The California skateboard scene knows how to party. Exhibit A: The self-described “Los Angeles Power Disco” of Cobra Man, who play Memphis tonight at the Hi-Tone Cafe.
It was sunny sidewalk surfers that birthed the synth-heavy dance group, when Andrew Harris and Sarah Rayne first collaborated for a video, “New Driveway,” by The Worble skateboard company in 2017. That collaboration felt so perfect that they built a band around it — now grown to seven members. And it felt right to Goner Records, who released both that soundtrack and its follow up, Toxic Planet.
And, unlike most soundtracks, the sound is intoxicatingly hedonistic, a heady blend of fat analog synth riffs with soaring choruses that plays like a lexicon of ’80s synth pop, distilled to its throbbing dance core. In memory of the recently departed Alan Hayes, I’d even put them in the company of Memphis’ darkly synthetic dance pioneers of the late ’70s and ’80s, Calculated X. And yet Cobra Man’s perch from the heights of the 21st Century lends them a more brazen take on the genre. As Harris told Thrasher magazine in 2020, “We are definitely being shamelessly grandiose. We’re leaning into all of our guilty pleasures at one time, which some people think is corny but I honestly just don’t give a shit.”
It’s that last sentiment that puts Cobra Man, and thus their commitment to the party vibe, over the top. The blended textures of thick, chorusey keyboards, riff rock guitar, and unrelenting rhythms are true to their “Los Angeles Power Disco” tag, but one is never quite sure where they’ll take it.
Cobra Man, with opener Snooper from Nashville (slated for their own Goner release) play the Hi-Tone Cafe Monday, August 1, also featuring the premiere of a new Worble skate video. Doors 8 p.m.