Tijuana’s long been San Diego’s more rough and tumble sister to the south, an identity at times fueled and at others feared, by its neighbor to the north. When it comes to music, especially rock, the city has earned that reputation. I’ve always told friends interested in playing in Tijuana that you may not get a great pay out (though to be fair, the same is true in San Diego) but you’ll likely play to an infinitely more epic crowd.
That advice is a bit dated now. It’s been five or six years since I’ve played to raucous crowds at Mustache Bar or anywhere else in Tijuana for that matter, so I’m not sure if the wild, beer-soaked and cigarette-stained energy is still there, but given that San Pedro El Cortez is still around and kicking I’d like to hope it is. The band has for nearly two decades mixed garagey punk, surf and psychedelic tendencies into a raw, toxic stew of noise.
San Pedro once had some real buzz. The music blogs of the early 2010s were all over the band, and a Tijuana filmmaker also made an excellent documentary about what made San Pedro so fun about a decade ago. There was a no-holds-barred nature to them that saw band members smoking meth in music videos, getting naked mid-performance and even burning an American flag. You know, real scuzzy punk stuff. But they weren’t all spectacle. Even if the buzz has worn off slightly, as buzz often does, their music delivers as potent a high as ever.
San Pedro El Cortez, “Asco”: San Pedro’s knack for hooky, crunchy garage punk is on full display in “Asco.” It’s the kind of sound supercharged by youth and bad decisions. It’s all simple enough but delivered with a genuineness that’s not easily faked. That’s part of what makes San Pedro’s music so good – the sense that the only thing they really give a damn about is playing loud and having a damn good time.
Content warning: There’s some unsavory behavior in the band’s music video.
Like what you hear? Check out San Pedro El Cortez at Tower Bar on Saturday, March 10.
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