Panic! At the Disco?s Ryan Ross Talks New Album As He Turns Legal …

Last night Panic! at the Disco’s Ryan Ross turned twenty-one in New York City at Angels and Kings, the East Village “dive bar” owned by labelmates Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, the Academy Is …, Cobra Starship and their management, Crush. Ross was in town between last weekend’s gigs at the Reading and Leeds festivals and this weekend’s Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle. After that, it’s back to work on the band’s sophomore disc, which is Ross’ main focus: “We’re trying to finish up in the next month, month and a half,” he says. After Bumbershoot and San Diego Street Scene at the end of September the band plans to head into the studio with a release slated for February or March of 2008. The scene at the bar last night was suitably carnival-esque for the dramatic Panic! guitarist. Ross’ girlfriend, Keltie Colleen (of Pussycat Dolls-esque troupe Sugar and Spice) planned the ordeal: She hung mini versions of Ross’ high school yearbook photo (which she found on the Internet) from the ceiling by ribbon, commissioned Ross’ friends to wear T-shirts sporting the image of a twelve-year-old Ross holding a fish, and planned her own midnight surprise: having fellow Sugar and Spice members wheel her out in a wrapped box. Though Ross and his bandmates chose not to invest in Angels and Kings when it opened because they were underage, the band is now halfway to legality (singer Brendan Urie and drummer Spencer Smith still have to hit the twenty-one milestone) and Ross says its possible the band would buy into the investment in the future. Some of the current owners were also in attendance last night: Gym Class Heroes’ Travis McCoy, whose band is heading out on the Young Wild Things Tour with Fall Out Boy this fall, and Gabe Saporta and Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship, whose next album comes out October 23rd.

Weekend Roundup: Deerhoof, Diplo, Cobra Starship and more

So what if it’s raining? So what if it’s Monday? So what if you woke up to the dulcet tones of your dog gagging and vomiting all over your bed at four a.m. this morning?!

It’s a great big beautiful world and here’s the proof — at home, the vomit turned out to be easy to clean up, and it was a darn good weekend for the music watchers. Of course if you read Pete’s column on Friday you already knew that. If you didn’t well…I don’t know if I can help you, but maybe these videos can.

Deerhoof Friday at the Granada Theater Here’s that band from San Fran playing as only they can a song called “Milk Man.” They play the milk man like nobody can (and maybe like green eggs and ham — I’ve just run out of my rhyming rations for the week), but it’s hard to tell since a lot of the video is sideways.

And here’s Dummy Discards a Heart, same camera, same general angle and focus but aren’t they awesome?

Diplo, Saturday at The Loft Diplo came by Dallas on his Mad Decent tour. The sound is kind of gritty (the videographer even apologized about it) but it’s still pretty neat when Diplo samples some Nirvana in the middle and does a lightening switch to….well to other stuff (can’t tell what because that’s where the sound really sucks).

Tom Gabel, Saturday at The Prophet Bar in Dallas If you’ve ever gotten really smashed with your angsty musician/artist/Beatles-loving friends when someone starts playing “Oh Darling,” and you all proceed to scream along — then you already know what this video is going to sound like. Is Tom Gabel angry, or does he always sound this way? Oh well, the audience seemed to dig it — they knew every word.

Forever the Sickest Kids, Friday at the House of Blues Yes. Yes indeed. They’re here playing with the Sassyback Tour and while they’re not exactly sassy, they sure are something. That’s all I’ve got, but the crowd’s pretty into it. For some reason.

Cobra Starship, Friday at the House of Blues And the sassiness continues with this New York-based band. They’re really chatty in this video.

Blake Shelton migrated down from Oklahoma (it is that time of year) to do a little playing this weekend. The video’s pretty great because he ain’t hard on the eyes, he’s workin’ those jeans and the drawl, and the bass is turned up so loud the camera shakes with every thump.

The Big Boom, Sunday at the Holiday Inn OK, so it wasn’t a show and it wasn’t intentionally musical but people were watching and the implosion sounds like a percussive sequence right out of Gladiator, or maybe Earthquake. The cow goes moo. The goes quack. The Holiday Inn goes boom.

And that was your weekend. It was pretty booming, right? — Dianna Wray

Dave Grohl To Follow In Nuno Bettencourt’s Footsteps

You probably all know that Top Chef fires itself back up tonight (my TiVo is set, and I really hope the show continues using Cobra Starship’s “The City Is At War” as its theme), with a season set in New York City. Top Chef is no stranger to inviting on musicians, what with Billy Joel’s wife woodenly hosting the first season and Nuno Bettencourt appearing in the background of a dinner-party challenge during Season Two; the show’s dalliance with rock will continue two weeks from tonight, when Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters will judge a challenge. The remaining chefs will have to cook the band Thanksgiving dinner while they’re on the road in Rochester, N.Y—a feat that’ll be even harder than the undoubtedly crappy arena kitchen will make it seem, given that the show was apparently shot at the end of July.

