The usual purpose of a concert preview is to encourage folks to attend a show. Many acts-especially local ones-spend their careers underappreciated and underpublicized. Were it not for fair-minded journalists covering their efforts, such artists would be destined to toil in obscurity forever.
The Cody Cods could be such a band. Comprised of four Duke grads from the early to mid-'90s, the band has spent the past year rocking out at local venues like King's in Raleigh, The Cave in Chapel Hill, and The Down Under Pub and The Basement in Durham. They've spread some of the bluesy love at The Hideaway, too.
Now the Cods have a record out called Tribute. To celebrate, they're throwing a release party and concert at The Coffeehouse on East Campus this Saturday at 10pm.
There-we've given out the info. Normally, our work would stop there. But after hearing Tribute, we feel obligated, as civic-minded journalists, to offer our further advice: Do everything in your power not to see the Cody Cods, on Saturday or ever.
As far as we can tell, Tribute is a tribute to bad music. The band tries to succeed at the bluesy Southern rock thing epitmomized by bands like The Black Crowes and the legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd. The genre has wide appeal, and based on the success of hundreds of bar and cover bands everywhere, it's hard to screw up.
Thus, we have no qualms with the type of music the Cods make. You can't compare the Cods to more adventurous genres of music, any more than you can compare Puff Daddy to Winger, or Paula Abdul to Radiohead. But judging the band against their close competition, they still come up short.
Both of the band's usual vocalists-Benjamin Hassol and Jason Fagg-sound variously like they swallowed gasoline, got caught in an exploding meth lab, eat way too many pickled pig's feet or are being strangled while trying to do Axl Rose imitations.
We could do a song-by-song breakdown, but it's the same story throughout. These guys can't do decent ballads, they can't rap (but they try), they can't rock, and they sound worse than a fistfight in the toolshed between an angry Rottweiler and your drunk uncle on two pints of everclear.
Of all the bad tunes, the only one worth singling out is "Dope." It opens with 30 seconds of the band members coughing (you know, from smoking the ganja), followed by the really slick first line, "Dope... is what I smoke." It goes on to rhyme the word "dope" with "misanthrope," "envelope," "rope" and "slippery slope." Brilliance? Hell, we could do better than that after smoking two pounds of crack, much less marijuana.
If you do attend the show, do it for the band Entropy, a group of Duke guys that actually have skill at playing music. We didn't get a copy of their CD, so we couldn't write a savvy preview, but we can confidently say that they're better than Cody Cods. In fact, your grandmother with a two-string banjo and an old tin can is better than Cody Cods.
Since the Cods are "more established," they'll go on after Entropy. So show up at the Coffeehouse at 10, catch Entropy, and leave. That's advice you can take to the bank.
-By Jonas Blank
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