Bungle, and they may have a point (after all, like Bungle, SGM are not opposed to any musical style, and one of their albums was originally released by a label run by an ex-Bungle member, Trey Spruance). Some critics have compared the band - which hails from Oakland, California - to one of the quirkiest bands of all time, Mr. Show starts at 9pm, $12 advance/$14 door.Performance art, art rock, experimental rock, heavy metal - all are styles of music that have been used to explain one of the more hard to explain bands in all of rock, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s thunder descends on The Independent (the black-as-pitch theater square in the heart of Western Addition) on Saturday, March 19th with openers, 3 Piece Combo.
#SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM FULL#
Disneyland-when-you’re-6-years-old level fun.Īnd the fact that they managed to get a full house to sing a strange song in an archaic tongue while sneaking in that stale drinking song as a melody is a testament to how these folks, above all else, consistently elicit the dormant enthusiasm of the music lovers of San Francisco. Quite a brilliant gesture that was for at the cross of honoring tradition and respecting the critical upchuck of cynicism towards such a brutally co-opted ditty that evokes drunk dads and football stadiums more than anything else, The Museum found a third point, a nexus that represented the re-invention and the rebirth of a tradition. Indeed, that very New Year’s Eve they paid their respects to that tried and true musical ritual, the sing-a-long, leading the audience into a rendition of a traditional Gaelic ballad that evolved to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” Sleepytime are perfectly aware of the intention of their ritual, the least of which involves wasting any of your valuable time. Scoffers and skeptics beware: there is nothing “experimental” about this music. Navigating toward the heart of the sun, her being the only one who knows its precise whereabouts, is local goddess Carla Kihlstedt of Tin Hat Trio, Tom Waits and Two Foot Yard fame on vocals, small percussives and that violin. Balancing the affair is ensemble director Moe! Staiano and Matthias Bossi of the great Skeleton Key (who are likely incapable of writing a bad song) sharing percussives. At his side is Dan Rathbun, pitching the ship with aforementioned amplified string and sub-harmonic rumble. Nils Frykdahl (also of Faun Fables) captains the excursion, guitar in hand and venom at the fore.
To what end this design? The father of SF’s Mimicry label (where SGM calls home), Trey Spruance puts it well: “Appearing on the one hand to be a post-modern Apocalyptic cult, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum delight in setting folksy allegorical tales of auto-genocide and the species-wide doom we all face to breathtakingly strange and compelling musical compositions.”įortunately their pan-dimensional vision is in capable hands. Looking like extra-terrestrial pygmies hosting the heavy metal tent at Sun Ra’s astral circus, they made merry with a variety of homemade instruments (including an amplified piano string running the length of a two by four played with a drumstick – it sounds weirder than it looks), sheet metal, war paint.and a violin.
Last I saw them was at the Bottom of the Hill, ostensibly ushering in 2004 on Earth but it just as well could have been 3012 on Cygnus X-1. I am excited to see Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (herein referred to as Sleepytime or The Museum) perform this Saturday night at the Independent in much the same way I was excited to go to Disneyland as a kid.įor attending a Sleepytime performance constitutes immersion into a world unto itself, with its own conditions and standards apart from our common drudge.
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