(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.

This is Hi-Fi

Sometimes we Boston-area rock fans don't know how good we have it. And not even just for the ridiculous wealth of great local bands and clubs that we have access to; this is obvious. No, it's because we have the great fortune to live in the same general vicinity as the legendary Mission of Burma, and that said band continues to play terrific shows around here from time to time.

Last Saturday was one of those times, as Burma helped christen the recently opened (after a few frustrating months of delays) Sinclair in Harvard Square. The club holds 525 and it bodes well that the place was still standing after Burma's typically thunderous set. The sold-out night opened with a fine set from Cambridge's Reports, who melded pop melodies with a louder garage edge like a new take on the Feelies.


Burma played a 100-minute set, mixing in several songs from their latest release Unsound with material from their other three post-reunion albums and of course, from the classic '79-'83 first incarnation of the band. Burma was as powerful as ever: Roger Miller rocked furiously on guitar, while Clint Conley's bass reverberated through the hall and Peter Prescott made with the pounding drums and shouted vocals.

But what set this show apart from the previous Burma concerts I've seen over the last 10+ years since they reunited was the way they mixed things up. About halfway through the show, Miller introduced his brother Benjamin on sax and Steve Smith on trumpet; Prescott dubbed the combination the Burma Transit Authority. Later, Roger Miller played trumpet while his brother played sax, Conley played guitar and sang and tape loop dude Bob Weston played bass.

The piece de resistance came in the encore when Jeff "Monoman" Conolly of DMZ/Lyres fame joined the band for a couple of old DMZ songs and then a cover of the Stooges' "I Feel Alright." Conolly was hilarious, dancing around the stage like an old vaudeville performer. Interestingly, Burma never played their signature song, "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," but they didn't have to. Asses were kicked regardless.