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Drive Like Jehu reunites after 19 years

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Drive Like Jehu, one of the most influential San Diego rock acts of the 1990s, is pulling out all the stops for its first concert in 19 years.

The four-man group, which disbanded in 1995 and made a national impact, will perform Aug. 31 at the historic Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. Announced Tuesday with little fanfare, their concert will feature the band in a unique collaboration with Dr. Carol Williams, who is both the veteran artistic director of the Spreckels Organ Society and San Diego’s Civic Organist.

Williams will open the free, one-hour concert at the 2,400-capacity outdoor venue with several solo selections, including “Phantom of the Opera,” on the pavilion’s massive, 4,500-pipe organ. For the second half of the 7 p.m. performance, she and Drive Like Jehu will perform five songs together.

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It will be a musical first for her and for the band, which was formed in 1990 and has since taken on a near-legendary status far beyond San Diego. In a 2007 U-T San Diego interview, Isaac Brock of the Washington band Modest Mouse said: “I love (Drive Like) Jehu. Jehu is one of my favorite all-time bands actually.”

The teaming of Drive Like Jehu and Williams, who in November will perform at the 10th anniversary of Disney Hall in Los Angeles, is as intriguing as it is unlikely.

“I would say it’s unprecedented,” said Ross Porter, the executive administrator of the Spreckels Organ Society.

Williams and Drive Like Jehu guitarist-singer John Reis readily concurred.

“For me,” noted Williams, a native of England, “the point of the concert is to open up the (musical) boundaries, not to be narrow. The organ needs a future and any opportunities like this, I really look forward to.”

So does Reis, who on Monday night took his family to the organ pavilion’s annual silent movie night performance.

“The appeal for me is, I love the Spreckels pipe organ,” said Reis, who is the leader of the San Diego bands Night Marchers, Hot Snakes and Rocket From The Crypt, which last year reunited after an 8-year hiatus.

“I think the pavilion is one of the jewels of San Diego, without a doubt,” he continued. “That San Diego has a civic organist on the payroll is pretty great. I just love the sound of that instrument. It captivates me; it’s such a great sound! When I was a kid, Organ Power Pizza in Pacific Beach had this pipe organ and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.”

Reis and Porter both credit Dang Nguyen, a recent addition to the Spreckels Organ Society board of directors, for playing a key role in bringing Drive Like Jehu and organist Williams together for the Aug. 31 concert. Nguyen and Reis are co-owners of Bar Pink in North Park. Like Williams, they hope that her concert with Drive Like Jehu will draw new listeners to the organ pavilion.

“I’m really thankful for Dang, who really pushed for this (concert collaboration),” Reis said. “He facilitated this and explained it to the Organ Society board in way that they agreed to do it.”

Reis laughed when asked how long it took to hatch the idea of Drive Like Jehu performing with Williams at the organ pavilion.

“Immediately!” he said. “Dang said he was on the board and, in that same conversation, I said: ‘Dude, we gotta do this,’ without missing a beat.”

Nguyen, like Porter, is a gradate of San Diego High School. He contends that the unique aspects of performing in the organ pavilion with Williams was pivotal in Drive Like Jehu’s decision to reunite.

“In February or March, we discussed possibilities and the topic of Jehu came up; that’s where it started,” Ngyuen said. “It was a project they wanted to bring back together. Because, after Hot Snakes and Rocket reunited in the last couple of years, I think John and (singer-guitarist) Rick (Froberg) felt that to do something at the organ pavilion was worth getting back together for.”

For Reis, who has been drawn to the Spreckels organ since he first heard it on a class trip, having Drive Like Jehu collaborate with Williams is a dream come true.

“I especially love the way the low-end sound on the organ is so massive,” Reis said. “When I go see organ concerts in the park, I want to collaborate with that sound and with Carol. It’s not necessarily a ‘good idea,’ but it’s an idea I feel strongly about, and it’s such a San Diego thing. We’ll see how it goes, but to me it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t seem that weird, but your don’t know until you try it.”

