Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Promotional Photo
Origin Oakland, California
Country United States
Years active 1999–Present
Genres Art Rock
Experimental Music
Theatre
Performance Art
Labels The End Records
Members Matthias Bossi, drums, glockenspiel, xylophone, vocals
Nils Frykdahl, guitars, flutes, vocals
Carla Kihlstedt, violins, percussion guitar, autoharp, organ, vocals
Michael Mellender, percussion, assorted melodic instruments,vocals
Dan Rathbun, bass, log, trombone, lute, vocals
Past members Frank Grau, drums, 2001-2004
David Shamrock, drums, 1999-2001
Moe! Staiano, percussion, 1999-2004

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is a rock band / performance ensemble that was formed in 1999 in Oakland, CA.

Contents

[edit] Performance & Stage Persona

The band tours frequently. They have played often in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles Area, but also have travelled other parts of the U.S. by tour bus. Their live performances have featured puppet shows, pseudo-scientific scholarly presentations, and performances by members of the Butoh group inkBoat.

The band uses many homemade devices as instruments, such as the Viking Rowboat.[1] Dan Rathbun - who has created the lion's share of the band's idiosyncratic instruments - plays, among other self-made instruments (though he uses a common bass guitar most of the time), a custom stringed bass instrument referred to as Piano Log, which uses piano strings and is possibly more than 7 feet long; it is played with two sticks: one in the left hand generally used as a fret, and another in the right hand to strike the strings. Percussionist Michael Mellender's instruments consist of restaurant kitchen equipment, trash can lids, and other "found" metal objects, in addition to traditional percussion instruments. One of the more infamous instruments used by the band was Moe! Staiano's Popping Turtle (now residing in Brooklyn, NY[2]). It can be heard in the song "Sleep is Wrong", about 1:21 into the song.

SGM's music can be roughly likened as something akin to avant-rock or avant-prog, but it practically escapes any rigorous categorization so that people usually have to name-drop different kinds of bands in order to give some sort of scope or conception of what they sound like. Some names that have come up in reviewers' texts include Mr. Bungle, Thinking Plague, Univers Zéro, White Zombie, Änglagård, King Crimson, Gwar, and so on;[3] while not excessively naming bands in his review of SGM's second album Of Natural History, David Moore of Pitchfork Media thinks, in the same swoop, that SGM's debut album Grand Opening and Closing was an amalgam of Meshuggah and Secret Chiefs 3, resulting in "some truly cracked prog-metal anthems."[4]

As of January 2006, the band has signed to The End Records and plans to release a new album in March 2007.[1] A reissue of the first album, Grand Opening and Closing, with three previously unreleased tracks, has been released on September 5, 2006.[5]

The band has confirmed through their official MySpace site that they will tour North America and Europe in March and April in support of their forthcoming album (of which there is no official information out yet).[6]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Trivia

  • SGM claim to have performed their first live gig in front of an audience that consisted of a single banana slug and their friends.[7]

[edit] Related Projects

  • The Book of Knots: Bossi; 2004
    • Kihlstedt appears on one cut.
    • Arclight Records AR05
  • Charming Hostess: Frykdahl, Rathbun, Kihlstedt; "Charming Hostess: Big Band" (1998?)
  • Faun Fables:' Frykdahl; 1999-current
  • Idiot Flesh: Fryldahl, Rathbun; 1985-1999
  • Immersion Composition Society: Mellender (co-founder), Rathbun, Kihlstedt, Bossi; 2001 - Present
  • inkBoat: Frykdahl, Rathbun;
  • MOE!KESTRA!: Staiano; 1997 - current
  • Skeleton Key: Bossi; date?
  • Species Being: Grau;
  • Thin Pillow: by David Shamrock; 2004
    • Kihlstedt appears on two cuts
    • Includes alternate arrangement of "Ambugaton", performed by SGM on "Grand Opening And Closing"
  • Thinking Plague: Shamrock;
  • Tin Hat Trio: Kihlstedt; 2000-2004
  • Two Foot Yard: Kihlstedt; 2005-current

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b http://www.sleepytimegorillamuseum.com/history.html
  2. ^ http://www.sleepytimegorillamuseum.com/moe/sleepytimegorillamuseum.html
  3. ^ http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=sgm-goac
  4. ^ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22317/Sleepytime_Gorilla_Museum_Of_Natural_History
  5. ^ http://www.sleepytimegorillamuseum.com/news.html
  6. ^ http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=11787896&blogID=191037238&MyToken=86aa4f92-64c8-4021-b276-b8d5949a6a65
  7. ^ "The first performance of the revived SGM, June 22 1999, was done for the benefit of a single banana-slug in an abandoned Newberry's department store in downtown Oakland. Humans were allowed the following night." (Grand Opening and Closing, liner notes, p. 112.)

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/l/e/Sleepytime_Gorilla_Museum_a449.html"
In other languages