This Week in MKE Music: June 12-18, 2025

Here are the Milwaukee shows we are looking forward to coming up this week

by

Thank you Brian Wilson.

Outdoor music in the Third Ward, East Side and Humboldt Park, Boy Dirt Car returns to Riverwest, Troubadours Mulvey and Schoepp, Steel Bridge Songfest gets it own day, the great Leo Kottke and more—This Week in Milwaukee Music!

Thursday, June 12

Texas Dave @ It’s Alive! – Milwaukee Public Market, 11 a.m.

Original songs have always been part of Texas Dave’s repertoire. “I’m still prolific,” he says. “I’ve gotten better at knowing when to throw a song away when it’s not working out.” Many songs on his recent album Thru the Years are personal but some recent entries, including “Back to the Blues,” comment on the reckless swerve of contemporary society.

Tlalok Rodriguez Latin Jazz Quintet @ Jazz at the Vine, Humboldt Park, 6 p.m.

Tlalok is a bilingual singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist comes from a long line of musicians dating back to his great-grandfather who was a composer from Vicente Guerrero, Mexico. A century later he keeps the family tradition alive through boleros, bossa novas, and vibrant performances channeling the passion of his ancestors. His band includes Carlos Adames on congas, Joey Sanchez on bass, Peter Behlmer on drums and Johnny Padilla on saxophone.

Friday, June 13

Polish Fest @ Henry Maier Festival Park, through Sunday

Join the annual traditional Capuchin Walk for the Hungry, organized by Capuchin Community Services. Enjoy the Cultural Village and Sukiennice Marketplace, food demonstrations and vodka tasting. Little Miss Polish Fest pageant, Sunday morning Catholic mass and more.

Peter Mulvey w/ Trapper Schoepp @ Anodyne, 7 p.m.

Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur and almost-poet since before he can remember. In 1989 he spent a year in Ireland, busking on the streets of Dublin and hitchhiking to whatever gigs he could find. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging through the bars of his native Midwest before taking off for Boston, where he returned to subway busking and coffee houses. The wheels have not stopped since.

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Twenty albums, one illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own Lamplighter Sessions for years in Boston and in Wisconsin ... he has built his life's work on collaboration, on an instinct for the eclectic and the vital.

Fellow troubadour Trapper Schoepp Trapper has toured the world with artists like Three Dog Night, The Wallflowers, Old 97s, The Jayhawks and Frank Turner and headlined tours across Europe/USA with stops at historic spaces like New York’s Town Hall, LA’s Roxy Theatre, Americana Fest and SXSW. Schoepp’s recent song “Loaded” is a cathartic commentary on the American opioid epidemic. It stars indie film legend Mark Borchardt as an evil, overprescribing doctor. It offers an unflinching look at pain, addiction, and healing—but also a triumphant reminder: survival isn’t sad.

Boy Dirt Car w/ Illusion of Safety, Drekka, Karl J. Paloucek, & Sean Hendley @ Jazz Gallery, 8 p.m.

A night of experimental, industrial and noise music to challenge the parameters of your musical perceptions. Ear protection is strongly suggested. Originally based in Milwaukee, Boy Dirt Car was a loose collective of troublemakers that evolved and remain creative, now based in Minneapolis.

Nineteen Thirteen w/The Slow Harvest @ Linneman

NINETEEN THIRTEEN, the group made up of cellist Janet Schiff, percussionist Renee Luna Bebeau, and vocalist Jen Janviere create a new and dynamic sound. Schiff plays a cello that was made in Romania in the year of 1913, hence the band’s name. Their music suggests romance and future thought​.​

The Slow Harvest uses songwriting as unburdening—a deep, personal catharsis without the psychiatrist. Their debut album, Selections from The Sad Bastard Songbook, is unflinching in its handling of seriously heavy subject matter, but it does so with hinting subtleties, cloaking the meanings under a blanket of singer-songwriter Americana with a moody, half-lit, prairie noir twist.

Saturday, June 14

Summer Soulstice @ Between Kenilworth Place, Ivanhoe Place, Farwell Avenue, Prospect Avenue and Murray Avenue, noon

Six stages, over 25 performers, vendors and more. The annual East Side street festival with music from Mambo Surfers, NileXNile, Robot Witch, Labybird, Maximiano, Collections of Colonies of Bees, The Urbanites and more.

