SOCCER MOMMY + BORED AT MY GRANDMAS HOUSE – CHALK, BRIGHTON 6.5.25
Usually, I do more than enough research on an act to draft a thesis on them. This time however I made the bold decision to ‘go in cold’ apart from listening to a smattering of tracks from this artist I wanted to experience that unadulterated joy of disc covering a new favourite artist, even if it turns out you are late to the party.
Having been thoroughly warmed up by the support (see below) we decided to explore the Chalk venue and more importantly the merch desk. We were not disappointed. Again, usually I would make purchases, but this time I chose to restrain shedding my money on T-shirts and vinyl. I needed to listen to both acts to make an informed choice. It would be foolhardy after all to make a purchase of a slogan or banded item of clothing to find myself disappointed by the output, or stance, be it political, or other. There were several items that had me itching to make a purchase, notably the baseball cap with two rabbits on it, but hold back I did. Always listen to your gut when it comes to this kind of thing, and besides, I was trying to lead by example.
So, who are Soccer Mommy?
The pejorative term is (according to a swift web search just in case it now means something entirely less palatable) “a suburban mother who spends a lot of time taking her children to play soccer or engage in similar activities”. We have all known those mothers at the school gates, at every match and date, or may have even been the child of one. It was a relief to find that over time it has not been adopted as a more colourful euphemism.
‘Soccer Mommy’ are fronted by Sophie Allison. The autobiographical singer songwriter is known to write candidly about her life. Alison’s indie rock has been embraced as one of the genres most beloved and interesting artists for the last decade. Allison utilises the songs as a vehicle to explore inner thoughts that arise when coming of age. Beginning as a Bedroom-to Bandcamp act Allison posted her songs and demos on to the platform as a teenager. Allison has then gone on to enhance her sound as she gained access to more sophisticated production facilities, progressing further than expected and pushing the boundaries expected from a singer songwriter. Like any anxiety filled teenager or adult, Allison runs through every imagined scenario in her lyrical content. Making every subsequent album from Soccer Mommy a delicious new surprise to be savoured.
The fourth Soccer Mommy album ‘Evergreen’ is tender, but resolute. Arriving in October 2024 is again autobiographical, but as with everyone else Allison’s ‘life’ has changed significantly since those teenage days writing and playing in her bedroom. 2022’s ‘Something, Forever’, the singer-songwriter documented profound, and very personal loss. The emerging new songs were unflinching, but were embedded with humour and pathos which pulled them back from becoming too maudlin for the established audience. Leaning more towards the funnier side of life; there is an ode to Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game ‘Stardew Valley’, too.
Utilising music and lyricism as a vehicle to unknot the complexities of life and find steady ground. Allison was looking to find a way forward musically, while also staying true to her early demos and bedroom output. Honest, raw and relatable, Alison’s work comes from the heart. This is what resonated not only with her loyal fan base, but also with newcomers, like me and our small party of reviewers and photographers on the night. Nothing is overwrought, Allison is skilled at treading the line between reality and fantasy.
This would be an unusually long set, fifteen tracks in total, but then there are four albums to draw from. The first half of the sun consisted of tracks from 2024’s ‘Evergreen’, the perfect introduction for me and our new colleague.
From the opening bars of ‘Abigail’ we transported me back to the 90s, romcoms with Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Dreamy hazy sunsets and lovelorn glances, ‘Six Pence None The Richer’, Counting Crows, The Spin Doctors, the Lemonheads and most notably Julianna Hatfield duets with Evan Dando, and singing ‘Spin The Bottle’ with her own band the Julianna Hatfield Three (I am re-listening to my old favourite from the latter 1993’s ‘Become What You Are.’ As I write this review).
If you like/ love Soccer Mommy I cannot recommend Hatfield more, you really are in for a treat. Part of the beauty of this track is its addressed to a woman, the titular ‘Abigail’, teen sapphic longing drips from every line. This opens the track not only to bi-curious teens, but also the whole LGBTQIA+ community as well as the average Cis white male, teen, or adult equally as lovelorn over our titular hero. What really resonates though is that this is no PR device to sell more albums. This is an honest declaration from a REAL human no AI anachronism.
‘Circle The Drain’ pulled me back from my Bill & Ted jump back in time to my teen school days in the ‘90s and put me back in the present at Chalk were I found myself surrounded, not only by my reviewing companions, but also a sizeable amount of people my own age or older, some in couples, with a variety of combinations. Some single with friends, some clearly enjoying the first throws of a new romance. Initially this had struck me as one of the stranger audiences mixes I had experienced in the past thirty odd years, but gradually as the lyrics and melodies coupled with Alison’s more deadpan, Lavigne style delivery made it clear as to why this audience had occurred in the way that it had.
