January 20-25

Let’s face it: there are weeks when there are 8,000 amazing shows going on in Milwaukee, and there are weeks when the big highlight is Dierks Bentley playing after an Admirals game. Sadly, this week is a case of the latter. But fear not, Milwaukee, for we have dug deep into the schedules of the city’s finest bars and clubs to come up with five—count ‘em, five!—shows that are still worth checking out this week and weekend. They may not have the cultural cachet of a MOR country artist providing post-game entertainment for a MOR hockey team, but they’ll have to do.

Too many bands take themselves too seriously, what with their tender dude-songs, their tender dude-beards, and their vintage suspenders. Drugs Dragons, as their name would suggest, are not one of those bands. Fronted by artist Luke Chappelle, DD specializes in grimy, stomping, tongue-in-cheek sleaze metal, not to mention songs dedicated to Milwaukee’s delightfully named fertilizer company, Milorganite. The band is (thankfully) not on the same ironic-metal level as, say, Metalocalypse, but it’s far from dour doom-and-gloom. Art-damaged electro group Dirty Dancing and garage-punk purveyors Static Eyes open the show.

Friday, January 24
Ugly Brothers at Riverwest Public House

Milwaukee’s Ugly Brothers are part of the tireless Breadking collective headed up by the equally tireless Myles Coyne. If that sentence means nothing to you, you clearly haven’t checked out a show in Riverwest in a while. Put simply, it’s hard not to bump into a Breadking-affiliated band west of the river. Like their collective compatriots, Ugly Brothers offer up a charming concoction of shambling, acoustic folk-rock, perfect for sipping a beer and feeling good about a neighborhood that too often gets a bad rap. Opener Old Earth—a.k.a. Todd Umhoefer—falls on the more experimental end of the local folk-rock spectrum; his 2012 album A Low Place At The Old Place is a single, haunting, 18-minute-long suite.

Saturday, January 25
The Life And Times at Cactus Club

Kansas City trio The Life And Times have been playing pretty, grandiose psych-rock for so long now that it has gone in and out of fashion several times over. (For this week, at least, it’s back in.) The group’s 2011 album No One Loves You Like I Do is a stellar example of the genre, swimming in effects-laden guitars and widescreen production without drowning in fussy noise. Expect a solid show with opener and fellow psych revivalist, Milwaukee’s Sleepcomesdown.

Saturday, January 25
Animals In Human Attire at Riverwest Public House

Remember when we said it was hard not to bump into a Breadking-affiliated band in Riverwest? Enter exhibit B: Animals In Human Attire, featuring Myles Coyne. Animals In Human are livelier and more polished than their Breadking brethren, churning out rowdy indie rock on their 2011 self-titled album. (A new album is slated for—wait for it—April 20th.) Audiences and Twin Brother open the show.

Saturday, January 25
Riverwest Radio Fundraiser at Frank’s Power Plant

WMSE and 88Nine are where you go for eclectic music; Riverwest Radio is where you go for Nik Kovak talking about the Packers, someone reading poetry, and a bunch of other people talking about, well, anything and everything else. Housed in the front window of Riverwest Film & Video on Center Street, the online-only station is community radio in the truest sense of the term, offering its bandwidth to anyone who wants to play music, talk politics, or just babble on semi-incoherently. Tonight’s fundraiser features music from the Trance & Dance Band, Stone Soup, and Eric Wenner-Strand.