Cobra Starship Plays the Trocadero

By Julie O’Neil

“I feel so old right now,” I mutter, leaning up against the brick of Philadelphia’s Trocadero Theatre.

Feeling—and actually being—absolutely ancient seemed to be the theme of the evening when a few friends of mine and I attended the Cobra Starship concert on the eve of Fall Break. The band drew in a sold out crowd—unfortunately filled with high schoolers and even middle schoolers getting dropped off by their mothers in mini-vans—that was certainly larger and more enthusiastic than I think we had anticipated.

Despite the annoying crowd, it was definitely a great night. The concert began with a few opening acts. Newcomers Sing It Loud, who just released an album last month, took the prize of most valuable opener. The quintet is ridiculously fun and their bouncy piano-pop music was absolutely the perfect way to open the show. Next was punk-pop veterans Hit The Lights and another set of newcomers called Forever The Sickest Kids. Both got the crowd excited, specifically to note was Hit The Lights’ closing track entitled “Stay Out.”

After that, it was on to the main event of the evening. Now let’s have a little Cobra Starship history lesson, shall we. Cobra Starship was founded by Gabe Saporta, formally the singer and bassist for nineties emo mainstay Midtown. After Midtown broke up, Saporta decided he needed something completely different from the dramatics of his former band and that the music scene needed him too in order to lighten the somber mood. I’m sure he’d agree if I call Cobra Starship his destiny, his calling even. The band is a ridiculous but fabulous 80s-style techno-rock band featuring Saporta on vocals, Ryland Blackington on guitar, Nate Novarro on drums, Alex Suarez on bass, and Victoria Asher on the ever-important keytar.

I had seen the quintet three or four times before, but this was definitely the highest energy and most on the mark performance I’d seen from them. They opened with some fan favorites—“The Church Of Hot Addiction” off the band’s 2005 debut album entitled When The City Sleeps, We Rule The Streets and “The City Is At War” off the band’s 2007 sophomore album called Viva La Cobra!.

The thing that I think I love most about seeing Cobra Starship live is that it’s completely unlike a regular concert experience. There’s less pushing and shoving towards the front of the stage and more of a dance-party vibe. Saporta found joy in rambling between songs about everything from the formation of the band to the t-shirt he was wearing, which was nothing but amusing.

The band finished the night with two of there of their other coolest tracks. They played their breakout hit entitled “Bring It (Snakes On A Plane)” from, you guessed it, the oddly successful movie “Snakes On A Plane.”

Finally, they got the crowd dancing, or at least I was dancing, with the first single off their latest album, “Guilty Pleasure.” The song describes what it’s like to be the music scene’s guilty pleasure. And that’s exactly what Cobra Starship is. It’s a non-stop dance party that was well worth sharing space with middle schoolers.

This article is© 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.

Editor’s note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.

LIVE AND DANGEROUS: SassyBack Tour stops in San Diego

Long, crazy hair, high-pitched voices singing and dancing to poppy, electronic rock. All these things describe what was going on inside the House of Blues last Sunday as Cobra Starship took the stage, along with the other bands that opened for the SassyBack Tour. For the masses that don’t know what Cobra Starship is, it can’t be easily defined. The best way to find out is simply to listen, but the best dose is taken live. Before the band took the stage however, the crowd was warmed up by a number of acts that drove the crowd into a jumping and dancing frenzy. Starting off with the group Sing It Loud, the long-haired and youthful band filled its set with up-tempo and lively music, leaving listeners with no choice but to dance to the rhythm. Next up was Hit The Lights, a bit older than the previous band, with a bit more of a bite as well. Running around the stage with undeniable fervor, the group brought more rock than pop than the rest of the lineup, and ended its show with a quick cover of Pantera’s “Walk.” However, with the majority of the audience too young to know this metal classic, it mostly fell upon deaf ears. The final opening band and second headliner, Forever The Sickest Kids, then took the stage. Each member sported a “scenester” hairdo; unfortunately, the members all seemed to look like clones of one another, and their songs were also similar. Although hyped up, their set dragged on after a few songs. After about three songs or so, a few members of the crowd were seen anxiously checking their watches. Finally, Cobra Starship arrived. After a major re-creation of the stage to fit the band’s style, and with the addition of a large, black backdrop sporting its name along with a few new lights, a greater feeling of importance was exuded, more so than with the previous bands. To understand the experience, a few things must be explained. First of all, the lead singer of Cobra Starship admits that he isn’t a very good singer, but makes up for it with his willingness to have fun on stage. Also, there isn’t always a guitarist on hand during its songs. In fact, there is always at least one keytar being played, and the guitar and bassists often switched their axes for a keyboard. The show ended with the band going on a tangent of comical dialogue and then finished it all off with a hyped-up song to leave the crowd right where it started: having fun and moving to the beat.

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