Great Music, Less Regurgitation

April is when Wisconsinites not only allow themselves to believe spring exists but also are provided empirical evidence, such as gutters clogged with snowmelt overflow and (I can’t say this enough) professional baseball, to back up the belief.

This upper-Midwestern pleasure does, however, get qualified and checked by federal-and-state pain (tax time!) and global cycles (have some more white stuff, suckers!), and this week’s Roundup is nothing if not in keeping with the theme of qualifications and provisos.

Wednesday, April 9

The Both. Photo by Christian Lantry.

Ask Me Another and The Both at Pabst Theater

During the week, National Public Radio and its local affiliates are like this: stout news coverage, Terry Gross backing into absorbing interviews and overnight BBC announcers. On the weekends, NPR is like this: Garrison Keillor, “real” folk music, piles of human interest and some cutesy quiz shows.

“Ask Me Another” appears to be an attempt to give listeners (and attendees) a variety-show foretaste of what I consider the black hole NPR conspires to open during the weekends. However—and that word deserves boldface and italic and flashing lights—The Both, the duo consisting of clever, smart, melodic rock musicians Aimee Mann and Ted Leo, will be playing too.

Mann and Leo got the idea to work together from Milwaukee generally and Bronze Fonz specifically:

Thursday, April 10

Greg Ashley at Cactus Club

How badly do we really want artists and artistes to be unpredictable? This isn’t a solely rhetorical question, because those performers who think we demand lots of unpredictability might end up getting vomited on, literally, a la Lady Gaga. At which point most of us decide we can make do with smaller surprises, thanks all the same.

Greg Ashley, known by hipsters both bearded and bespectacled as the frontman for the psychedelic garage-rock band the Gris Gris, is closer to the right kind of unpredictable, whether getting free with his 2010 album Requiem Mass & Other Experiments or paying sidelong homage to Leonard Cohen with this year’s Another Generation of Slaves.

If Ashley gets vomited on at this gig, it will almost certainly be by accident.

Friday, April 11

Sleeper Agent at Rave

“Not Actually a Doctor” Phil and many other popular talkers advise audiences that negativity can drag them down, but they never note that positivity can be just as much of a drag. The relentlessly cheerful won’t be much help to you when your spouse/favorite parent/beloved pet dies of something pointless and horrible.

Smaller and modulated doses of good vibes work better, and the Kentucky rock-pop collective of Sleeper Agent sounds as though it knows that. Admittedly, its first major-label disc, this year’s About Last Night, doesn’t have the pleasurable acidity of its 2011 debut, Celabrasion [sic for sure], but there is pretty variety.

Plus, at this particular venue, most bands sound rougher than they do in the studio, and that could work to Sleeper Agent’s advantage.

Ron White at Riverside Theater

Of the four guys who made up the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, comic Ron White was the guy who reminded me least of the “Grand Ole Opry” clowns or the corniest moments on “Hee Haw” (none of which involved Junior Samples, because he was nothing but delicious and wonderful ham and hallowed be his name).

While his later stories throw in too many references to his famous friends (particularly the aforementioned “Doctor” Phil), White still likes cigars, Scotch and jokes that make the rest of the Blue Collar guys seem like tremendously responsible husbands and parents. That’s really why I like the bastard.

Here he is with Marc Maron on the latter comedian’s “WTF” podcast.

Sunday, April 13

The Men at Cactus Club

If I were forced to tabulate the percentage of my life that I had spent writing about this band or that band, this collective or that duo, from the New York City borough of Brooklyn, I would probably demur in favor of a one-way trip to Belgium and a quick hop in front of one of their efficient public-transport vehicles.

Still, here I am in Brooklyn again, this time telling you about the Men, but more by choice, because they have been roughly as prolific as the Ramones—five albums in each year from 2010 to 2014—and because they have grown out of hardcore roots with NYC alacrity. Their latest album, this year’s “Tomorrow’s Hits,” hops across a bridge or two for Springsteen inspiration and chooses rocking over purism. Good.