Cleveland Art-Punks Cobra Verde Visit The O.C. Tonight

Cobra Verde on The O.C.? What a twisted path in and around the shadows of fame and “normal life” in Cleveland, Ohio, it has been for brainy garage-art-punks Cobra Verde.

Emerging from the Ubu-inspired ashes of Death of Samantha, Verde came together in the mid-’90s with indie cred galore behind singer/guitarist/songwriter/newspaper journalist/Serbia-Montenegro political agitator John Pekovic, who leads the unit (Mark Klein – drums, Tim Parnin – guitar, Edward ‘Angel’ Sotelo – bass, Frank Vazzano – guitar) still through waters both sweet and turbulent.

And oh yeah, they backed Robert Pollard in the second coming of Guided by Voices.

Verde’s latest disc is a skewed covers collection called Copycat Killers wherein they take the jangly stun knife to big hits and fazed cookies by Mott the Hoople, New Order, Pink, Donna Summer, Flamin’ Groovies, Hawkwind, Undertones, Rolling Stones — hey, that’s a pretty good CV sonic summary.

So anyway, here’s these veteran so-indie-it-hurts rockers from Cleveland, who all have Serious Real Lives and Meaningful Jobs, and guess what they’re doing tonight? They’re acting and singing a Foreingner song on Fox’s The O.C.

Get thee away from the lie wagon, I hear you say, but japing you I am not. Check out this missive from the Petkovic:

How’s it going? I could tell you about all the action on Planet Cobra Verde… The hot new album we’re working on… Or how our drummer Mark is homeless because a flood consumed his house… Or how an airport terror squad accused us of being terrorists…

But ultimately it would come back to this OTHER thing:

At 9 p.m. Thursday, March 16, we — Cobra Verde — will make our prime-time acting debut on “THE OC.” You know, the Fox drama about happy-go-lucky rich people in Orange County. The OC folks have been down with the CV action and have been trying to get us to come out to their sprawling Manhattan Beach studios — which, by the way, is in Manhattan Beach, which is NOT in Orange County….

At first, we figured they’d have us give back rubs to “The Hot Moms” on the show or play stunt men or something. Nope. Last month, we flew out there to not only play, but also act…I can’t give away too much, but I am “authorized” to reveal this:

The main guy, Seth, asks us to play the 18th birthday party of his buddy, Ben, who really loves Journey. Seth prefers Foreigner, so he asks us to play Foreigner tunes, instead — like “Waiting for a Girl Like You.” (on iTUNES!)

The OC folks even made posters to hang at The Bait Shop — the club where everyone parties on the show. You can see it — and some other pics Tim and I took — on our website or our myspace site

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Rust Belt urban smart-rock grit meets satiny SoCal sushi-burbs under a Forgeinger moon? Too bizarre for fiction – worth checking out.