Bad Bad Hats
Shmidt Distillers, Beltsville MD
October 2, 2025
Around 10 years ago, I was at the now defunct U Street Music Hall when I saw the Mynabirds do a show for which a trio from Minneapolis were the opening band.
The trio, called
Bad Bad Hats, did punchy, perky, somewhat whimsical power pop with indie influences, sung sweetly by an adorable frizzy-haired young blonde woman.
Their record at the time,
Psychic Reader, was available for a free download, and then it ended up on my phone for the past decade. Somehow that music came across my son’s radar screen, and he became possibly the youngest Bad Bad Hats fan in the greater DC Metropolitan area.
Bad Bad Hats now does house concerts and small venues through the Undertow record label, and we seriously considered trying to host a show at our house before my wife intervened. But we still bought two tickets to see them at the same Willy Wonka-like distillery where my wife and I had seen Mirah a few months ago.
Bad Bad Hats is now just a duo on tour, with the husband and wife pair of Kerry Alexander and Chris Hoge on guitar and vocals, with occasional backing instruments, recorded in this case.
At Shmidt Distillers they did a tight set of songs from
Psychic Reader, as well as their other material — mostly from three or four records released on Don Giovanni Records — presented with warmth and charm, although not a huge amount of depth.
This is not a band from which you expect highly substantive subject matter. Kerry Alexander mostly writes songs about interpersonal relationships, crushes, and memories of flames and early disappointments, nothing like the plight of refugees or climate change or the fate of our democracy. But it’s all still winsomely constructed and charmingly played, and the tunes are effortlessly catchy.
With just a duo, the band’s material was necessarily simple in composition — acoustic guitar and vocal from Kerry, mild electric soloing from Chris.
Humor is a big piece of the band’s songwriting, as well as sports. A native of Buffalo, Alexander has one song called “Wide Right” referencing the famous Buffalo Bills loss in the Super Bowl, and another mocking a would-be suitor for his obsession with “Detroit Basketball.” And they are unabashed in their 1990s sensibilities, with one song called “
Walkman” from their second album of the same name, and another song from 2024’s self-titled record pledging "when I die, I want you to have my CDs,” a collection that Kerry said specifically includes Britney Spears, many years of
That's What I Call Music, and a host of mix CDs from would-be boyfriends. That tune, a
buzzy dizzy power pop number called “My Heart Your Heart,” was one of the highlights, although I fail to understand how she can speak with a flat Midwestern accent, but sing with an anglophilic lilt in her voice like she's trying to be Harriet Wheeler in the Sundays.
The crowd of around 40 or 50 people at the distillery reacted with warmth and enthusiasm to the past singles, including the title track to
Psychic Reader, “Walkman,” the ingenious “Midway,” and others, but perhaps the greatest reaction was to the oldest song — “It Hurts,” from an EP released back around 2011. Not even a song I remembered, but it illustrated the cleverness of Kerry Alexander’s lyrics, working in miniatures with the focus on the interplay of flirtation and romance and the ever-present threat of disappointment.
In between songs, Kerry chatted with the audience, answering questions, thoughtfully parrying queries about their song origins and back stories, and generally being charming and witty. Again, this is a basically adorable band, even if one that’s never going to be taken particularly seriously. After all, one of their most-viewed videos is an
update of Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” with updated verses and videos of the band playing basketball.
Besides, when else can your high schooler ask one of his favorite bands about what he should major in if he applies to Macalester?
Set list:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bad-bad-hats/2025/shmidt-spirits-beltsville-md-63416a37.html
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2025 09:06AM by zwirnm.
