Scene Report: Cobrafest 2023
Tolono, Illinois is a small village roughly 10 miles south of Champaign and/or Urbana. Matt Talbott, guitarist/singer for the band Hum, set up shop in town running Earth Analog Studios and a tar paper shack drinking establishment, the Loose Cobra.
The bar books bands, with Matt's preferences running to "Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Waylon Jennings, and Kyuss." A couple of times a year, Matt sets up a stage in the parking lot next to the bar with an impressive sound rig and tiki lights and invites some of his favorite bands to play. And those bands are inevitably HEAVY. Fall 2022 was Okstoner Fest.
This past Saturday, July 8, was Cobrafest. Starting at 4:30 pm the lineup consisted of Nectar, Sweet Cobra, Mutt, Djunah, Terminus Victor, Centaur, Dibiase, and Cloakroom. I got things to do, so to my regret, I did not get down to see Sweet Cobra. I strongly recommend their recent album Threes, though.
Centaur is a trio Matt Talbott formed in 2002 when Hum was on hiatus. My old Cargo Chicago co-worker (and Chambana scene veteran from 16 Tons) Jim Kelly drums and Derek Niedringhaus plays the electric bass guitar. It's been a while since Centaur released any music and I've seen Matt play songs a lot like the Cobrafest set. The man-horse band shares a heaviness with Hum, and I detected a taste of drawn-out psych a la Spacemen 3 in the set. Lots of inner space is expressed via reference to outer space in the lyrics.
Djunah is the Chicago-based duo of guitarist/singer Donna Diane and drummer Jared Karns. They held the big stage well, between Diane's fluid heaviness and Karns' energetic working of the complete drum kit. Like Sweet Cobra, Djunah melds a lot of different hardcore and metal-derived genres into a flowing, sometimes jarring but coherent flow.
I saw Cloakroom at Loose Cobra some time ago and was very pleased when they released the Dissolution Wave EP. It was a significant expansion of the trio's sound into more textured and thematic sounds. I love it when a band pushes its parameters. Doyle Martin brought a box full o' effects to Tolono and it never sounded like he was stomping for stomping's sake. A friend commented that Cloakroom was a "throwback" that night, which I interpreted as some kind of Pink Floyd reference. Well, I hate that shit but I appreciate the trio's sonic explorations AND their commitment to impact. My hopes for their performance were high and they were met.
I was also impressed by the healthy turnout. I observe/complain that the Chambana music scene is dominated by what I call Ken Burns Adjacent kinds of music - bluegrass, alt-country, jammy, and other derivations that, however well played, don't do much for me. It was great to see folks turn out for unrepentant, loud rock music. Even if it's just to set up the camping chair, drink some beer, and hang.
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