) recapturing the fuzzy, lo-fi spirit of the band’s best albums.
Father John Misty w/ Springtime Carnivore @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
In addition to his time drumming for Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman already had seven albums released under his own name when he decided to reinvent himself as Father John Misty for his 2012 album for Sub Pop, Fear Fun, which marked a wild departure from the comparatively traditional folk of his previous releases. Liberated by his new, joyfully ridiculous shamanic alter ego—and most likely by all the mushrooms he’d been wolfing down at the time—he recorded his druggiest, most exploratory album to date, a sprawling, symphonic psych-pop magnum opus. Turns out that record wasn’t a fluke: His latest sprawling concept album under his new alias, I Love You, Honeybear, has been greeted by even stronger reviews.
Hot Chip w/ Slow Magic @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
It’s hard to believe that the British dance-pop band Hot Chip have already been around for 15 years, since each of their albums feels so distinctly fresh. The group’s latest record, Why Make Sense?, is a characteristically crisp pop album that draws from electronic styles both new and old, without ever succumbing to nostalgia. It’s a joyful album, even by this band’s merry standards.
