Hellvetron

Hellvetron show cancelled with Laura Jane Grace's help (but not in NYC)

Chicago venue Cobra Lounge cancelled a show featuring controversial black metal band Hellvetron after an outcry on social media over the band’s alleged anti-Semitism. Twitter user @caseadilla_12 alerted Against Me’s Laura Jane Grace to Hellvetron’s scheduled November 16 Cobra Lounge show, a couple of days before Laura herself had a show at the same venue with her new project Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers on Sunday (11/18). Once Laura got involved, the cancellation happened pretty quickly.

Cobra Lounge posted a message to Facebook about the cancellation:

Tonight’s show has been canceled. We were recently made aware of some anti-Semitic rhetoric in regards to one of the bands on tonight’s bill and we cannot support even the slightest claim of racism or social divisiveness of any kind. We pride ourselves on diversity and cultural development of unifying nature. We have already received threatening messages from Nazi supporting entities and we are fine with that. We apologize for inconveniencing any ticket holders but our stance is firm. All but the hateful are welcome in our house.

With love, The Cobra Lounge.

Hellvetron responded on their own Facebook page:

Hellvetron will return to Chicago believe that. To the gallows to all you shit taking idiots, all you can do is hide behind your keyboards, you people ain’t about shit and will never do shit about it; we are not at all afraid of you, and welcome you to show up to our shows and stop being cowards behind social media with your empty threats. You can all go on and say what you want. All I see is a bunch of white people attacking us minorities; you are the ones who are fascists. Do some real research on Hellvetron’s lyrics. You won’t find one thing about anti-Semitism. You morons can kiss our Mexican asses.

Hellvetron, whose fans often defend their alleged anti-semitism as “anti-religion,” most notably appear on the compilation Satanic Skinhead: Declaration of Anti-Semitic Terror, put out by sketchy label Satanic Skinhead Productions. They also share members with Mexican black metal band Nyogthaeblisz, who are even more notorious and have been dropped from shows because of their anti-Islamic/Semitic/Abrahamic stance, as well as their involvement with Satanic Skinhead Productions (and being on the same comp). At a 2017 Philly show, Nyogthaeblisz billed themselves as Hellvetron to trick the venue into letting them play once word got out that it was specifically “Nyogthaeblisz” that was the problem. More recently, Nyogthaeblisz performed at NJ club Dingbatz despite supposedly being pulled from the lineup after antifa got involved.

Hellvetron’s cancelled Cobra Lounge show was part of a November tour with Irkallian Oracle, and other dates also had trouble holding on to venues. The Oakland, CA show originally scheduled at the Golden Bull was moved to the Elbo Room Jack London, and the Seattle, WA show was moved from The Highline to Subspace and finally to a bar in Tacoma, WA. An NYC show, originally booked at Music Stage Train, happened on Saturday (11/17) night at Pista Bandas Unidas in Queens. And despite word getting out after the Chicago show cancellation, it did go on as planned (probably partially because people missed that the NYC venue changed at some point):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqVEHv7nFqg/