It’s hard to picture a better house band for Milwaukee than The Goodnight Loving. The group touches on many of the sounds Milwaukeeans love most, from rollicking, country-tinged guitars to the thumping rockabilly bass and the unlabored aesthetic of '60s garage-pop, which the band shares with Dusty Medical label-mates like Elephant Walk and the Midwest Beat. And by virtue of being a band sometimes classifiable as "acoustic folk-punk," the group owes at least a cursory hat tip to The Violent Femmes, even if The Goodnight Loving's amiable romps probably owe more to the joyful "why wouldn't we use a tambourine?" throwbacks of The Feelies than the tart kiss-offs of the Femmes. Tonight the band headlines a packed 7 p.m. bill at Mad Planet behind the release of their new self-titled album.
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