http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blogs-1-1-1-11.html A memorial service has been announced for <strong>Richard LaValliere</strong>, the former bassist for The Haskels and the Oil Tasters <a href=\"/blog-7917-rip-richard-lavalliere-of-the-haskels-and-oil-tasters.html\">who passed away</a> Sunday night. It will take place on Thursday, Feb. 16, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Schmidt and Bartelt funeral home. For more information, visit <a href=\"http://www.faceb]]> Richard LaValliere, one of the great innovators of the early Milwaukee punk scene, passed away Sunday night. LaValliere was the bassist for The Haskels, one of the city\'s first punk bands, in the late-\'70s, and then the frontman for Oil Tasters, the early \'80s bass-sax-drums post-punk combo that drew heavily from experimental jazz, using LaValliere\'s off-kilter, surrealist songwriting as its foundation. <br /><br ]]> Rock the Green, the environmentally minded, &quot;near-zero waste&quot; music festival that got off to <a href=\"/blog-7323-a-rainy-rock-the-green.html\">a rainy start</a> last September, will return to Veterans Park for a second year on Saturday, Sept. 15. The lineup hasn\'t been announced yet, but a press release sent out today (and excerpted below) outlined some of this year\'s environmental initiatives.]]> I suspect I could save myself a lot of time going forward if I kept the above headline on macro. Prolific Milwaukee rapper Gerald Walker, who sometimes seems to record as much new music in a month as the average person listens to, has released another new single, &quot;Girl, Oh No He Didn\'t,&quot; which references <em>Kill Bill</em>, &quot;24,&quot; the Muppets, &quot;Gilligan\'s Island,&quot; &q]]> After making <a href=\"http://pitchfork.com/news/45321-bon-iver-turned-down-playing-the-grammys-we-kind-of-said-fuck-you-a-little-bit/\">a bit of news last week</a>, Bon Iver performed on &quot;Saturday Night Live&quot; this weekend, and the performances were neither remarkable nor disastrous (which for purposes of Internet buzz, at least, makes it a failure). The show\'s legendarily crappy sound didn\'t do]]> Bay View\'s Tuesday night Chill on the Hill concert series has put out an open call for bands interested in playing this summer. According to the event\'s <a href=\"http://bayviewneighborhood.org/chill_on_the_hill\">website</a>:<br /> <blockquote>Chill on the Hill features local bands, but those with a Bay View connection are considered over those without a Bay View connection. &quot;We have a co]]> Radio Milwaukee has <a href=\"http://www.radiomilwaukee.org/radiomilwaukee-music-awards-ballot\">posted the ballot</a> for its fifth annual Radio Milwaukee Music Awards listener poll, with categories for best song, album, solo artist and band of the year. The winners will be announced on Tuesday March 6, with an award ceremony at the Turner Hall Ballroom that will include performances from The Delta Routine, Boy Blue, Logic ]]> Milwaukee has had a strong presence on Daytrotter over the last couple months, with great sessions from <a href=\"/blog-7460-hear-maritimes-latest-daytrotter-session.html\">Maritime</a>, <a href=\"/blog-7647-daytrotter-hosts-blessed-feathers.html\">Blessed Feathers</a> and <a href=\"/blog-7789-collections-of-colonies-of-bees-daytrotter-session.html\">Collections of Colonies of Bees</a]]> The Milwaukee punk trio Absolutely swung by the University of Minnesota\'s student station Radio K last month, where they played three songs, &quot;Denim on Denim,&quot; from their 2011 debut <em>Learns To Love Mistakes</em>, and a couple of new ones from an upcoming EP. The new tracks play up the band\'s \'90s emo leanings even more than usual, though it\'s hard to tell how much of that is the songs themse]]> <p> Brian Sherman, one of the morning &quot;Sherman and Tingle Show&quot; on Chicago\'s now-defunct WKQX (Q101) alternative station, has joined FM 102.1\'s part-time on-air staff, the local alt-rock station announced this afternoon. Sherman left Q101 this summer, when the station switched to an all-talk format. </p> <p> </p>]]> <p>The Cranberry Show\'s new sophomore