Though its doubtful Train will ever top the commercial heights reached by their 2001 breakthrough single, “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me),” the rootsy California adult-contemporary rock band has carried on, releasing a pair of well-received follow up albums in 2003 and 2006, with a third on the way. Save Me San Francisco is scheduled for a tentative...

Treading closely to Nickelback’s mix of chest-beating post-grunge and skyscraping, vaguely Christian ballads, Floridian Shinedown hard-rockers are riding high off the success of their 2008 album The Sound of Madness. That disc spawned their WWE-approved hit “Devour” and the smash power-ballad “Second Chance,” the band’s biggest...

The abrupt departure of singer Scott Weiland from Velvet Revolver last year left bassist Duff McKagan with the time to get his old band back together—not Gun’s N’ Roses, of course, since that band is a lost cause, but rather Duff McKagan’s Loaded, his party hard-rock band. The Loaded lineup is drastically different than it was when the band last played around the turn of the century, with McKagan now backed by Alien Crime Syndicate’s Mike Squires and Jess Rouse...

Who is that mystery man under all those caps and hats? One look and it can only be Kenny Chesney. This 41-year-old Knoxville, Tenn. native continues to pack ’em in with songs like “Living in Fast Forward” “Beer in Mexico” and “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” Maybe it’s his concern for his fans in these recessionary times—he’s playing different sized spaces on his 2009 Sun City Carnival tour to keep ticket prices affordable...

It’s hard to believe that it’s been well over 30 years since Lita Ford led the seminal all-group group The Runaways. What is perhaps even more remarkable is that, after 15 years without a gig, Ford finally returned to the stage in July 2008, playing before a raucous group at Rocklahoma, in Pryor, OK. The experience seemed to re-energize Ford, as the self-proclaimed “Queen of Heavy Metal” has recently announced an extensive summer tour and...

Today’s lineup at the Cascio Groove Garage, Summerfest’s all-local stage, puts the spotlight on bands that thrive in the city’s all-ages and basement show scenes, including Terrior Bute, a synth-punk trio schooled on Devo but prone to clever, noisy freakouts a la The Mae Shi, at 6:30 p.m.; the feral screamo trio Cougar Den at 7:30 p.m.; the jazz-spiked punk band Red Knife Lottery...

It’s an unprecedented milestone in hip-hop: 10 albums. No rap act had ever recorded 10 albums—that is, 10 decent albums—until last year. That the group to first hit the 10-album mark was The Roots should be no surprise to those who had been following the Philadelphia ensemble, which for over a decade has been a testament to the artistic potential of hip-hop and refuted stereotypes...

John Congleton’s brooding, gut-punching production has made him an in-demand studio guru for artists like Mouse Mouse, The Thermals and The Mountain Goats, but he saves his darkest, most claustrophobic ideas for his own avant-indie ensemble, The Paper Chase. The Dallas band’s latest, Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1, is their most high-concept yet, an album themed around things that can kill you—from fire to...

Thursday’s lineup at the Cascio Groove Garage, Summerfest’s all local stage, is another celebration of American music. Drawing from the spirit of Bob Dylan and altcountry pioneers like Uncle Tupelo, Sharking Hour (at 6:30 p.m.) is followed by the jam-leaning, power-blues trio Super Custom Deluxe at 7:30 p.m. and the cheeky, drunken honky-tonk of headliners Whiskey Bound at 8:30 p.m.

Following the jam-band business model even though they don’t much care for jamming, Guster has gradually built their following by encouraging tape trading and touring colleges like the one that spawned them 18 year’s ago, Tufts University. They’ve become a better pop band with each release, casting themselves as something of a small-scale Coldplay without the egos and with a friendly sense of humor (in 2005 they celebrated their Judaism with a side-project called Hanukkah Rocks). They’re working on a new CD for tentative release...

In a success story that reads like a script for a bad Ben Stiller comedy, an Orthodox Jew named Matthew Paul Miller reinvented himself as Matisyahu, a crossover reggae superstar. That this white boy with ties to the feel-good jam circuit gravitated toward rough-edged dancehall reggae over more generically feel-good roots-rock reggae is interesting in itself, but much more ink has been spilled over the incongruity between Miller’s religion...

Afro-beat might sound like an obscure style of music (especially for those who haven’t recently lived on college campuses, where it’s become especially popular) but it’s actually quite accessible. It’s a horn-fueled blend of African rhythms and up-tempo funk, marked by political undertones but mainly known for its party-friendly grooves. One of today’s leading Afro-beat artists is Femi Kuti, the son of the man credited for inventing the genre, Fela Kuti. The elder musician...

