Soundscape Tours takes a Boston rock history lesson out to the streets

New season of walking tours out of The Verb Hotel and around Kenmore Square and The Fenway start up on Friday, April 18

Apr 02, 2025

Visit former locations of The Rat, Boston Tea Party, Storyville, and more
Hit the Soundscape Tours homepage for more information
Visit former locations of The Rat, Boston Tea Party, Storyville, and more
HOMEPAGE . TRIPADVISOR . INSTAGRAM . THE VERB
‘See another side of the city’ every Friday and Saturday through November
Photo Credit: Soundscape Tours

BOSTON, Mass. [April 18, 2025] – Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Modern Lovers’ iconic garage rock anthem “Roadrunner,” and by now, its local references to Route 128, Stop & Shop, and key Massachusetts highways are part of the region’s pop culture lore. When Jonathan Richman sings about his travels with the “radio on,” he acts as a sort of tour guide for all he sees driving late at night, with his love for the commonwealth guiding the way, presented for all to revel in a shared experience as he travels from one spot to the next.

A half-century later, and Matt Bowker feels a similar connection when he looks out around Boston, seeing relics and landmarks of the past meshing with the city’s current music landscape. For the past few years, Bowker, a local musician and Rock & Roll Rumble alumni, has hosted Soundscape Tours, a lively and educational walking tour of the Fenway and Kenmore Square neighborhoods that kicks off a new season on Friday, April 18. To celebrate, Bowker will be DJing a set of Boston music at the season launch party, April 27 at Village Vinyl in Brookline.

As Soundscape welcomes all to “Tour Boston’s Rock & Roll Past & Present,” Bowker is eager to showcase another side of the city, and uncover historic cultural locations currently hidden in plain sight. With two walking tours every Friday and Saturday at 1 and 3 p.m., priced at $40 per person and stretching across the calendar from April to November, Bowker takes attendees on a trip through Boston’s storied musical history.

Starting at the home base of The Verb Hotel on Boylston Street – which boasts an impressive array of collectibles and ephemera from the David Bieber Archives as well as the famed stage backdrop of beloved but shuttered Cambridge rock club T.T. The Bear’s – Bowker takes music fans to the sites of legendary long-gone venues like The Rat, Storyville, and the Boston Tea Party, all while tracing the rise of iconic bands and artists like the Pixies, Peter Wolf, Joan Baez, and others.

With a background in educational travel that goes back 20 years, Bowker’s Soundscape Tours, which was just featured on NESN, bridges two things he’s passionate about – travel and music.

“For me, the best way to experience a city is through its music,” Bowker says. “Whenever I travel, I seek out small independent venues. And as a local musician, I’ve played many of the small independent venues in Boston – some of which sadly no longer exist. My hope with the tour is that I can shine a light on Boston’s music scene past and present and inspire people to check out live music and local artists.”

Bowker describes the music-themed Verb Hotel as “Boston’s unofficial music museum,” which makes it a perfect launch point for each tour. From there, the tour winds its way through the Fenway Victory Gardens, cited by Richman in the Modern Lovers classic song “The Fenway,” before routing through Kenmore Square, hitting the sidewalks that once led to The Rat, Boston’s punk rock launchpad, and Storyville, George Wein’s famed jazz nightclub.

Soundscape then hits Lansdowne Street, marking former venues like The Boston Tea Party, Aerosmith’s own Mama Kin, and Venus De Milo (where Radiohead had its North American debut in 1993), all in the shadow of modern live music stages like the House of Blues, Bill’s Bar, and MGM Music Hall.

“Boston, as a city – its clubs, artists, recording studio, schools and radio stations – has had a significant impact on popular music, especially folk, jazz, and rock and roll,” Bowker notes. “The Boston Tea Party is where Led Zeppelin finally clicked as a unit following a marathon performance in 1969; Van Morrison developed many of the songs for Astral Weeks while living in Cambridge; Pixies broke through at The Rat in Kenmore Square while producers at Fort Apache studios paved the way for a new alternative rock sound that would change the world; B.B King floored an audience at a political rally in Fenway Park in 1968; Joan Baez honed her skills playing venues like Club 47 in Harvard Square; and Mission Hill native Donna Summer had her first rock show at the Psychedelic Supermarket. There’s just so much history all condensed in one relatively small space.”

