Joe Guszkowski

Thursday, Jan. 2: Avenues with Lights Over Bridgeport and Lost Years (StayPosi Records showcase) @ Frank’s Power Plant, 9 p.m. StayPosi Records has an interesting business model. Along with releasing records by small independent artists, it puts a portion of its sales towards charity. Frank’s will showcase three of its bands, including Milwaukee pop-punks Avenues, fresh off the release of holiday Christmas single “Punk Rock Christmas.”  Friday, Jan. 3: Myles Coyne & The Rusty Nickel Band w/ Caley Conway & The Lucy Cukes, Ugly Brothers, Jamie Yanda and The Lousy Trouts @ Linneman’s, 9 p.m. Milwaukee’s Breadking Collective has grown…

Tuesday, Dec. 17: The Ridges with Mark Hubing Band @ Bremen Cafe, 9 p.m.   The grandiose Athens, OH folk group is primarily the project of Victor Rasgaitis and Talor Smith, but a host of violin and trumpet-toting co-conspirators makes The Ridges more orchestra than band. Its 2011 self-titled EP was recorded in an abandoned Athens insane asylum, and the place hangs over it like a specter. Hear them in the generally less-creepy confines of Bremen Cafe for free Tuesday.      Also: Straight No Chaser with Caroline Glaser @ The Riverside, 6:30 p.m.   Wednesday, Dec. 18: Fall Out…

10. A.V. Club Milwaukee will shut down.   The local arts and culture website will go dark Dec. 12, taking with it a bottomless cache of stories and updates on local arts, music and sports, as well as a running tab on every online listicle touting Milwaukee as one of America’s [insert adjective here] cities. To visit the site was to glimpse Milwaukee’s hyper-local collective unconscious, crawling with fresh musings on The Milverine, McDonald’s drug fronts and mustache salesman alongside album reviews and an always-helpful events calendar. Needless to say, A.V. Club Milwaukee will be missed.     9. Jaill…

Wednesday, Dec. 4: The Traveling Suitcase with Animals In Human Attire and The Thriftones @ Tonic Tavern, 9 p.m.   Tonic Tavern hosts a night of locals as part of its reoccurring Love Local Live Wednesday music series. Milwaukeeans are probably already familiar with Animals In Human Attire and The Thriftones, but The Traveling Suitcase, a rock three-piece from Oshkosh making a name for itself around Wisconsin (they’ll open for Local H at Shank Hall Dec. 28), is a newer face in these parts. Fans of Cursive and Cold War Kids will like the band’s dark, moody rock.    Also:…

Monday, Nov. 18: John Legend with Tamar Braxton @ The Riverside Theater, 6:30 p.m.   Legend acquired his unusual surname from poet J. Ivy, who likened his old school, piano-driven sound to the legendary performers of the past. But newest album Love In The Future is more progressive, thanks to crafty production from a long list of producers including Kanye West and 88-Keys. Legend will return to Milwaukee for the first time since 2010, this time to the intimate Riverside.      Tuesday, Nov. 19: Highlonesome with Jeff Shepherd and the Jailhouse Poets and Nellie Wilson and the Hellbound Honies…

Tuesday, Nov. 5: Joe Pug with Matt The Electrician and Trapper Schoepp @ Linneman’s, 8 p.m.   Former carpenter and college dropout Joe Pug forged his own path to prominence by mailing copies of his “Nation of Heat EP” for free to whoever asked for it. And a lot of people asked for it. Pug’s songs have a rare, earthy power, swirling with the wisdom of a man who has travelled and experienced and held actual employment as a carpenter in the digital age. That was back in 2010, and the EP has since been downloaded over 30,000 times. Pug…

Check them out: Wednesday, Oct. 30 at Cactus Club, 10:30 p.m. with Sex Forecast and Lack Of Reason   What’s the big deal?   Among today’s bumper crop of ’70s garage rock revivalists, Broncho stands out as one of the best. Despite dirt-encrusted production and a deadbeat punk attitude, songs like “Try Me Out Sometime” and “I Don’t Really Wanna Be Social” are sticky, no-nonsense pop. The Tulsa four-piece has toured relentlessly in the past few years behind their only album, 2011’s debut Can’t Get Past The Lips, which spawned a number of grimy low-budget videos to go along with…

Tuesday, Oct. 22: Kylesa with Pinkish Black and Sierra @ Cactus Club, 9 p.m.   Even as Kylesa evolves into a more psychedelic and dare-I-say approachable band, its two-drummer attack and general mad-at-the-world attitude keeps it sounding undeniably bruising. This year’s Ultraviolet may be its most accessible album yet as it grows its sludge metal into something broader and more atmospheric.     Also: Ben Sollee with The DuPont Brothers @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.   Wednesday, Oct. 23: Yonder Mountain String Band with The Founding Fathers @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 7 p.m.   Before Mumford & Sons took over…

Like Like The The The Death’s 2012 debut album, Ghosts of Dead Bros, was a crag of seething noise and post-punk defined by sharp songwriting and a goofball sense of humor. It also supplied one super hit. Tucked between two typical LLTTTD barn-burners was “Holy Ghosty,” a rock song beamed in from mid-’90s college radio with a sunny chord progression, mega-catchy chorus, and, rarest of all, actual singing. It was and is a band-defining, album-transcending song; a live show staple destined to a long, happy life on mix CDs and local airwaves, made all the more intriguing by the fact…

It’s been 10 years since Jack Black turned a classroom full of pre-teens into a full-fledged rock band as lovable burnout Dewey Finn in School Of Rock. Saturday, Milwaukee gets its own school, a unique music program that combines individual lessons and group performances, a concept that just might have inspired the 2003 film.   “Paul Green opened the first one in Philadelphia in ’98, and it was all him just doing it by himself,” says Todd Richards, general manager of the new Shorewood location. “Word got around, and some people came in to do some kind of filming at…