The Chris Robinson Brotherhood @ Turner Hall Ballroom, Oct. 4
Thursday, Oct. 1
Fauxny & Golden Coins @ Hotel Foster, 9:30 p.m.
For the last four years, Milwaukee musician Peter Vartanian has been releasing free albums of experimental pop under the moniker Fauxny, though until now the project has never played a show. Ahead of Vartanian’s move to Australia, Fauxny will make its live debut at this shared bill with the experimental indie-rock duo Golden Coins, which is returning to the stage after a long absence. It’ll be a multimedia affair, featuring live fashion and styling from Kaley Wittnik, Mallory Granrath and Vanessa Andrew, and jewelry and accessories from Ashley Kolln.
Friday, Oct. 2
Blues Traveler w/ Matt Jaffe & The Distractions @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Blues Traveler have spent the last quarter century as one of the most prominent blues rock bands of their era. The band, formed in 1987 in Princeton, N.J., may be best known for its improvisational shows and ongoing segues from song to song, a characteristic remaining from its jam-band beginnings, but they can write a mighty tight pop song when they want to, as evidenced by their hits “Run-Around” and “Hook.” The group has endured its share of hardships over the years—including singer/harmonica player John Popper’s life-threatening battle with obesity and the death of bassist Bobby Sheehan in 1999—but the group’s collaboration-heavy latest record, Blow Up The Moon, finds them in good spirits.
Korn w/ Suicide Silence and Islander @ The Rave, 7:30 p.m.
The seminal nü-metal group Korn was so popular by the late-’90s that their video for “Got the Life” became the first video ever to be retired by MTV’s “Total Request Live.” Korn has struggled to recapture those commercial and critical heights after the turn of the century, however, confounding fans with unsure albums like 2007’s Untitled, which downplayed the band’s usually funky assault in favor of Beatles-esque melodies and moody keyboards in the spirit of The Cure. More artistic whiplash followed: 2010’s Korn III: Remember Who You Are was an attempted return to purebred nü-metal, while 2011’s The Path of Totality was a full-on dubstep record, with contributions from genre poster child Skrillex. Fan reaction to that one was mixed, but fans have been much more enthusiastic about the band’s latest, 2013’s The Paradigm Shift, which dials back the electronics in favor of good old heavy metal.
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40th Anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s Uptown Theater Concert @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Some shows take on a legacy all their own. Famously interrupted by a bomb threat, Bruce Springsteen’s Milwaukee performance at the old Uptown Theater 40 years ago was one of them—a show that everyone claims to have been at, regardless of whether they actually were. At this free event, a host of Milwaukee musicians will pay tribute to that concert, including John Sieger, Mary Karlzen, Mike Plaisted, Eric Zyla, Dan Kolesari, Justin Jagler and WKLH’s Kevin “KB” Brandt. Disc jockey Bob Reitman, who emceed that Uptown Theater show, will be there as well. Everyone who attends will receive a poster of Bob Cavallo’s photos from that concert.
Saturday, Oct. 3
“The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses” @ Milwaukee Theatre, 8 p.m.
Composer Koji Kondo couldn’t have known he was creating a masterpiece when he wrote the theme to the 1986 Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda—by his account, he wrote it in one day after learning the music he had wanted to use was unavailable. Nonetheless, his score went on to become the best regarded in video game history, setting a high standard that has carried through most subsequent soundtracks in the Zelda franchise. Given the caliber of the franchise’s music, and the nostalgia for all things ’80s-youth-related, it shouldn’t be too surprising that there’s now a symphony touring behind the music of Zelda. “The Symphony of The Goddesses” returns to Milwaukee to perform a four-movement symphony incorporating compositions from many of the games in the franchise.
Sunday, Oct. 4
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 7:30 p.m.
Along with his guitarist brother, Rich, singer-guitarist Chris Robinson has been the face of The Black Crowes since the late-’80s. When that band went on a three-year hiatus in 2002, Robinson stayed busy recording a handful of solo albums and now that the Crowes are again on hiatus he’s formed a new project, The Chris Robinson Brotherhood. The band doesn’t depart too much from the Crowes’ signature blues-rock (Crowes keyboardist Adam MacDougall is even one of the members), but fresh faces Neal Casal (the guitarist for Ryan Adams’ band, The Cardinals) and drummer Tony Leone bring a new energy to the sound. They released their bluesy latest album, Phosphorescent Harvest, last year on Silver Arrow Records.
Tuesday, Oct. 6
Blitzen Trapper w/ The Domestics @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
Neil Young, The Band and Gram Parsons aren’t by any means new influences to Blitzen Trapper, but the band has never embraced those staples more fully than they do on their latest record for Sub Pop, American Goldwing. Where Blitzen Trapper once dressed up their Americana in experimental flourishes—most audaciously with thick prog-rock accents on 2010’s excellent Destroyer of the Void—on recent albums they’ve played things relatively straight. Their latest, All Across This Land, was created with their live shows in mind. It’s one of their hardest-rocking records yet.
Wednesday, Oct. 7
SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque @ The Miramar Theatre, 7 p.m.
The founders of the website SuicideGirls weren’t the first entrepreneurs to figure out that there was big money to be made by posting pictures of naked women on the Internet, though by focusing on pin-up shots of heavily pierced, heavily tattooed punk and alternative girls, they carved out a fast niche for themselves in the early ’00s. SuicideGirls is now a veritable media empire, with a line of books and DVDs and a traveling burlesque show, which has been revamped for this latest tour. Choreographed by Manwe Sauls-Addison, who has done work for acts like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, it promises tongue-in-cheek stripteases loaded with pop culture references, including pieces modeled after Star Wars and “Orange is the New Black.”
