Madison calendar, June 9 through 15

Waterfront Fest, Man Mantis, Daniel Bachman, and more events of note in Madison this week. | By Joel Shanahan, Chris Lay, Scott Gordon

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THURSDAY JUNE 9

Big Pinky. Alchemy, 10 p.m.

Madison jazz trio Big Pinky, making its debut here, consists of keyboard player Mike Weiser, drummer Miguel McQuade, and tenor sax player Tony Barba. While I’ve yet to actually hear this band, it’s worth giving this show a shot based on everything each member has been up to lately: McQuade as a trio and quartet leader and member of the Ben Ferris Quintet, Weiser in the fusion-leaning outfit Major Vistas, and Barba in a variety of collaborations and solo sets in which he’s experimented with combinations of sax and electronics. Barba says the band will mostly concentrate on original compositions from Weiser, and that its sound will incorporate elements of free jazz, funk, and electronic music. —Scott Gordon

Vampirates, Fistful Of Pistol, 2leftshoes, Brian McKay And the MCKs. Wisco, 9 p.m.

Reno, Nevada trio Vampirates play a strain of thrash-y, smart-assed hardcore that’s admittedly been done to death, but listening their 2014 EP Pizza, Beer, you can kind of understand why people keep coming back to that well. Vampirates are particularly adept at jamming lots of sneering degeneracy into tightly executed, minute-or-less tracks like “Liberty Street,” “Don’t Call Me An Alcoholic,” and “New D.” They’re not out to reinvent the genre or anything, but might just remind you of a time when this stuff was original and refreshing. —SG

FRIDAY JUNE 10

Rooftop Cinema: Naoyuki Tsuji’s Magical World. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 8 p.m.

As all you Madison animation nerds know by now, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Rooftop Cinema is sporting a slick lineup of cartoon wonders this summer. While last week’s collection of Don Hertzfeldt’s early works was damn near mainstream in its brainy humor, this week we’re diving deep into the fantastic realms of mixed-media works from Japanese animator Naoyuki Tsuji. Wonderfully experimental in their techniques, and dreamlike in their execution, Tsuji’s films are bound to stretch the brains of those in audience with their inventive beauty, and the weather forecast for Friday is looking just about perfect right now for an evening out on the MMoCA rooftop sculpture garden. —Chris Lay

Indigenous: Organic Quintet. Central Library, 7:30 p.m. (free)

The Organic Quintet is led by trumpeter and UW-Madison jazz scholar Eric Siereveld, but its name puts a bit of a spotlight on Hammond B-3 organ soldier Mike Cammilleri. Cammilleri is something of a Madison authority on the jazz organ—not only did he have a beloved, long-running regular gig with drummer Scott Beardsley called Scott and Mike’s Hammond Organ Nite, he’s also a real student of the organ’s versatile (and yes, sometimes kitschy) role in jazz history. This show will focus on Siereveld’s original tunes, and the quintet also features Tony Barba on sax, Keith Lienert on drums, and Dan Flynn on guitar. Notice we didn’t list a bass player, because Cammilleri will be taking care of that on his organ’s bass pedals. —SG

OnYou, Asumaya, Lundberg/Grimm/Fitzpatrick. Mickey’s Tavern, 10 p.m. (free)

On the A-side of last year’s I’m On Fire EP, spaced-out Chicago psych-prog outfit OnYou take a short, Charles Manson-penned prison recording and sprawl it out into a massive, longform journey. Two drummers hammer out an aggressively slanted groove, as drifty guitar riffs, buzzing synthesizers, and droning vocal freakouts soak the sonic field, before a huge tempo shift pulls the tune deep into hypnotically-mutated classic-rock territory. On the flipside, sprawling opus “Singapore Solution” cruises a bit more smoothly, as the rhythm section locks into a mellow groove, before building into a heavy shuffle, as jammy guitar and synth lines bob and weave over the top. The urgent spontaneity of both tunes should translate beautifully into OnYou’s live show. They’ll share the bill here with Control drummer Luke Bassuener’s worldly, one-man post-punk band Asumaya. —Joel Shanahan

SATURDAY JUNE 11

Note: Damien Jurado’s planned show at the High Noon Saloon has been canceled.

