Sleepytime Gorilla Museum | Artist
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an American experimental rock band formed 1999 in Oakland, California by Nils Frykdahl (guitar, bells, autoharp, flute, vocals), Dan Rathbun (bass, slide piano log, musical bow, autoharp, trombone, lute, vocals), Carla Kihlstedt (violin, nyckelharpa, guitar, autoharp, organ, harmonica, vocals), Moe! Staiano (percussion, marimba, guitar, objects, timpani, glockenspiel), and David Shamrock (drums, piano). Staiano and Shamrock departed in 2004 and are replaced by Matthias Bossi and Michael Mellender aka The Lower Animals. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music, which is written around themes of fictitious stories of dada artists and mathematicians. The band formed after the dissolution of Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun's earlier band Idiot Flesh. They joined with Carla Kihlstedt - with whom Frykdahl and Rathbun had played in the band Charming Hostess - to form Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, along with percussionists Moe! Staiano and David Shamrock. The band name "Sleepytime Gorilla Museum" comes from a small group of Dadaists, Futurists, and artists from 1916 named the Sleepytime Gorilla Press. The group owned and operated what they called a "museum of the future" which was "anti-artifact, non-historical and closed." In keeping with dadaist ideals, the band's live performances have featured puppet shows, pseudo-scientific scholarly presentations, and performances by members of the Butoh group inkBoat. Their very first performance, on June 22, 1999, was given to an audience of a single banana slug (Ariolimax dolichophallus). The following night's performance was their first to a human audience. As a recording outfit, the band has to-date released only four studio albums: Grand Opening and Closing (2001), Of Natural History (2004), In Glorious Times (2007), and the long awaited Of the Last Human Being (2024). All their output, while maybe not to mainstream musical tastes, is artistically very special. Guitarist Tony Levin, known for his work with prog pioneers King Crimson and with Peter Gabriel, stated that he is a "huge fan" of the band, who he cites as a major influence on his collaborative project, Stick Men. One insightful review in RYM describes Sleepytime Gorilla Museum as "entering the world of progressive experimental rock and avant-garde metal in late 2001 like a band of freaks who misbehave in the midst of the law abiding citizens of anywhere small town USA, upsetting the apple cart like a John Waters film suddenly finding itself being played on the Christian TV network."
Artist Website: wikipedia/Sleepytime_Gorilla_Museum
Featured Albums: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Related Artists: Carla Kihlstedt, Nils Frykdahl, Acid Rain, Charming Hostess, Faun Fables
