[live recap + video] JD McPherson + Raging Teens + Banditas @ TT The Bear's

The JD McPHERSON show at T.T. The Bear's last night was likely one of the most fun things happening in the city at the time... of course, the bar for awesomeness was set pretty low. Yesterday was Tuesday, and hardly anything cool ever happens on Tuesday. But this would’ve been pretty fucking rad even by weekend standards. Cambridge’s BANDITAS, which sounds like two Phil Spector girl-group castaways who decided to hop trains and worship Satan, entranced the early-birds (“Harmony Glass” was mind-staggeringly amazing). THE RAGING TEENS' rockabilly eruption blew the roof right off the joint. (Sidenote: they need to stop telling people they’re a rockabilly band. Though it’s technically an accurate descriptor, rockabilly bands are usually shitty douchebags with pompadour hair cuts who dress like James Dean everywhere they go. None of the Raging Teens have pompadours, and the two I’ve met are not shitty, nor are they douchebags.)

The roots-throwback rock of McPherson capped the evening off with style... the face melting kind of style. It's would've been kind of hard to listen to McPherson's band without mentally floating back to a high school sock hop circa early '60s, or, at least something akin to what I've seen of high school sock hops in movies. Of course, had the crowd physically traveled back to a sock hop, some of us would've been immediately asked to leave, because they do not allow drunk people in schools. Behold. Video!

(Side note part two: it’s not really fair for me to bash Throwed, the 18+ dance party at the Middle East Downstairs that seems quite popular, judging from the line around the block I see practically every time I’m in Central Square on Tuesday. I’ve never been inside. I have no idea if they play good music or not. I even know a couple of dudes who seem to enjoy hanging out there, and one of them is pretty awesome. But, sometimes when I look at that throng of humanity gathered on the sidewalk waiting for admittance, I think to myself, “Oh, look, it’s an unholy vortex of unfathomable evil and suffering. When I go to hell someday, this is what it will look like.")

Anyway, don't miss McPherson when he comes to town next. Check the video up top, and bat-eyes at the Teens and Banditas below.