Waterfront Fest. Yahara Place Park, through June 12, see link for full schedule (free)

It’s not summer on the near-east side of Madison without a slew of outdoor concerts stocked with an oddball lineup of bands that are in some way connected to French cultural influence (because this part of town is also known as the Marquette neighborhood), except for the bands that are more straight-up rock or country or folk or… well, the folks who book the music for these things have a jumbled wheelhouse, but it’s colorful and it’s theirs. Waterfront Fest marks the customary start to the season (which also includes La Fête De Marquette, Orton Park Fest, and the Central Park Sessions). The highlights this year include a Saturday mainstage set from rapper-singer Boogat—who hails from Montreal but raps in Spanish and draws on the sounds of his Mexican heritage—and Austin-based rocker Jon Dee Graham, who plays with his band The Fighting Cocks on Saturday and returns for an acoustic set on Sunday. —SG

F. Stokes, Man Mantis, DJ Radish, 3rd Dimension. Memorial Union Terrace, 9 p.m. (free)

There was a time not so long ago when beatsmith and sample guru Man Mantis (née Mitchell Pond) was an absolute linchpin in the Madison hip-hop community—best known for hammering out infectious breaks and lush melodies in real time on his MPC sampler with (now on-hiatus) local supergroup Dumate. When Dumate slowed down, Mantis busied himself with off-shoot collaborations with Dumate’s emcees (the Billie James Project with Dudu Stinks and IceMantis with D.L.O.) and later linking up briefly with electro-rap outfit Star Persons. All the while, Pond was also honing his own production chops and working to establish himself as a solo artist, which culminated in 2011’s epic collection of avant-hip-hop instrumentals, Cities Without Houses. A few years ago, Pond set his sights back to his hometown of Denver, Colorado and has since worked with Anticon co-founder Sole on 2011’s A Ruthless Criticism Of Everything Existing, joined forces with rapper F. Stokes on Kurtis Blow-channeling ’80s hip-hop homage A Princess Named Leroy, and has released a trio of heady and rhythmically grid-busting solo EPs in the Majestic Dimensions series. In addition to collaborating with Brooklyn-based rapper Stokes at this show, Pond will be breaking off a short solo set of his own, and hopefully showing off some new material. —JS

SUNDAY JUNE 12

Daniel Bachman, Boo Bradley. Frequency, 6:30 p.m.

Hailing from Fredricksburg, Virginia (and currently based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina) fingerstyle guitarist Daniel Bachman draws a great deal of influence from his late friend and mentor Jack Rose. However, on 2015’s full-length River, Bachman kicks down the doorway to new dimensions, balancing taste and restraint with unpredictably quick rhythms. The album opens with the 14-minute epic “Won’t You Cross Over To That Other Shore,” which fades in with trudging, ominous chords before propelling into a gritty tunnel of finger-picked, counter-rhythmic melodies and hypnotically droning strings. Bachman follows that track with the gorgeous, and perhaps unintentional companion piece “Levee,” a tune loaded with slow-burning slide guitar that clears out the listener’s headspace before the album journeys forward. Joining Bachman on the bill are beloved Madisonian ragtime blues weirdos Boo Bradley, from whom we’re still eagerly awaiting a follow up to 2014’s playful Rub Rub Rub. —JS

Mrs. Magician, Barbara Hans. Frequency, 10:30 p.m.