‘Driver’ – “Where are we going now? My head’s always in the clouds, I’ll be the driver if you choose, nobody chooses to stay on route…”, I love nothing more than hearing the heart in lyricism, in delivery from a band, I want my musicians to speak from the heart and to clearly enjoy every second of delivering their performance. This is something Soccer Mommy do, effortlessly, which, we all know is far from the truth, this kind of skill and lightness of touch comes not only with inherent talent, but also with practice, trial and error and refinement over time. This is another track which really resonates from the times I first listened to Julianna and her trio.
‘Bones’ – another track opening with Allison on her own accompanied with only her guitar before the rest of the band come in. The chorus is the hook that will hit you right in the heart and pull out all those memories of past teen romances.
‘Dreaming Of Falling’ opens with Allison and her guitar, only the first lines and bars set this track up as a crisp clear narrative before the rest of the band come in, first with the drum and then more musicians and instruments to build and add flesh to the bones of the sound. As it does so it honestly feels as if… you can physically feel the resonance seep into your every sinew.
‘Cool’, THAT cool girl we have always wanted to be. Suitably detached, preferring girls to boys, and having no problem with that. We do not just want to know here we want to be like her, or do we want to be with her? It is all so confusing, but this track will explain it and help it make sense for you. ‘Thinking of You’, is in equal measures, wistful, romantic, forlorn, this is the perfect track for you as you gaze out of the window, be it at school, work or in the car as you dream of that one that got away… ‘Some Sunny Day’ – You can hear the hazy summer sun rays permeating this track from the dew drop daybreak to the hazy reds and oranges of a summer sunset. It truly does transport to the better days of youth and adulthood. I could honestly remember the scent of freshly cut grass and the taste of an ice-cold lemonade, the sea spray in the air. Beautiful.
‘M’, starts with a strum or two before the vocal kicks in, sounding like that girl in school who always fascinated and then ended up on stage alone with her guitar and a microphone in the final year music showcase and stole your heart before she disappeared off to be an international best selling artist, if only you’d spoken to her all the times you caught each others eye and then shyly looked away.
‘Salt In Wound’, exactly what it says on the tin, only an audio version. ‘Your Dog’, a clear reaction and an outright rejection to the Iggy and the Stooges track to NOT wanting to be someone to treat you like the erstwhile pet that you never looked after or cared for like you should have until it was too late. Clever lyricism subtle, but to the point.
The final track of the set ‘Yellow Is The Color Of Her Eyes’ from 2020’s ‘Color Theory’ album, resonated for me in a way that some of the audience will understand. Without going into detail, I have an eye colour, which is not an eye colour, but a mutation which means the colour of my eyes change often depending on the available light and the chemical make-up flowing through my brain, sometimes they can appear golden, they are not.
The final track of the encore sealed an already done deal Allison I joined the post encore audience members in my enthusiasm. Our small group of reviewers were thoroughly won over by Sophie Allison and her band ‘Soccer Mommy’.
I downloaded all four albums and made a beeline back to the merch desk with our new reviewer in tow. We both now have matching baseball hats, and a fair few vinyls have bolstered our collections.
Soccer Mommy:
Sophie Allison – vocals, guitar
Julian Powell – guitar
Nick Widener – bass
Rodrigo Avendano – keyboard, guitar
Rellum Haas – drums
Soccer Mommy setlist:
‘Abigail’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Circle The Drain’ (from 2020 ‘Color Theory’ album)
‘Driver’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Bones’ (from 2022 ‘Sometimes, Forever’ album)
‘Shotgun’ (from 2022 ‘Sometimes, Forever’ album)
‘Dreaming Of Falling’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Cool’ (from 2018 ‘Clean’ album)
‘Thinking Of You’ (from 2022 ‘Sometimes, Forever’ album)
‘Some Sunny Day’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘M’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Scorpio Rising’ (from 2018 ‘Clean’ album)
‘Lost’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Still Clean’ (solo) (from 2018 ‘Still Clean’ album)
‘Crawling In My Skin’ (from 2020 ‘Color Theory’ album)
‘Salt In Wound’ (from 2024 ‘Evergreen’ album)
‘Your Dog’ (from 2018 ‘Clean’ album)
(encore)
‘Yellow Is The Color Of Her Eyes’ (from 2020 ‘Color Theory’ album)
Support this evening came from Bored At My Grandmas House which is the vehicle for Amber Strawbridge to deliver her artistic vision via the medium of music. Tonight, she delivered this with the assistance of a chum. The pair appeared on stage with their guitars slung ‘McCartney high’, resting just beneath their chests. Strawbridge played lead, (which you would expect as it is her own band) on guitar and a male partner was also on guitar. The duo used a laptop to deliver their backing track. On stage they utilised a plethora of effects pedals and (a voice distortion box) on the vocals for them both. Around them the headliner’s instruments dominated the stage. It would seem each band member has four of each instrument, the drum kit was similarly overconfident, spilling over with high hats, snares etc for the headliners. Strawbridge had a capo on her guitar to soften the vibration of the strings and therefore deliver a softer sound to compliment her vocals. This was removed for the louder more upbeat tracks towards the end of their all too short set. We are front and centre with other reporters’ photographers and guests.
