Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Arriving at San Diego’s Balboa Park a couple of hours early, my wife and I thought we’d take our our six-year-old daughter and her two cousins to a few museums before the Drive Like Jehu reunion show started. No such luck because they were all closed. It worked out, though, because we heard the sound check begin and booked over to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion to catch it. There were perhaps two or three dozen friends, fans, and nerds present and I was stoked to be one of them.
Street Eater’s badass new album is relentlessly raw and heavy, and I was stoked to hear the East Bay duo’s latest rippers alongside favorites at The Redwood. Holy crap, they are one of my favorite bands ever, empowered by straight-up DIY punk via Gilman and pushed over the top by the two-way animalistic empowerment that happens between two human beings who dominate at their instruments. Did I mention that their lyrics are smarter than shit? So good.
There were two great openers, too. Nerve Beats are a somewhat jazz-infected, melodic punk trio in the tradition of the Minutemen and Nomeansno. Coming all the way from Honolulu, of course they were really nice dudes as well. I bought some hand-burned CD-Rs and really dig ‘em. I’d tell you which songs especially rule if the titles were listed somewhere.