If you want to get all intellectual about it...

Though it's unlikely to ever reach the extremes of the modern rap scene, where burgeoning artists are now expected to release a constant stream of new music if they're serious about building an audience, rock music is gradually taking on some...

For months, KingHellBastard rapper DNA traveled with a video camera, compiling footage for a project he intended to call This Is Spinal Rap, a documentary about the travails and indignities of being a touring hip-hop group. It's unlikely he'll ever...

I'll never forget the band's set at the Charles Allis Art Museum on that hot summer night last July. The sunset burst through the venue's windows as if Choir Fight's immaculate presence was evidence of divine...

Huddled around the bar at the Cactus Club, the members of The Mistreaters are remarkably humble about their place in the history of Milwaukee underground music. In fact, vocalist Christreater notes, with a laugh, that the process of looking back on his band's legacy makes him “uneasy.” When pressed, Christreater will go as far as to admit that “I feel like we were a good band.” As the band gears up to play what they promise is going to be their final show and release a double LP singles collection (on guitarist Kevin Mistreater's Dusty Medical record label)...

Whether your tastes in holiday music run toward the sentimental or the grandiose...

Sometimes a picture extends so far beyond the moment it captures that it stands as an enduring metaphor. For the Milwaukee blues-soul-rock band Herman Astro...

A simple instrument anyone can pick up and play, the harmonica can also be tremendously powerful and emotionally expressive...

Dave Raeck began his migration to Milwaukee from the wilds of Germantown when clubs like Zak's and The Palms ruled the scene. Too young to get into the venues, he spoke of his dad accompanying the rock'n'roll starved teen to shows...

Trolley's new record, Things That Shine and Glow, is a powerful reminder of rock albums as they once were. Each track is distinctive on this cycle of memorable songs delivered with velvety insistence, but the sum of all parts has a character...

With music that is simple and to the point, yet as raging as a werewolf...

Luke Balzrina didn't know what to expect when he launched his weekly WiscoJazz night at the Highbury Pub in 2006. He'd only DJed at the Bay View soccer...

Milwaukee rappers Logic and Raze each recorded very different albums last year. One of the many ex-members of the defunct Milwaukee superhero-themed alternative-rap ensemble House of M, Raze last summer released his second...

When it comes to rustic Americana and folk traditions, authenticity and genuine honesty reign supreme. Consisting of longtime friends Casey Stang and Kyle Krueger, the Milwaukee duo The Raykings have used that to their advantage, living in and making the most of each moment. During one of their first gigs opening at Shank Hall early last year, they took the stage as virtual unknowns. But as they showed off their harmony-soaked Americana/folk boosted by melodies from mandolin and guitar, it didn't take long for the crowd...

“I bet this is the first time you've ever talked with an Elvis,” Elvis Thao says shortly before we hang up, and he's right. Even if I had ever met Costello, that's not what his parents called him, and there hasn't been anyone else. So, there's my answer...

To call Secret Society of Starfish Milwaukee's own progressive-rock supergroup would be a stretch. But when three of its five members hail from two groups with international recording contracts and loyal fan bases, referring to these guys as just another...

Jason Seed has never sat still for long. His childhood included many towns and schools. His adulthood is following suit, as he has been pulled between the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, between...

“It's been an intense year for us thus far,” remarks Ross Severson of Canyons of Static. “We recorded our new album in late winter and have been...

As Austin's South by Southwest and New York's CMJ Music Marathon music conferences ballooned into massive, citywide concerts...

“When I started, I could barely play,” Voot Warnings recalls, “so I based my act more on theatrics and shock value. I would come out with a toy rifle, aim it at the audience and tell them, a la Western movies, that when I say, 'Dance,' they best dance...

Lil Rev had been playing guitar for years before the ukulele entered his life. “One of my fans gave me a ukulele at Nash's Irish Castle in the early '90s,” he recalls. “I remember picking it up and falling in love with the simplicity...

Recorded in a four-day blitz, The Celebrated Workingman's 2008 debut album, Herald the Dickens, captured the bombast and euphoria...

Tom DuBuque was always in motion as house manager of the Pabst Theater. Throughout his 41 years at the theater, he preferred to be offstage, assisting patrons, solving problems or happy to just greet an interested tourist poking a head in to see...

By rap standards, Pacino carries himself with relative modesty. He's not an aggressive self-promoter, he doesn't talk about rap like it's some kind of competition, and he's the rare local rapper who doesn't speak in grand...

Current musicians are pretty much bridge-builders, experts who hop genres and blur multiple styles and eras. The enigmatic and energetic pop of Milwaukee's Canopies is a prime example. Sounds from '80s synth sit beside today's psych-pop revivals, while mid-'90s dream-pop accents take wing...