They open with ‘Inhibitions’ from last year’s ‘Show & Tell’ album. It’s moody, bass heavy, simple laid-back drum beat to let the other elements including the vocals shine. The dreamy vocal drifts towards the listener slowly taking root, making you want to play it repeatedly. The tracks are well structured growers which bloom into ear worms when given enough time. ‘Friendship Bracelets’ from the same ‘Show & Tell’ album was selection three. If you prefer your summertime tunes more upbeat and bouncier, then this is the track for you. Ideal for a Sophia Coppola soundtrack starring any of the current new batch of ‘It Girls’, in fact I strongly suspect it has already been added to say the BBC’s next adaptation of a book from Sally Rooney.
Next up was ‘I like What You Bring Out In Me’ (also from ‘Show & Tell’) with its guitar riff opener which then burst forth into a louder anthem if sound out of nowhere. Before settling into the more expected mellow lyric before the vocal breaks into audio sunshine joined by a backing vocal and the anthemic styling returning giving it a show gaze meets California ‘60s surf track feel. Perfect for a day on the beach on the sand dunes with a brand-new love. It is the kind of track which will stick with you on a mixtape forever, longer than the summer romance that instigated its conclusion.
Their penultimate selection was the ‘Show & Tell’ album title track, which started in a similar vein to the first track and is more upbeat and then out of nowhere you can hear swearing, the emphasis really works. There’s an honesty to the track which belays the possibility of it being autobiographical. I have certainly taken it to my heart from the first time I heard it. It is a bit of smooth and confident songwriting at its best. It should if there is any justice appear on every twenty something’s summer soundtrack of choice.
Did the audience get Bored At My Grandmas House? No, not once I am pleased to report. The duo are deft at keeping everyone engaged and entertained. The music may be dreamy for most of the set, but it was peppered with more upbeat sounds to keep up the pace. They reminded me of Cigarettes and Alcohol, or dreamy ‘90s bands like Dubstar. The stage and their set felt like the club at the end of an episode of David Lynch’s latest Twin Peaks, which is no bad thing.
If you like your music a little more mellow this is your band, but do not think they do not have any pep in their step! Strawbridge describes her musical output as “Shoegaze dream pop made in my headroom” on her Facebook page. I honestly do not think I have come across an artist who has so accurately pinpointed their sound in just one short sentence.
It was a short, but sweet track transversing their material to give you a mini taste of what to expect from a headline set. The chat from the duo was minimal and only what was necessary, much like their music. There was constant returning needed, but only because I sense that they are a perfectionist, as exacting as Strawbridge herself. For me the standout tracks were ‘Show & Tell’, the eponymous track from the 2024 album, ‘I Like What You Bring Out In Me’ and ‘Friendship Bracelets’. The tracks verge on the meandering, but never so overblown as to become bloated. They physically resonated in my bones, which, for me, is the surest sign that a band are in harmony with me. I find the same with singing and playing bass. You must feel it in your bones and bone marrow. If it does not go that deep what is the point? It has got to have a mental, physical, and emotional resonance, or I just will not give it house room again. I would make sure you jump on them before they become far too popular. Buy a ticket for their next gig as a matter of priority.
Bored At My Grandmas House:
Amber Strawbridge – lead vocals, lead guitar
? – backing vocals, guitar
Bored At My Grandmas House setlist:
‘Inhibitions’ (from 2024 ‘Show & Tell’ album)
‘Detox’ (a 2022 single)
‘Friendship Bracelets’ (from 2024 ‘Show & Tell’ album)
‘I like What You Bring Out In Me’ (from 2024 ‘Show & Tell’ album)
‘Show & Tell’ (from 2024 ‘Show & Tell’ album)
‘Showers’ (from 2011 ‘Sometimes I Forget You’re Human Too’ album)
boredatmygrandmashouse.bandcamp.com
