The Good Night Loving

Milwaukee's music scene is far too vast to be represented by just one band, but if you had to pick just one posterchild, you could do a lot worse than The Goodnight Loving. The group touches on many of the sounds Milwaukeeans love most, from rollicking, twang-kissed guitars and thumping rockabilly bass to the unlabored pop hooks of '60s garage-rock. And by virtue of being a band arguably classifiable as "acoustic folk-punk," the group owes at least a cursory hat tip to one of the city's most beloved exports, the Violent Femmes, even if The Goodnight Loving's amiable romps probably owe more to the joyful throwbacks of The Feelies than the tart kiss-offs of the Femmes. Fresh from a lengthy international tour behind their self-titled third album, the group plays a home gig at Café Lulu tonight at 11 p.m.