album, <em>Paranormal Karaoke</em>, doesn\'t remotely feel like the work of the same group that released <em>Sex and Pencil Shavings</em> just two years ago. That 2010 debut was the kind of goofy, class-clown rap that I usually can\'t stand, executed with such commitment and follow-through that I couldn\'t help but grudgingly respect it even as it irked me. O]]> <p> Milwaukee\'s spring concert calender was fleshed out considerably over the last week, with big announcements from several venues. Among the performers visiting the city in the coming months are rappers Tyga and Tech N9ne, dubstep star Nero, party-rock hero Andrew W.K., and Mike Doughty, the former Soul Coughing frontman who is touring behind his new memoir, <em>The Book of Drugs</em>.<br /><br /><strong&g]]> <p> Sub Pop\'s speaker-denting avant hip-hop collective Shabazz Palaces will play Mad Planet on Wednesday, April 4, the local music blog Seizure Chicken <a href=\"http://www.seizurechicken.com/2012/01/seizurechicken-battlecry-wmse-present-shabazz-palaces-w-dope-folk-djs-4412-madplanet/\">announced today</a>. Last month the blog, which is co-sponsoring the show, crowned the group\'s 2011 full length <em>]]> Remember when the Black Keys headlined the Marcus Amphitheater last summer and everybody was shocked—<em>shocked</em>—that the little old Black Keys were playing such a big venue? Well, today the festival announced its third 2012 Marcus Amphitheater headliner for 2012, and it\'s one that I suspect a lot of casual observers will find even more perplexing: the Zac Brown Band. For the benefit of readers who don\'t k]]> Melissa Czarnik is planning on recording a new album in France this spring, and she\'s turning to fans to help her fund the project. The local rapper/poet has been accepted to a two-month residency program in Maranay-Sur-Seine, a commune about an hour south of Paris, and she\'s launched a funding campaign through the site <a href=\"http://www.indiegogo.com/Non-Merci-Melissa-Czarniks-next-album-written-and-recorded-in-France\&quo]]> Following last year\'s Summerfest performance opening for the Black Keys, Florence and the Machine will return to Milwaukee for a show at the Rave on Saturday, April 28, the venue announced this morning. Tickets go on sale Friday, Jan. 27 at 10 a.m. and are $34.50 ($39.50 for VIP).<br /><br />As seems fitting for an act whose baroque art-pop trends toward the fantastic, Florence and the Machine experienced a fairytale breakthroug]]> On Saturday, Jan. 28, the Milwaukee rap crew KingHellBastard will play an album release show at Mad Planet behind their latest full-length, <em>The War Room</em>, but they won\'t be the only ones on the bill celebrating a new release. Opener and fellow Uni-Fi records labelmate SPEAK Easy will be marking the release of his latest EP, <em>I\'m Just Sayin</em>, which he <a href=\"http://unifirecords.bandcamp]]> <p>As crass as it is to celebrate an artist\'s misfortune, many Death Cab For Cutie fans couldn\'t help but feel a twinge of a joy upon reading reports last November that Ben Gibbard\'s two-year marriage to actress Zooey Deschanel was coming to an end. Perhaps a bit of heartache, they reasoned, was just the thing the frontman needed to juice his songwriting, which was a bit substandard on the band\'s pretty forgettable 2]]> In what they hope to make an annual tradition, last March beatmakers, musicians and friends Dylan Thomas, Charles English, Haz Solo, Jason Jones, Victor Yañez-Lazcano and Miguel Rodriguez retreated to a lodge in wooded Tomahawk, Wis., spared no expense stocking the kitchen, and set up a whole lot of recording gear and for a weekend of good food and casual music making. Over two days, they recorded an album\'s worth of free-form, soul-]]> <p> I\'m guessing the timing on this one wasn\'t a coincidence. This afternoon Gerald Walker released a new track, produced by frequent collaborator Cardio, called &quot;Rain.Hail.Sleet.Snow.,&quot; another celebration of work ethic set to vibed-out, Bone Thugs N\' Harmony rhythms. The song is the first of what looks to be many 2012 releases from the tireless Milwaukee rapper, who last month was <a href=\"http]]>