The Shiny Toy Guns are a band of revisionists. In the past five years they have released four albums: three versions of their debut, We Are Pilots (released, re-recorded, re-released, re-recorded, and re-released again) and one version of last year’s Season of Poison. It’s a testament to the braveness of the hard-rocking electro-clash outfit that they would play their new material so many drafts away from being finished.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their seminal album British Steel, the British-based heavy metal act Judas Priest has announced that they will play the record in its entirety during all shows throughout their upcoming summer tour (the album came out in 1980, so it’s only been 29 years, but I’m not going to argue with the Priest). This is good news for metal heads in Milwaukee, as British Steel still stands as one of the best albums that the genre has ever produced. There is little filler among the record’s

In the video for No Doubt’s biggest hit, “Don’t Speak,” the guys in the band silently snub singer Gwen Stefani, resentful over the disproportionate attention she’s receiving from the press. If that video spoke to real tensions, it’s hard to imagine they’ve eased any during the past half decade, given how Stefani’s solo career has established her as one of the world’s biggest pop stars, yet No Doubt returned this year seemingly unchanged by Stefani’s pop successes. At recent reunion performances, Stefani’s even shelved her high-fashion...

The Milwaukee Brewers wrap up their home series against the New York Mets with a 1:05 p.m. game this afternoon.

Milwaukee’s 1956 pounds out the heavy, chugging alternative-rock riffs that proliferated throughout the early ’90s, but underneath the grind, the band reveals an unexpected softer side. “Persistent,” one of the standout tracks from the group’s measured 2007 album, Saboteur, is steeped in the same bleary-eyed pensiveness that made The National’s Boxer such a treat. Today the band plays as part of a long lineup of local...

Though Dead Confederate’s ghostly, implied twang and unhurried storytelling nods to the Southern songwriting tradition, the Athens, Ga., band’s dominate influences aren’t remotely Southern. Instead, the band looks toward the North, mining ’90s rainy-day alt rock, with a particular emphasis on Seattle grunge and Nirvana—singer Hardy Morris can at times sound like a dead ringer for Kurt Cobain. While post-grunge bottom-feeders like...

Part of a crop of positive, feel-good jam bands to crossover to mainstream radio in the ’90s, when the current jam scene was just beginning to emerge, Rusted Root melded Grateful Dead-styled folk and Paul Simon’s ear for world music on their crossover hit “Send Me On My Way.” In a sense, the band peaked too soon, and was unable to capitalize on the current jam scene, which allows bands to make a killing touring to a dedicated cult following...

One of the first improvisational jam bands to use a canvas of electronic- and dance-based sounds instead of rock- and blue-based ones, Sound Tribe Sector 9 is at the forefront of an offshoot of jam music affectionately deemed jamtronica. They play long, freeform sets, shifting textures like a funkier, more groove-based incarnation of the post-rock...

Music has always been a family affair for Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza, the Tejano rockers better known as Los Lonely Boys. For the trio from San Angelo, Texas, it’s always been as much a matter of familia as it has been of music. Guitarist Henry, bassist Jojo and drummer Ringo inherited their love of rough rhythm and blues from their father, Ringo Garza Sr., who with his own brothers formed The Falcones, which played Spanish conjunto music throughout...

The most divisive musical phenomenon of 2009, Asher Roth emerged from practically out of nowhere with his debut single “I Love College,” an unforgettable introduction that laid out Roth’s M.O.: He loves college, he loves drinking, he loves smoking, he loves women. He’s that college guy. That track put Roth’s name out there, earning him a permanent place in the iTunes playlist of frat boys everywhere, right next...

Critics tend to go easy on late-period releases from rock ’n’ roll veterans—remember the infamous five-star, instant-classic review Rolling Stone gave Mick Jagger’s horrible 2001 album, Goddess in the Doorway? But more than any of his peers, Dylan has earned his recent accolades, releasing a quartet of sly, memorable albums beginning with 1997’s Time Out Of Mind that have not only done justice to his name, but have added to his legacy. Dylan’s latest, this April’s Together Through Life, is the...

The Milwaukee Brewers continue their series against the New York Mets tonight with a 7:05 p.m. game at Miller Park.

Film Wisconsin, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a thriving film industry in the state, enjoyed a high-profile victory when Michael Mann filmed parts of his new gangster epic Public Enemies around the region. The likely blockbuster, which stars Johnny Depp as the sexy criminal John Dillinger and Christian Bale as the sexy FBI agent who tries to thwart him, will screen tonight as part of a fund-raiser for Film Wisconsin and the Milwaukee County Historical Center, where one...