http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/articles.sec-217-1-local-music.html Hair metal is viewed in many ways: Reverence, distaste, obsession, incredulity and even humor are all evoked in descriptive commentary by critics and fans who debate the genre. No matter what your take on it, though, metal is still alive and well. With a mission statement that is geared toward injecting "new" into "old school," Milwaukee's Bone Shaker is one of the genre's biggest local proponents. The band has toured relentlessly since forming in 2006. Bookings picked up particularly after their well-received debut, 13 Ghosts, and they've since played large stages supporting bigger-name acts throughout the Midwest . . .]]> It was raining Monday morning when Radio Milwaukee 88.9's airwaves broadcast a solemn set of music, with a somber Scott Mullins hosting at an unusual time slot. Milwaukee awakened with the hard truth that DJ Rock Dee, born July 27, 1968, had passed away. Though known most recently as a DJ for Radio Milwaukee, Rock Dee had deep ties to the city's hip-hop scene. This is a tribute to him, a story told by just some of those he knew and loved. Hip-hop was our way of life. It wasn't about the dollars; it was about the love for the music. -Doctor B, owner of the Scratch Pad, one of the first sources for hip-hop records in Milwaukee, and a famed local DJ who mentored Rock . . . ]]> Today’s bands need a hook. The hook could be a number of things—novel influences, Halloween masks, a highly publicized substance abuse problem, whatever—but they’ve got to have some panache and an inimitable shtick. The Daniel Nathan Band has both. The Milwaukee-based band is a self described psychedelic soul trio, its tunes undeniably inspired by the ’70s and stewed in Southern blues. It’s not the well-crafted songs or Nathan’s mannish boy vocals that make the boldest first impression. Instead it’s what Nathan calls the band’s “procedural weapon”: his flute, “the psycho flute.” ]]> A cautious optimism has permeated Milwaukee’s once demoralized music scene. As local bands—through a mix of talent, vision and, perhaps most importantly, strategic self-promotion—begin to make a name for themselves and as radio stations and print publications make a more visible effort to cover the local scene, there’s an increasing sense that Milwaukee musicians may now actually have a shot at national exposure. That feeling is certainly driving The Heavyheads.]]> Alongside the sounds of copy machines churning out paper and staplers crunching zines together, the first Milwaukee Zine Fest will feature three free music shows with 18 local and touring bands. The majority are punk bands, rounded out by some acoustic, hip-hop and indie rock groups. Zine fest coordinator Jessica Bublitz and Corey Baumann, of local band Louis Tully, organized the shows. “Almost all the bands had an immediate interest,” Bublitz says. “We’re hoping this gives people attending from . . . ]]> Since 1998, the Garfield Avenue Festival has shined a spotlight on local music while dishing out some of the best soul food in the city. After modest beginnings as a blues festival, the free event has grown each year, offering more food vendors, more street performers, more visual artists, more activities and demonstrations for young children and more music. The festival, which runs from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 19 on Garfield Avenue between 4th and 7th streets, now attracts about 15,000 people a year . . .]]> Like a good jellyroll, the heart of jazz is the jam. The organized spontaneity and free-spirited approach to familiar material that can ignite at a jam session has always been emblematic of the music. In healthy jazz scenes, players get together regularly to improvise with one another. Milwaukee hasn’t had a regular jazz jam in years—until last November, when a weekly session debuted on Wednesday nights at Treats, 2221 N. Humboldt Ave. There had been blues jams and jam-band jams . . . ]]> The Nashville that John Sieger experienced during the mid-’90s was just as many music lovers picture the city, a friendly haven for songwriting talent where hungry up-and-comers intermingle with established legends. During his time there, Sieger performed with Lucinda Williams and rubbed shoulders with Shelby Lynn. His friend lived next door to Emmylou Harris. Sieger, who has written songs for Dwight Yoakam and The BoDeans, had some success in Nashville—he hosted a weekly night at the city’s renowned Pub of Love—but, he explains, “I wasn’t making enough money to really say I had a career in music.” ]]> Long as anyone remembers, the Iroquois made its way along the Milwaukee River every summer, saluted by raised drawbridges on its way to the harbor. The pleasure boat Iroquois has carried generations of sightseers onto the water during the warm months. What better entertainment for the Iroquois’ first cruise of the season than a shipboard show by the No Tan Lines Band, purveying what bandleader Michael Drake calls “island music.”]]> Tyler Traband’s self-released Re-issue EP is not a repackaged collection of five old tracks, but five songs rerecorded and issued for the first time in their new versions. For Traband, a pianist and prolific songwriter, the disc was an easy opportunity to showcase five old songs with his new band. “The hope was to catch the live vibe we’ve been getting,” he explains.]]> Pete Townshend coined the term “power pop” in the 1960s to describe The Who, but the phrase was forgotten for more than a decade. In the late ’70s, rock critics began applying the pithy phrase to Big Star, The Plimsouls, The Last—bands recovering the endangered verities of mid-’60s rock in three-minute testimonials to melody and harmony, two guitars, bass and drums. Power pop never produced another Beatles but has survived as a handy marketing label for a genre of melodic rock. When one such band, Material Issue, recorded a song called “International Pop Overthrow” in the early ’90s, they intended it as an anthem for the music they loved . . .]]> Milwaukee has been called a big small town, but it’s large enough for musicians in overlapping circles to know each other without actually playing together for decades. Such was the case with respected Latin jazz percussionist Luis Diaz and the funky pop jazz duo of Connie Grauer and Kim Zick, aka Mrs. Fun. “When we started jamming together once a week, we commented that we’ve never collaborated after all these years,” Grauer says. And then there was a relative newcomer to town, Cuban-born cellist Ana Ruth Bermudez ]]>