Indie-rock has always been too much of an umbrella term to refer to just one particular sound, but if there was one style that defined the genre in 2009 it was experimental pop, a trend that began in January with a shot heard round the blogosphere, the&nb

Since 2002, the Milwaukee band Jail has been playing skewed, brainy garage-pop with the agreeable jangle of '60s pop and the nervy twitch of early-'80s post-punk. They've been one of Milwaukee's most consistent—and paradoxically least visible—

I'll be on Ryan Miller's "Indie Soundcheck" program this Sunday night at 11 to discuss my favorite indie-rock albums of 2009 and to play some of my favorite indie-rock singles of the year. We've got some amazing songs lined up, some of which wil

This one should be memorable: Muzzle of Bees and WMSE are bringing burgeoning Brooklyn songwriter Sharon Van Etten to the Cactus Club on Wednesday, Jan. 20. She'll be coming off of a landmark year that saw her sing on The Antlers' sleeper critical hit alb

The Grammy Awards announced their 2010 nominations today, and as usual, they're a train wreck. There are some bright spots: MGMT is an inspired candidate for Best New Artist, The Lonely Island and T-Pain scored an unlikely nomination, and Maxwel

Coo Coo Cal largely fell off the radar in the years after his 2001 single "In My Projects" became the biggest rap song to come out of Milwaukee since... ever. This summer I caught up with the rapper, though, and he explained what he's been doing

If you took the Friday after Thanksgiving off and decided to take a break from the Internet, you missed a gem on Daytrotter: a session from the Seattle power-pop band Telekinesis, one of the best things to happen to the genre since Matthew Sweet and The P

Def Harmonic was one of the bright spots in the mid-2000s Milwaukee hip-hop scene, during a time when the scene was a bit less vibrant and hopeful than it is today, but the group slowed down as the decade progressed and faded away by 2007 as members focus

December is the best time of the year for music fans, the month where critics and fans enthusiastically compile and share their lists of their favorite albums of the year. Though the month is usually a slow one for new releases, I discover more new music

This blog will probably be dark for much of Thanksgiving weekend, but before I take some time off, let me leave you with a grab bag of music videos I’ve been enjoying lately. The Veils – “The Letter” The Veils singer Finn A

Realizing that Aesop Rock produced the latest album by Felt, the sporadic side project from rappers Slug and Murs, is an awful lot like looking forward to a long-planned night out on town with two of your favorite friends only to learn at the last minute

This spring we learned that the Neptunes' Pharrell Williams has taken an active interest in Milwaukee rapper Prophetic, and last weekend gave us video proof. In grainy footage taken backstage at an Illinois Jay-Z concert, Pharrell gives Prophetic a vote o

Another Monday night, another fantastic punk show at the Borg Ward. Tonight's headliners are Touche Amore, a raw-throated Los Angeles hardcore band that packs a lot of melodic twists and brute emotion into 90-second songs. The group debuted wowed last yea

I can't be certain for sure, but Party Robot, the debut mixtape from Talib Kweli's electro-dance side project Idle Warship, feels less like a mixtape than a scrapped album. The mixtape (album?) was quietly released (buried?) last month with little fanfare

One of the highlights of Lollapalooza this year was Perry's, a newly prominent stage for dance and electronic music that drew overflowing, enthusiastic crowds even at odd hours of the day. I spent a good deal of time at that stage, and the act that stood

It's a sad day in the Milwaukee music scene as well as in the Shepherd Express office. Brian Barney, a longtime local-music writer for the Shepherd and Maximum Ink and a staple of the local scene who played in many bands, including The Buggs and Guido's R

If you're a Milwaukee rapper who plays out with any regularity, there's a good chance that local photographer Damon Joy has taken your picture. Joy collects some of the photos he's taken at area rap shows over the past year in a new exhibit at the Jackpot

Well this was inevitable: From the guys who bring the Pink Floyd LaserSpectacular to Milwaukee every year comes a new laser tribute, the Michael Jackson LaserSpectacular, an epileptic celebration of the King of Pop's legacy. From the press release:

One particularly interesting snippet from my phone conversation with Walter Becker that I wasn't able to get into this week's Steely Dan write-up: When I asked if he heard his influence on contemporary bands, Becker, who's incredibly self-honest and self-

Milwaukee singer/songwriter/accordionist/busker Pezzettino compiled her Covers album from songs recorded by request, and it shows in the tracklist, which leans heavily toward the type of songs audiences shout out as jokes: Ol’ Dirty Bastard's "

In advance of their $10 show at the Turner Hall Ballroom later that evening, the Exclusive Company on 1669 N. Farwell Avenue will host a free performance from The Raconteurs' Brendan Benson and Appleton songwriter Cory Chisel on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 5 p.

On “The Streets Pronounce Me Dead,” the striking mission statement of Wyclef Jean’s back-to-basics album From the Hut, to the Projects, to the Mansion, Wyclef imagines himself as his own funeral, where his career is eulogized in brutal t

Sure Milwaukee's popular mayor Tom Barrett withered a beating with a tire iron after valiantly responding to a grandmother's cries for help, but apparently it takes more than that to top former "American Idol" contestant Danny Gokey in the heart

Milwaukee's country station, FM 106.1, this morning debuted Danny Gokey's first single, "It's Only," and it's a country song alright, a weepy, string-swept ballad with ample twang and an inspiration message that reminds us no matter how bad the

Milwaukee's delightful alterna-synth-pop trio The New Loud are calling for extras for the video shoot of their new single, "Don't Dance." The video shoot will be held over two days, first Monday evening, Nov. 23 at the Cactus Club at 8 p.m., the