Reis laughed again as he elaborated on his pending reunion with Froberg (who also plays in Hot Snakes), bassist Mike Kennedy (a full-time chemist) and drummer Mark Trombino (who has produced albums for blink-182 and Jimmy Eat World).

“The weird thing is that we (Drive Like Jehu) are playing (again), and that it took something this weird for us to decide to play a couple of songs again,” Reis noted. “Only two of us live in San Diego; one lives in New York and one’s in Los Angeles. A couple of band members pretty much haven’t played music since Jehu (split) or since shortly thereafter. Mark didn’t even have a drum set until earlier this year, and he bought one specifically for us to play with the organ. So I’m excited the other guys in the band share my enthusiasm.”

Another laugh.

“I’m not worried,” Reis said. “But that may change when reality sets in!”

Williams, a classically trained organist and composer, is married to San Diego rock drummer Kerry Bell. She also has a background playing Hammond organ in jazz bands. She discussed her upcoming collaboration with Drive Like Jehu with a similar degree of excitement as Reis and clearly relishes diving into the band’s pioneering blend of post-hardcore punk, math-rock and pre-emo emo.

“The Spreckels organ is a very strong instrument that can hold itself with any form of music, so this will be a fun night,” she said. “They don’t have a keyboard in the band, but that doesn’t matter, because I’ll be sympathetic to what they do. They have a great (lead) guitarist (Reis) and I’ve been enjoying what they’re doing (on their two albums). The organ certainly won’t be overpowered. I’m memorizing the songs and I’ll improvise when we play them.”

Indeed, the power of the organ is a vital part of the allure for Reis and Drive Like Jehu.

“I’m super-psyched to be playing with her. I met with Carol and she had a super-cool attitude,” he said.

“I don’t know if she knew what she was getting into! I said: ‘(These songs) are kind of ‘shouty’ and dissonant, but I think it will be great, and she didn’t bat an eye... We’re definitely going to jam with her. For me, the only way this won’t work is if it’s a novelty, and I told that to her. This isn’t about trying to achieve something just for the sake of doing it. I have a sound in my head that I want fulfilled. She’s a master (organist). She’s an octopus! What she does with her feet and hands on the organ is amazing.”

The Aug. 31 concert will be recorded, but not -- Reis stressed -- for commercial purposes.

“Its just a photograph,” he said. “I just want to take a snapshot and document the evening, because it will never happen again. It’s something I’m very excited about and I’d like something a little better than an iPhone video. Hopefully, we can get an audio capture as well as video. It’s only for me. I’m the one who wanted to do that and have something to document it. Nothing to sell or duplicate, just something to have and share, if it comes out OK.

“Part of what makes this all so cool is, I hope -- and this is just for me, because I get so much enjoyment out of the organ -- is that this will turn some younger people on to the organ. I feel there might be some people who like our music who have never even heard about the Spreckels organ. So I hope it will really turn San Diegans not familiar with the organ onto it.”

That comes as music to Porter and Nguyen’s ears. So does the fact that Drive Like Jehu is assuming the production costs for the concert.

“We’re interested in diversifying our audience,” Organ Society honcho Porter said. “We know the organ needs to appeal to a younger crowd; this is a stretch for us and a manifestation of a quest for diversity... The credit goes to carol, because she’s an inventive thinker and is not hidebound.”

“Carol has been very open-minded about this from the get-go,” Nguyen added. “One of our missions with the organ is to reach out to a broader demographic, which is one of the reasons I was approached for the board. This will bring a whole new audience. The Jehu crowd, now it’s 20 years later, so we’re all in our forties and fifties, which is not so far removed form the current demographic of the organ society.”

And if some traditional organ fans are less than thrilled by the concert?

“There will probably be a lot of traditional organ fans who won’t like it,” Williams said. “But to make new friends, you have to make the catch bigger and put out a bigger net.”

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