All Jehu's Parties

The long-dormant Drive Like Jehu entered the 21st Century with a much-publicized concert at Balboa Park’s Spreckels Organ Pavilion alongside civic organist Carol Williams, and now the San Diego post-rock quartet has been asked to curate an edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties next year in the United Kingdom.

Jehu will headline the festival, set to take place at Pontins in Prestatyn, North Wales, April 22–24, marking their first U.K. performance since 1994. The group will also pick the festival’s lineup.

“Jehu were undoubtedly one of my favorite performances at ATP Iceland this summer, and we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to have them curate and headline ATP,” festival organizer Barry Hogan said. Guitarist Rick Froberg confirmed that Jehu’s curation of All Tomorrow’s Parties was Hogan’s idea.

“Barry asked us,” Froberg tells the Reader. “I don’t know why. Maybe he thinks we have good taste. I don’t know what we’ve done to give him that impression, but I’m glad he asked us.”

As to whether or not San Diego bands will be invited, “Yes,” Froberg replies. The band asked its social-media followers, “Who do you want us to bring?”

The band was at the center of San Diego filmmaker Bill Perrine’s documentary, It’s Gonna Blow: San Diego’s Music Underground 1986–1996, which explored that era’s alternative-music scene.

The documentary focused in large part on the “major-label signing frenzy,” which landed Drive Like Jehu and Rocket from the Crypt on Interscope Records. Froberg tells the Reader that he remembers the time for something else.

“To me, It was a group of people having fun, staving off boredom, and working with what they had. Though I personally benefited from these labels coming in and grabbing what they could, many didn’t,” he said.

“I feel like it was this little family thing, done in isolation, for its own sake and very much in spite of these [label] people,” Froberg said. “We wanted to make loud, ugly noise and get our rocks off — that’s it. That’s what I miss about that time.”

Early-bird tickets for All Tomorrow’s Parties 2016 are now available at atpfestival.com.