A small crowd gathered outside Jerry’s On Front, par for the course as this rowhouse-sized venue doesn’t offer much space for luxurious indoor banter. What was once in the heart of East Kensington’s no-man’s land, Jerry’s On Front is now buffered by gentrification that wears its cheaply-constructed, ugly-box-shaped heart on its sleeve, but the small venue’s immediate aura is immune to such unpleasantries: friendly, somewhat-aging faces congregate here for rock, psych and avant-garde music generally united by a Philly-style lack of pretentiousness. It was a Tuesday night for an audience that mostly had to work the next morning, so the advertised 8:00 PM showtime was pretty closely honored.

The Shield started off things right, making a bunch of noise on stage that seemed like it might’ve been a preliminary soundcheck only to coalesce into rehearsed material. I love that simple moment, when you’re ambiently listening to a band from outside the venue and it suddenly clicks – we should go in, I think they’re playing! This Philly group was new to me (and not purely because I’m out of touch, as they seem to be less than a year old), an artsy post-punk treat for the steadily-filling room. Bearing traditional rock instrumentation alongside a synth, their sound was spongy and elastic, like Kim’s Sonic Youth songs. Smart stuff, with a garage-y second-nature redolent of Tyvek; the majority of the group were granted wide berths to dick around so long as bassist Sims Hardin didn’t miss any notes. The drummer’s glasses had slipped down to the very tip of his nose by the end of the set, which is always a good sign. I checked out their tape on Bandcamp after the show, and while it was enjoyable, I’m glad I caught them live first – that’s where this stuff clicks.

Up next was the main reason I texted a friend the day before to see if he wanted to go out on a Tuesday night: San Francisco’s Famous Mammals were playing. I had heard that they were good in Boston a night or two before (“it’s like they time-warped from ’79 Sheffield”) in spite of their drum machine dying on stage, a cursed scenario that must keep so many art-punks awake at night. No matter: Jerry’s On Front proprietor Chris Forsyth managed to provide them with a vintage Rhythm Ace, and off to the races they went. I’ve enjoyed their albums a bit (Inscrutable Records’ reissued debut really took my fancy), but they were an absolute delight live. Performing on violin, guitar, bass-guitar and drum machine, all three members took turns singing over a primitive, poppy jangle in league with Desperate Bicycles and The 39 Clocks. All their songs were more or less the same – they could’ve played a hundred of them, I didn’t count – and they were all equally great, a smashing good time. The trio performed side by side with shoulders fully hunched: guitarist Andy Jordan’s unabashed fake British accent took center stage (perfectly spot-on), bassist Stanley Martinez was in charge of clicking the drum machine on and off (he nailed it) and violinist Amber Sermeño added rich, droning strings to fill out the sound (she ruled). It’s thrilling to see a band so in charge of their specific, honed-in sound, performing to a tiny packed room, an experience I strongly recommend. I was bopping in place harder than the band themselves, nestled in the back corner populated with other tall guys considerate to obstruct as few views as possible.

Headlining the gig were Philadelphia’s own Eraser, celebrating the release of their debut LP on the label that more or less defined underground American experimental guitar music in the ’90s and beyond. I don’t have to even say it out loud, but yes, I’m talkin’ Beer City, err, I mean Siltbreeze! Like any good record-release show, Eraser’s family, friends and well-wishers filled the joint, having loud, laugh-filled conversations with and among Eraser before and between the songs that comprised their succinct set. Vocalist Sonam Parikh squealed and shrieked, the full-throttle delivery piercing my ears like I was at Claire’s, and then asked the sound-person to turn up her vocals in the monitors, a move you have to respect. The overall mix was rough and tumble – it’s rare to see a post-punk band where the guitar is the quietest element of the show, and while I don’t think it was by design so much as gleeful amateurism, the band’s obvious joy of being on stage together and flipping the room from neutral to Eraser-owned was a pleasure to witness. And in a true punk-rock move, they played the shortest set and fewest songs of the evening, stomping in and out in a flash.

I’ve been to a fair number of shows at Jerry’s since it opened in those dwindling pre-Covid years, and as I watched Eraser bop to a packed crowd of friends, I reflected on the fact that I had never seen a single person crowd-surf here, or even attempt to and fail. The room is ripe for it – high-enough ceiling, scuffed-up drywalls you can comfortably plant the sole of a boot on, loud rock music in a cramped space – but to my knowledge, this simple act, like a champagne bottle smashed on the stern of a yacht, hasn’t happened (yet). I even asked some buddies there if they had ever seen or heard of it happening inside, noting that it was a fairly common punk-club occurrence, when I was admonished for trying to categorize Jerry’s as a “punk club” in the first place. It’s an “adult DIY” space, I was corrected. For now, if I want to accidentally catch the heel of a Vans Half Cab across the bridge of my nose, I will have to venture elsewhere.