(A) Natural History

From Sept. 8-14, the great Cambridge club TT the Bears will celebrate its 40th birthday with a week full of great shows capped off with The Sheila Divine and The Gravel Pit on Friday the 13th and The Classic Ruins and O Positive on the 14th. Sadly, I'll be unable to attend these shows because I'll doing my annual insane Reach the Beach relay trip through New Hampshire. Which made it nice to be able to check out a terrific four-band bill at TTs last Friday: Reports, Soccer Mom, Golden Gurls and Bored Spies.

It was also the first rock show I'd attended in four months (the last being Buffalo Tom at the Sinclair in mid-April). Not sure how I made it through an entire summer without going to see a single show, but it was a combination of being busy and bad timing; many of the shows I wanted to attend were on nights when I had other plans. I met up with Senor Breitling, who introduced me to Soccer Mom and Baltimore's Golden Gurls a few years back, and our friends Rock and Cathy and Bryan Hamill.


Didn't know much about openers Bored Spies, an internationally-based act led by singer-guitarist Cherie Ko of Singapore, but they were impressive. Dreamy guitar pop with angelic vocals and edgy instrumentation. Bored Spies have been touring with Golden Gurls, whose 2012 long player Typo Magic is well worth your $5. Frontman-guitar maestro Andrew Mabry led the trio (which compares favorably to bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth) through older and new songs that have me excited for their next album.

I've seen Soccer Mom at least four times now and they've never disappointed. Probably the only disappointing thing about the band is they don't have an album for me to spend my cash money on, but I know they're working on it. They have similar influences to Golden Gurls, but really amp up the shoegaze aspect with waves of guitar noise. It's all pretty face-melting stuff, and I like to make the joke about needing earplugs for my earplugs, but they play it LOUD. I will continue to see this band again and again.

I saw headliner Reports in January, when they opened for Mission of Burma at the Sinclair and they sounded good again this time. They brought a garage feel to the proceedings, which I always appreciate. If I had to go four months without seeing live music, this was a good way to get back into it.