Home Grown, RX Bandits & The Benjamins

Although I'd heard the name Homegrown many times before, I must admit that I wasn't terribly familiar with their music. But after consulting with my associates, who deemed their music as "girly punk," "poppy" and "weak as fuck," among other, more colorful descriptions, I decided that I would probably find Homegrown quite to my liking.
Being a Tuesday night, I figured that all the usual adolescent new-school rockers would be safely at home, diligently doing their geometry homework. But I was pleasantly surprised to find more than a fair amount of people inside, awaiting the start of the show. All you indie-hipsters and old-school punk-point counters (you know who you are) can bag on new-school as much as you like, but no one can deny that when it comes to bringing out the heads, no one keeps it as real as girly-core.
This being said, the first band, The Benjamins, got slightly less than an enthusiastic reception. I think that this can be explained by two distinct phenomena; "lookism" and the dreaded "I-don't-know your-songs-so-I-don't-care" syndrome. The former is an unfortunate side effect of the demographic attracted to shows like this, namely young people whose esthetic is that looking really cool equals music that is really good. Needless to say, The Benjamins were not dressed to impress. They also did not make up for this with natural good looks. Nevertheless, despite the majority opinion to the contrary, I was actually quite impressed with The Benjamins. They sounded vaguely (strong on the vague) like a new-school punk version of Creeper Lagoon, only with more Creeper and less Lagoon.
After doing their best to impress, The Benjamins gave up the stage to the RX Bandits, who immediately condemned themselves to hell by saying things like "We're really drunk right now because we figured that's how you do it Chico," and " This set goes out to Sierra Nevada!" Despite this and the incessant idiotic dancing of the keyboard player, the RX Bandits weren't all that bad, for the first hour at least. Much to the chagrin of Homegrown fans, the RX Bandits figured that this would be the perfect time to play every song they ever knew. I have just as much of an appreciation for ska-core as the next guy, but it was starting to get absurd. The horn-player, in between drunkenly banging on a tambourine and espousing his pleasurable state of inebriation, continually pleaded to the crowd to give the band a place to stay. Fortunately, after doing a heartfelt rendition of a Nirvana song, they ended.
Out came Homegrown to save the day, much to the delight of a majority of the crowd, who were there to see them. I have to admit I was pretty stoked on their sound, straight-up pop punk at its finest; think old Blink 182, but happier. Unfortunately, like their predecessors, Homegrown fell victim to the allure of alcohol and this strange "When in Rome…" idea that seems to surround bands that play in Chico. The sheer silliness was brought to a head when, much to the surprise of all the twelve-year old girls in the house, the harmless-looking guitarist for Homegrown stated plainly, "So where's all the pussy at? I want to mow some box!" Unlike the RX Bandits, though, Homegrown redeemed themselves with their music, which although blatantly simplistic and poppy, nevertheless was heartfelt and pleasant to the ear.

– Daniel Taylor

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