The A.V. Club's winter-spring anticipation companion

Though it must not look that way from the window of a speeding jetliner, Madison's not at all the worst place to be marooned through the ice-patched winters and the painfully slow, slushy thaws of spring. Between now and the always well-loved Wisconsin Film Festival (April 15-18), we have a fairly strong season to look forward to. The A.V. Club rounded up just a fraction of the winter and spring's concerts and theater events to fuel your anticipation for this otherwise unpleasant time of year.

Punk-rock motivation
Nothing gets you pumped for a new decade like a round or two of aggro ranting. Henry Rollins (April 9, Barrymore Theatre), Mission Of Burma (April 9, High Noon Saloon)  and Ted Leo And The Pharmacists (March 14, High Noon Saloon) carry the torch for three different generations of punk rock, stubbornly hacking out their own trails and encouraging audiences to do better, goddammit. Rollins will do it through a merciless spoken-work performance, and Leo's tight trio through a more well-balanced arsenal of ecstatic energy and ska-soul hooks. But let's not ignore the parallel history of punk written by deadbeats and goofballs like Off With Their Heads (Feb. 4, The Frequency), who rather perversely distill their go-getter drive from lyrics about the screwups and shitty times.

Unconventional cures
You could argue that Rollins' and Leo's medicine goes down pretty easy compared to that of Lisa Lampanelli (Feb. 19, Overture Hall). The feisty I-talian stand-up comic delights in forcing people to face much that they maybe rather wouldn't about herself ("I should have a reality show on TV called The Deadliest Snatch!") and themselves (whatever your ethnic makeup, bring a thick skin). Lamps proves that you don't have to age gracefully to age well, but Gladys Knight (March 26, Overture) undoubtedly sets a more refined example. Knight and her robust voice have moved on from the glory days of Motown into a well-rounded repertoire of jazz and soul. Cloud Cult's (April 16, Majestic Theatre) audience seems more collegiate and drunken every time the Minnesota outfit swings through town, but that's not really a reflection on Craig Minowa and band's wild spirit-storm of earnest songwriting and windy psych-pop. Seekers of alternate remedies can go even further out of their way with an exciting tour stop from Senegalese guitarist Baaba Maal (April 8, Wisconsin Union Theater). Finally, every generation needs to stay in touch with its roots, so if you've ever feasted on eccentricity or sarcasm, chances are you owe masterful humorist and essayist David Sedaris (April 13, Overture) another round of worship.

Confessions and corrosion
Madison never lacks for singer-songwriters and folkies, but damned if many touring acts aren't putting a strange twist on all things intimate and acoustic this year. Cracker's (Feb. 18, High Noon) David Lowery and Johnny Hickman return once more as an acoustic duo, but emphasize that even this incarnation of the band likes to stand up and rock. God knows what Gene Ween (Feb. 11, High Noon) will do as a solo act, but his show will be more cozy than Ween's usual sold-out celebrations of oddness at the Orpheum. Justin Townes Earle (Feb. 26, High Noon) uses convincingly old-timey honky-tonk sounds to get at his own dark clouds, making Norah Jones (March 15, Overture) sound fluffy by comparison, though she's too well-rounded to come off as bland. Still, the biggest wildcard here is former Queens Of The Stone Age bassist and screamer Nick Oliveri (Feb. 2, Frequency), coming through on a solo tour behind his recent exercise in unplugged sadism, Death Acoustic. Something tells us Suzanne Vega's (April 24, Capitol Theater) ability to mix her folk influences with a decidedly modern touch will go down a little better in musical history. All of the above would be hard-pressed to top Wilco's (Feb. 20, Overture) Jeff Tweedy, but the band's show has been sold-out for ages.

Magic fingers
Becoming a musical virtuoso usually means reinventing your trade to a certain extent, and those who dork out over instrumental and technical skill have some cool detours in store. Kaki King's (May 7, High Noon Saloon) inventive fingerstyle guitar wizardry never leads her astray from compelling melodies and intricate composition, which makes it all even more of a marvel. It's much trickier, though, to identify the skills RJD2 (March 16, Majestic) and Daedelus (Feb. 15, Majestic) rely on as they wander the hip-hop and electronica landscape with ears for both sonic daring and pop accessibility. (In Daedelus' case, you also have to marvel at the sheer balls of anyone who'd go around looking that much like The New Yorker's monocle-wielding mascot on purpose.) Indie rock has always benefitted from a certain sense of instrumental amateurism, but Yo La Tengo (Jan. 23, Barrymore) has gradually built up a noisy-tender guitar language of its own. Still other fine musicians draw inspiration from other continents, like Occidental Brothers Dance Band International (Jan. 30, Rathskeller) guitarist Nathaniel Braddock, whose African-highlife-style playing is the finest asset of an all-around spiffy outfit. For those with a more traditional idea of what musical prowess is, there's always Dark Star Orchestra (Feb. 10, Barrymore), which meticulously re-creates the epic jams of Grateful Dead shows past.

Way the hell off-Broadway
East is a good place to turn your gaze in winter and spring—mostly for some damn sunlight, but also to see what the winds of the New York theater scene are blowing in our direction. Overture Center has two shows with bright lights, big city ties: Rent: The Broadway Tour (Jan. 26-31) and Neil Berg's 100 Years Of Broadway (Mar. 13)—the latter being perfect for those looking to gorge on Webber, Gershwin, and Bernstein. Strollers Theatre also gets in on the Broadway-rooted merriment with Man Of La Mancha (Apr. 8-May 1). Still, sometimes it's more fun to hunker down and celebrate the things that make Madison so . . .Madison. Stuff like Broom Street Theater's polyamorous comedy Multiple O: The Second Coming (Apr. 23-May 30); Mercury Players Theatre's darkest of dark comedies Fat Men In Skirts, featuring a mother and son, a desert island, illicit love, and cannibalism (Jan. 22-Feb. 13); or StageQ's Greek goddess lesbian reboot, Sappho In Love (Feb. 12-27). And if you just want to play it close to the vest with some classics, that can be accommodated as well: Check out Madison Opera's The Turn Of The Screw (Jan. 28-31), Strollers Theatre's Playboy Of The Western World (May 13-June 5), and University Theatre's production of Henrik Ibsen's The Lady From The Sea (Mar. 18-Apr. 10).