Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an experimental rock band from America, which was founded in Oakland (California ) in 1999.

Band History

After the band Idiot Flesh had dissolved, Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun founded together with Carla Kihlstedt from the band Charming Hostess ( which also Frykdahl and Rathbun played along ) the new band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum with the additional members David Shamrock on drums and Moe! Staiano is a percussionist. The first performance, which took place in Oakland on 22 June 1999, they played in front of a single so-called banana slug. In the following night, the band embarked on their first appearance in front of a human audience. During the recordings of the debut album Grand Opening and Closing drummer David Shamrock left the band and was replaced by Frank Gray. Gray was also the one who donated the first tour and the band managed.

Also, during the recording of the follow-up album Of Natural History, the drummer left the band. Gray was replaced by new drummer Matthias Bossi, who previously worked at Skeleton Key. Percussionist Moe! Staiano said goodbye to the subsequent tour, whose place it took Michael Melle Santander. The band signed a record deal with The End Records in January 2006., The label released the debut album Grand Opening and closing again, adding three additional tracks.

Shortly thereafter known given that a new album in the works was. This appeared in May 2007 and bears the name In Glorious Times. Before publishing an MP3 and a music video was already available.

On 15 February 2011 the band announced that they will disband after the completion of her fourth studio album, The Last Human Being, as well as a short film under the same title and a live DVD.

Name

According to interviews as well as the very detailed liner notes of the first album 's name comes from " Sleepytime Gorilla Museum " originally by a small group of Dadaists, Futurists, and artists, the Sleepytime Gorilla Press called themselves and the beginning of the 20th century, possessed a device which they are referred to himself as a " museum of the future ", which was "non- historic".

That museum was opened on June 22, 1916 (and thus on the same date as the first concert of the band, 83 years later). The exhibition represented a fire that caused great chaos and confusion among people become aware. The following day the museum was closed again ( which the name of the debut album alludes ). The name of the museum comes apparently from a poem called " Of the Future Hides the Past ", which was written by the Museum members Lala Rolo and Ikk Ygg.

Style

The music from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum can be described very roughly with avant-garde rock, Avantprog or avant-garde metal. However, it can not strictly classify the music, so you have to usually call different bands, so that a rough idea can result. Often, inter alia, in this context, Mr. Bungle, Thinking Plague, Univers Zéro and King Crimson called.

In the live shows of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum frequently puppet shows, pseudo- scientific presentations and performances by members of the Butoh group inkBoat be incorporated.

The band invents and builds many instruments himself Dan Rathbun, who designed most of the idiosyncratic instruments, playing, among others, the so-called slide - piano log, which consists of a single piano string and has a length of about 2 meters. You play it with two batons: The one in the left hand is used to Frets, and the other one strikes the string, thus creating the sound.

The instruments of the percussionist Michael Melle Santander consist of kitchenware, dustbin lids and other metal objects that it finds, and which he used as a complement to traditional percussion instruments. One of the more famous instruments that used the belt, Moe was! Staianos " Popping Turtle " ( this can be in the song " Sleep Is Wrong" from about 1:21 to hear ).

Discography

• Grand Opening and Closing ( album, 2001)
• Live ( CD, 2003 )
• Of Natural History ( album, 2004)
• The Face ( Live DVD, 2005)
• Grand Opening and Closing ( Re-release, 2006)
• In Glorious Times (Album, 2007)