San Diego band Mrs. Magician combine pop melodies and surf-rock sounds with a gritty, baleful strain of post-punk. It makes sense that they’d end up recording with John Reis, who also blended those sounds in various masterful configurations with his bands Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt, and The Night Marchers. Reis produced Mrs. Magician’s new album, Bermuda, which draws on the seedy fun of Night Marchers and RFTC (but don’t look for anything like the slashing catharsis of Drive Like Jehu) but adds a Birthday Party-like twist of rumbling dread. —SG

The Incredibles. Memorial Union Terrace, 8:30 p.m. (free)

Even if it’s not your favorite Pixar flick, 2004’s The Incredibles, which starts off Memorial Union’s “Terrace After Dark” film series, is one of the most off-the-beaten-path entries in that studio’s pantheon. Honestly, I’d put this tale of a super-powered family up there against any of the past few Marvel blockbusters, and I’m pretty sure it’d come out on top. The action is on point (director Brad Bird moved on to make that one Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise is stuck on that super-tall building!), but the subtleties are where it’s at and they just stuck the landing every step of the way with pitch perfect “set” design and more little jokes crammed into every inch of every frame than a kids’ film probably deserves. The best part is that the emotions and the peril still hold up as genuine. —CL

MONDAY JUNE 13

A League of Their Own. Memorial Union Terrace, 8:30 p.m. (free)

It’s still such a bummer to me that we aren’t up to our ears in female-driven superhero movies. Blockbusters rarely do right by their semi-leading ladies, from minimizing their screen presence to all but writing them out of the ancillary tie-ins. Well, we’ll always have Penny Marshall’s wonderful 1992 film A League Of Their Own, I guess. This real-life story about women’s baseball teams during World War II is not just a bright and shining example of a film that highlights women mastering a male-dominated endeavor, but it’s also a goddamn fun film with an ensemble cast roster that’s deep with talent. I feel pretty confident saying that this is the best we ever got from both Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna on the big screen, and in your heart of hearts you know it ranks in your top five list for Tom Hanks and Geena Davis. —CL

TUESDAY JUNE 14

Low Czars. High Noon Saloon 6 p.m.

We’ll probably never shut up about Madison cover band The Low Czars, because, while they don’t take themselves all that seriously, they’re not slouches in song selection or in execution. Their sets of power-pop, classic-rock, and R&B covers range from the well-known stuff (Cheap Trick, The Kinks) to crate-digging nerdy treasures (how about some Swamp Dogg or Bubble Puppy Songs?), and they play it solid and straight-ahead—no tribute-band theatrics, just tight playing and a pretty solid bench of vocalists. They have dubbed this show their “Flag Day Flapdoodle.” —SG

Super Serious Singer-Songwriter Series: Jordan Davis. Mickey’s Tavern, 10 p.m. (free)

Jordan Davis currently sings and plays guitar in Milwaukee psych/power-pop band Space Raft, whose last local gig, if memory serves, was a Bernie Sanders rally at the Kohl Center. Here, he’ll play in a more stripped-down setting for the Super Serious Singer-Songwriter Series, organized by Matt Joyce of The Midwest Beat. Typically these nights involve solo sets from both Joyce and his guest, plus a bit of collaboration. —SG

WEDNESDAY JUNE 15

Rodrigo Amarante, Hooops. Frequency, 8 p.m.

While Rio de Janeiro-based songwriter Rodrigo Amarante may only be working his way up to his second solo offering, his sprawling curriculum vitae boasts work with Brazilian rock band Los Hermanos, his collaboration with The Strokes’ drummer Fabrizio Moretti in sun-faded folk-pop outfit Little Joy, and of course his sporadic sessions with mainstream “freak-folk” poster-boy Devendra Banhart. Amarante debuted his solo explorations with the 2013 full-length Cavalo, a multilingual collection of breezy, pop-leaning flirtations with samba, psych-rock, and low-key folk sounds. That record’s highlights included the fuzzy, synth-laced “Hourglass,” lo-fi charmer “Mon Nom,” and the moody waltz of “Irene.” Amarante is currently prepping a follow-up to Cavalo, but there doesn’t appear to be a set release date yet. —JS