I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: June 8,  2023] Cold Court

Cold Court is from Philadelphia.

That’s about all I can find out about them.

They have an Instagram page but there’s not much on it.  And any searches reveal pretty much that they opened for Black Midi and very little else.

According to the video below (live at the Lawn Jawn), this is the lineup of the band about two weeks before the Black Midi show:

Mini Serrano (Guitar, Vocals), Josyah Lavina-Maldonado (Guitar, Vocals), Theo Shuttleworth (Bass), Jett Mann (Drums), Charlie Westlake (Saxophone, Synth), Alex Ramirez (Viola), and Joe Kuck (Percussion).

Who knows if it was the same folks on stage at Union Transfer, but I don’t see how anyone else could have learned these wild and frenetic songs in two weeks.

How best to describe them?  I’ve never seen a band with a viola player inspire a mosh pit before.

There are moments of utter and complete noise–where everyone on stage is simply going berserk–screeching guitar, viola and sax and the drummer hitting everything in sight.

But there are also moments of calm, where it’s clear the band knows what they’re doing–serious chord and tempo changeups and the band in total synch.

The closest comparison I could come up with as I was watching them was Fishbone, but without the ska.  The way a Fishbone album jumps from genre to genre sometimes in the same song.  But with an emphasis on a frenetic punk/metal heaviness–with a saxophone.

Lots of the lyrics were spoken, but some were screamed.

I know they played “Steve” because they introduced the song and said it was about their friend Steve who was ….  eaten by a shark.  They also played “300 Ants” which I could tell because he talked about ants a lot in that song.

The crowd was totally into it.  As I said, the mosh pit was pretty much non-stop.  Not bad for an opening band.  And then at one point Josyah Lavina-Maldonado said that he was happy to see so many people from class.

They were bizarre and wonderful and I love that people are making weird music like that–and that people are loving it.

Cold Court had a cassette for sale and a great T-shirt: “Cold Court saved my marriage.”  If they sound intriguing, you can get a copy of their tape until June 17 at this website.

Songs for the video below (the songs at our show may have been in the same order):

Twin
Footwork (Spanish Joint)
Spider
300 Ants
Steve
Waltz