While Bowker has an encyclopedic knowledge of Boston’s musical history and its present landscape, crafted from both his own experiences as well as taking Steve Morse’s famed online rock history course at Berklee College of Music, he says he especially enjoys learning from others who take part in the tour. And Soundscape, now in its fifth year, is constantly evolving, as developments in pop culture shift interests.

For instance, Bowker mentions that the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has spurred renewed interest in the folk musician going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and that historic moment has roots that trace back to George Wein’s Boston Jazz club, Storyville, where the initial idea of a music festival in Newport was hatched.

While Wein’s Kenmore location closed in the mid-’50s, decades later a new club in the Hotel Buckminster resurrected the Storyville name, and is no known to many as the spot that used to house Pizzeria Uno, and the venue where Juliana Hatfield saw the Violent Femmes and Del Fuegos, as referenced in the lyrics to her ‘90s hit “My Sister.”

For Bowker, the Boston music scene is one that is vibrant, expansive, and resilient. And as new venues spring up, like the cleverly-named Roadrunner in Brighton or Deep Cuts in Medford, or are resurrected, like the anticipated Great Scott in Allston and Toad in Cambridge, the Boston live music circuit is one that continues to not only survive, but evolve.

“Helping people make the connection between the past and present gives me joy,” Bowker says. “So when someone on my tour tells me they are going to a concert at Roadrunner, but they have never heard of the Modern Lovers, my eyes light up!”

Part of the reason for Boston music’s endurance, through changing trends, a shift in styles and sounds, and even a global pandemic, is the city’s thriving college network. Institutions like Berklee College of Music and Boston University are just a few steps from Soundscape’s routing, and the energy of those city campuses extends to everyone. Plus, it lends itself to some pretty great anecdotes.

“Many musicians initially came to Boston to study something other than music, like Peter Wolf, Tracy Chapman, or Jerry Harrison, and fell into the scene,” Bowker adds. “Others came to learn music at one of the many music schools in the area. Berklee of course stands out as a magnet – especially for musicians interested in contemporary music. Many of the artists discussed on the tour have a Berklee connection like The Cars, ‘Til Tuesday, and Esperanza Spaulding. Also, we are steps from Berklee on the tour – and often you can see or hear musicians practicing.”

And there was even a time when one tour had a pretty significant player in Boston rock history join in – if only for a moment.

“Many people choose this tour because they have a connection to the Boston music scene,” Bowker concludes. “In fact, Evan Dando from The Lemonheads was at The Verb one afternoon as my group gathered, and he joined the tour …for the first 5 minutes or so!”

Media Contact: Direct press inquiries to Michael Marotta at michael@knyvet.com,
and reach Matt Bowker of Soundscape Tours at soundscapetours@gmail.com.

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About Soundscape Tours:

Guided by a local musician, explore Boston’s rock and roll past, present (and future), on a walking tour through Boston’s Fenway & Kenmore Square neighborhoods. Visit the sites of legendary venues like the Rat, Storyville, and the Boston Tea Party – The Velvet Underground’s favorite place to play in the whole country! Learn how pioneering DJs, producers, and educators sparked a revolution in how music was transmitted, recorded and taught. And trace Boston’s impact on the careers of iconic artists like B.B King, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, New Edition, Nirvana, Aimee Mann, Pixies, Radiohead, Peter Wolf, Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Jonathan Richman and more.

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Media praise for Soundscape Tours:

“I’m at the start of a walking tour of Boston’s ragged, arty rock ‘n’ roll history. And my guide, Matt Bowker, proprietor of Soundscape Tours, is arguing that the Pixies-and by extension, Boston’s late 20th century music scene-were seminal forces in modern rock. He’s making a pretty good case.” _The Boston Globe

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