Cobra Lounge pulls plug on show featuring Texas band accused of anti-Semitism

By Rachel Frazin

Cobra Lounge, 235 N. Ashland Ave. | Google Maps photo

The Cobra Lounge pulled the plug on a Friday night concert after learning one of the featured bands has faced allegations of anti-Semitism in their death metal catalog.

The popular Near West Side rock club wrote in a Facebook post hours before the scheduled show that members of the Texas group Hellvetron had used “anti-Semitic rhetoric,” with the Cobra Lounge saying “we cannot support even the slightest claim of racism or social divisiveness of any kind.

“We have already received threatening messages from Nazi supporting entities, and we are fine with that,” the club wrote. “All but the hateful are welcome in our house.”

Hellvetron’s song “Ritual Genocide” appears on a compilation album called “Satanic Skinhead: Declaration Of Anti-Semetic [sic] Terror.” They’ve drawn notoriety for bizarre on-stage antics, including self-mutilation.

The El Paso band could not be reached for comment through Facebook.

Cobra Lounge general manager Louie Mendicino said a friend texted him about the band Thursday night, and after doing some research, he decided to cancel the show.

“They don’t have swastika armbands, but they’re way too closely tied to entities that do for me to feel comfortable hosting them,” he said.

Mendicino said the show had been organized through an outside promoter. He said he asked the promoter to pull the band, but the promoter refused, so Mendicino scrapped the whole show.

Before hearing about the cancellation, Chicago musician Laura Jane Grace had joined a growing chorus of Twitter users calling on the Cobra Lounge to pull the band from the bill.

Grace quote-tweeted another user who wrote “Cobra Lounge is hosting a Nazi band tonight and some of us who love your tunes in Chicago aren’t too pleased. Help us spread the word and get Hellvetron out of that venue??”