It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here on Rocks Off we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers.
At my day job I have a coworker who makes fun of me because I like what he calls "primitive minimalist" music. By that he means that doesn't see the appeal in a band like the Legendary Pink Dots which is mostly droning weirdness that can't decide on jazz or pop so does both while making exactly no sense at all.
Cosmic Bug Loaf reminds me of that... at least if LPD had Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar. It's a bluesy psychedelic explosion that shows off some tremendous skill on the strings but really gets going by invading your mind like a fever dream. Take a song like "Springwell," which is equal parts hard blues jam and caterwauling call to the elder gods. You fall through the haze they produce, going mad all the way. I bet someone gets murdered to this band one day. It just feels like that's going to happen.
But that name...
Cosmic Bug Loaf... seriously? It's like they asked mushrooms what a good band name is. Don't get me wrong, they play the exact kind of music you would expect a band called Cosmic Bug Loaf to play, but it almost too perfectly screams, "We will blow your mind, maaaaaaaaaaaan!"
There had to be more to that, so I sent off an email looking for answers from the band.
"The name arose from a combination of deep infinite space and the wise words of Shatner," was the reply I got. I don't know what I was expecting, really.
Sucks to be CBL, though, because I know exactly what they mean. It's all about Kingdom of Spiders, a '70s big-bug flick that Shatner starred in back when he was still acting rather than just playing William Shatner. It's a good nature-gone-wild horror film that doesn't have any of the playfulness of Arachnophobia, instead going with visceral screaming and horrific (If not very gory) death. They released a good letterbox DVD a while back, so it's not that hard to find.
Spoiler, though, in the end Shatner and the survivors are holed up in a hunting lodge waxing philosophically and hiding from spiders. The camera pans away to see that their entire town has been overrun with webs. The spiders win, and it's only a matter of time until our man Will and his friends are cocooned and consumed as cosmic (Star Trek) bug (Spiders) loaves (Food) themselves. All the Cosmic Bug Loaf stands for is that the world will be eaten and changed as the madness of spider death overtakes us all.
So you see, hippies! I deduced the truth. Now get back out there and make some more brain damage so I forget I know all this.
FINAL DEFINITION Cosmic Bug Loaf (n): 1. Bluesy psychedelia. 2. The death of Shatner. 3. A hippie code.
Cosmic Bug Loaf plays Springboard South on Saturday, June 22 at Warehouse Live with Hazy Ray, Jesse Roach, Clinton Ashley, VerseCity, Branden Mendoza, Celeste Kellogg, Mike Terror, Dewey Wayne, Sophi, Rainchild, Abby Gough, Celestial Centerfold, Black Queen Speaks, The Dead C Scales, and Last Ones Left.
Jef With One F is a recovering rock star taking it one day at a time. You can read about his adventures in The Bible Spelled Backwards or connect with him on Facebook.
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