Gyasi w/Dagger Polyester @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Gyasi seems in many ways to come from another planet, and being raised in the woods of a West Virginia holler might as well be another planet in this day and age. His parents bought him a guitar at a local flea market when he was six years old and he still hasn't gotten rid of the fleas, or the guitar. He approaches his music as an all-encompassing art piece, using fashion, storytelling and his guitar to create a world for his music.

Steel Bridge Day Celebration @ Marti Park, Sturgeon Bay, noon

How about a road trip? In 2005 Pat MacDonald and his crew began a songwriting workshop and music festival that took over Sturgeon Bay; it began as an effort to save and restore a historic bridge.

After five years and a pandemic, Steel Bridge returns to the stage. With help from the City of Sturgeon Bay and its mayor, every second Saturday of June will be known as Steel Bridge Day. Celebrate with a full day of live music, starting with an outdoor celebration in Martin Park. This event is free to the public, featuring two stages featuring Geri X, Eric McFadden, Victoria Vox, Ruby James, Josh Harty, Cathy Grier, Anna Sacks, Carley Baer, Eric Hagen and many more.

Sunday, June 15

Leo Kottke @ Vivarium

Guitarist Leo Kottke issued his 1968 debut LP Twelve String Blues, recorded on a Viking quarter-inch tape recorder, for the (Minneapolis) Scholar Coffee House’s tiny Oblivion label. After sending tapes to guitarist John Fahey, Kottke was signed to Fahey's Takoma label, releasing what has come to be called the Armadillo record. The world is till catching up; his innovative, virtuosic playing guarantees at least a front row of acolytes taking notes at performances.

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs w/ Shannon McNally @ The Pabst Theatre, 8 p.m.

Mike Campbell was a member, architect and co-captain of The Heartbreakers, a band he co-founded with Tom Petty. As The Heartbreakers lead guitarist, Campbell co-wrote many of the band’s hits and also wrote songs for Don Henley (“Boys of Summer”), Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and played on records by Aretha Franklin, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.

In 2018, Campbell joined Fleetwood Mac’s World Tour and in 2020, he released Wreckless Abandon, the first album by The Dirty Knobs, a group that was Campbell’s longtime side project but is now his primary musical focus. They released their second LP External Combustion in 2022; their third album Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits features appearances from Graham Nash, Lucinda Williams, Chris Stapleton and fellow Heartbreaker Benmont Tench.

Tuesday, June 17

The Smashing Times w/ Sharp Pins, Now and Operations @ X-Ray Arcade, 6 p.m.

Sure, it’s Tuesday but don’t sleep on what might be the pick of the week. There was a brief time around 1967 when jangly guitars met folk rock and mild psychedelia to create a hidden genre of music that bands and fans have been chasing ever since. Think of this four-band bill as a sampler. The Smashing Times from Baltimore call it indie/folk/pop, Chicago’s Sharp Pins call it janglepunk, California’s Now call it indie/p and Milwaukee’s Operations call it dream pop. If you squint a bit and read between the lines, you are hallway there. There’s a good chance Brian Wilson’s spirit will be hovering over the proceedings.

Wednesday, June 18

Violins of Hope: Composing an Era of Harmony for Our Community @ Woman’s Club of Wisconsin (813 E. Kilbourn Ave.), 11:30 a.m.

Join Linda Edelstein, CEO of Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, for this special event. In the midst of World War II, as Germany battled across Europe, The Holocaust was taking place. Jewish prisoners and others targeted by the Nazis played violins in the ghettos and concentration camps. Many musicians were forced to play; others played them as a form of resistance.

During the Holocaust, as the Jewish people were dehumanized, discriminated against, and mass murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, musical instruments too bore witness to this atrocity. But today, their music bears witness to this history: rising again, stronger and more vibrant—a testament to survival, hope, and the resilience of the human spirit. This is the transformative journey of Violins of Hope-Wisconsin.

The Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra brings Violins of Hope, a collection of instruments owned and played during the Holocaust, to the Wisconsin community for a five-month residency of educational and cultural programs, exhibits, and performance.