Inside Baseball

How The Cobbs became The Cobbs (and why you should listen to them).


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Published: Dec 13, 2006

Paul Nicgorski and Ryan Bernstein wrapped up their time as Mazarin members weeks ago. Though the occasion was weirdly sad — retiring a name due to a legal wrangle with another Mazarin — a joyful night at Johnny Brenda's was had by all. "I noticed lots of people laughing," says Bernstein about the finale of Quentin Stoltzfus' dream-pop ensemble. "It was one of those nights you didn't want to end." Nothing's over. "Someday soon Quentin'll give us our usual three-day heads-up for a show," says Bernstein. (Under what name is still undecided.)

The Cobbs is Paul Cobb and Ryan Cobb's priority now — a rock band with a darker, harder, more heartbroken edge than Mazarin. They just dropped the last, most potent disc of 2006, The Cobbs Sing the Deathcapades.

And they know all about the band-name-custody thing. See, the Bucks County natives were proudly known as Ty Cobb in 1999. Are you sitting down?

That was after breaking up their previous band Trip 66 — the one with Paul's sister, Maria, singing. There's lots of Philly band history to be found in Trip 66 and Ty Cobb. "Of the seven members of the combined bands that are Eastern Conference Champions and Illinois, five did tours of duty in Ty Cobb and two of those five played in Trip 66," says Paul Cobb.

OK, but back to Ty Cobb. That vicious, Flaming Lipsy band made a CD Trophies for Lovemaking and an EP 7y Co66 that got released on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Abstract Dragon label. Ryan and Paul met BRMC at the Khyber when both bands opened for The Strokes. Ty Cobb toured the U.K. and became NME darlings. As a result of the EP they got a record deal from Loog/Polydor and a reported $500,000 publishing deal from EMI. "What can I say, they loved our songs, and wanted to give us lots of o' pounds," says Ryan. "Not a half a mil', but very generous."

THE TY THE BINDS: Paul Cobb (left) and Ryan Cobb (right) are both Mazarin and Ty Cobb alums, so they know all about the legal name game.

: Michael T. Regan

Those Cobbs were big in England. Certainly, American success would follow. Then Ty called. The real one. The dead one. The estate of the legendarily nasty baseball player phoned.

To keep the name "Ty Cobb" the band would've had to pay lawyers boatloads of money to fight old dead Ty's estate. "Our lawyer at the time was a big shot," says Ryan. "For him to say, 'Change the fuckin' name,' meant change the name. I guess holding it would've become a nightmare. Maybe Ty's grandson would have come after us with a shotgun."

Or a bat. So they became the sweeter, swishier Mad Action. EMI owned part of the publishing for the Mad Action record ... And Begin. The name was mildly OK by Ty Cobb standards. "I realized I didn't like 'Mad Action' when I told a girl our band's name at a bar," says Paul.

"I thought, 'Crap, I don't like the way that sounds.' Ryan and I talk softly and mumble. When you have to yell your band name in somebody's ear at a loud bar, it sounds like 'Man Action.'"

So the Mad Action era was over. A dose of the old black rebel Ty Cobb sound needed to return to the mix. "We were going through changes: band members, management, lifestyle, songwriting," says Ryan.

After the disaster of a major-label deal gone wrong and recording in a big studio, it was time to go back to their small, squalid, lo-fi fuzzed-out comfort zone. "Our studio," says Paul. "It's never done no wrong."

So The Cobbs sing the Death-capades with Ryan Smith, Chris Coello and Maxwell Lee behind them. And the new songs are filled with bloodbaths, heartaches and headaches, death, love and loss. They recorded it throughout the past two years between Mazarin tours. During this time, The Cobbs lost a best friend and the most polite guy in the world, Geoff Doring of Latimer.

The Cobbs confess that it's Dor-ing's spirit that guides Death-capades — from its torn-up lyrics to the dense trickling organs that surround-sound the clammy glam-sounding "Climb on Top," the nearly sunny "Don't Walk" and the twisted, harmony-laced love song "Go."

"For some people, leaving and starting over is the only answer," says Ryan of the lyrics to that last song.

Life is too short not to start over. Life is too short, period. The majority of Deathcapades speaks directly to Doring and to celebrating death. "But to celebrating life too," says Ryan. "There's no time to waste."

After seven years of dead men's estates and rotten band names, for The Cobbs, there's no time like the future.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

The Cobbs play Fri., Dec. 22, 9:30 p.m., $8, with The War on Drugs and Bottom of the Hudson, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, www.johnnybrendas.com.