Husbands renews their vows at Deep Cuts on Wednesday, 7 February 2024.

This body is all This Body Is All I Have In This World has, along with sticker packs, a 7-inch, and t-shirts.

New game spotted at Deep Cuts. It’s some version of Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em robots.

You know, the two-person, hand-controlled, mechanical fighting game where you would joust with your opponent’s plastic robot avatar?

To be honest, I never had one of these as a kid. My childhood reveries were mostly digital. But Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em robot was a ludicrous enough toy that I had at least heard of it.

The version at Deep Cuts is small. Kind of a miniature replica of the original model, which also boasted exploding functionality, so that if you really whopped your opponent, parts of their avatar would come flying off.

File this toy under the same heading of “Idiot Mayhem Action Game” along with Hungry Hungry Hippos.

What do you do when your backup band calls in sick? Just play a solo show!

If you bought tickets to the Guns N Roses concert at Fenway Park last year and only Axl Rose showed up, you might feel a little cheated. But it’s all gravy at a pay-what-you-can Deep Cuts show in midwinter.

Tyler Zucco-Bernard was the last man standing for This Body Is…, which works out just fine because the artist has a solo project – Sonder, a kind of alt classical guitar project – to pull material from.

As it happens, though, This Body Is… finds themselves in the middle of shouting out their new album soon, I’ll let you go. Zucco-Bernard spent most (all?) of the set playing songs off the new album instead of digging up old Sonder material.

Perhaps a little window into how the songs started life? Scratched out on solo guitar before receiving the full three-piece arrangement?

Why does this band name feel so transgressive in 2024? Husbands! 

Or does it?

Banal nouns as band names has always been a thing. The Crickets. The Doors. Eagles. Warrant. Cake. Tool. Seems like the definite article ‘the’ fell off over the decades, but enjoyed periodic comebacks: The White Stripes, The Black Keys, etc.

Maybe it’s the heteronormative subtext that feels like a fish swimming upstream. The subtext would hardly register in many parts of this country where you’re either married or single – and if you’re married, it’s either to a husband or wife. The “partner” nomenclature doesn’t have nearly the same amount of purchase outside of metro regions, especially down South. In the rarefied air of a left-leaning indie music subculture in liberal Greater Boston, you notice these things.

To be clear, it doesn’t fucking matter in any event. Bands should name themselves whatever the hell they want. Band names count for far less than the effort people put into dreaming them up would have you believe. 

Husbands performed a rangy, gazey set as a four-piece. Shades of Bad History Month meets Pile. Heavy textures, solid structures, iced off with some improvisational notes.

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