INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Web exclusive: Dude Fest 2007 with Sweet Cobra and more

 

Dude Fest 2007 with Sweet Cobra and more
Harrison Center for the Arts
Saturday, July 28, 7 p.m. (festival starts at noon), $25, all-ages
www.myspace.com/dudefestindiana

Sweet Cobra should be one of the standout bands at Dude Fest this weekend. Hearing tracks from their new album, “Forever,” I want to go into this long list of hyphenated adjectives like “gut-wrenching” or “dick-knocking” to describe them.

But I won’t.

Between this and their debut, “Praise,” Sweet Cobra is one of the few bands you can put on when you know you have both fans of black metal and indie rock coming over for drinks.

Driving riffs along with a loud and tight rhythm section are the background characters of the records, depending on when singer/bassist Botchy Vasquez wants to step up. At times, his vocals blend in and harmonize with the rock, but then he’ll just bust in and yell at you.

The Chicago-based band has strong ties to Indiana between drummer Jason Gagovski knowing all the party spots in Bloomington and playing skins for avant-garde metalcore masters Suicide Note. (Gagovski also runs indie label Hawthorne Street Records, home of You Will Die, Pelican and the up-and-coming Your Black Star, the latter of which already has label deals in Japan, England and Australia.)

Recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, Gagovski revealed that most of “Forever” sounds live and impulsive, due to engineer Greg Norman’s recording techniques — similar to Albini’s trademark boomy sound — and the fact that most of it was recorded without the luxury of time. “We did 11 songs in two days,” Gagovski says.

“A lot of songs were done in one take.”

Though rushed, the band made full use of their time and is proud of the final product. “Later this year we plan to release three songs, about 20 minutes of music, in the form of an EP called ‘Bottom Feeder,’” he says.

With the new album in the can, the group has enough time saved up from their full-time jobs to devote to playing four-day weekends and week-long jaunts here and there. And though their tour van was wrecked and eventually stolen in a disastrous string of events, Gagovski sums it up: “Sweet Cobra is set to do as much as possible.”



Editor’s note: Read more about Dude Fest by Wade Coggeshall at NUVO.net/music.