[DID NOT ATTEND: March 16, 2024] Sleepytime Gorilla Museum / Stinking Lizaveta / Zoë Keating
Underground Arts had a special year-end sale. 12 future shows for $18 each. It’s a good deal if you plan to go to a lot of shows there. And I find myself wanting to go to more and more shows there.
Well, my cost per show went up a bit because I wound up not going to this show. My son was home from college, and that more important that checking out this strange band, although I would still like to see them sometime.
I actually only even paid any attention to this show because Stinking Lizaveta was opening for them. They are a local Philly band that I have yet to see, but who I have missed now about six times.
This lineup was pretty fascinating.
Zoë Keating opened the show. I have discovered that she recently played at ArtYard in Frenchtown and I’m going to want to check her out live. Here’s her bio
I am a cellist and composer, born in Canada and currently based in Vermont. I use live sampling and repetition to layer the sound of my cello and create rhythmically dense, immersive music. I’m known for both my use of technology – which I use to sample my cello onstage – and for my DIY approach, releasing my music without the help of a record label. In addition to performing, I also write music for TV, film and dance.
After the cellist was Stinking Lizaveta. And a much more dramatic shift I can’t imagine:
Stinking Lizaveta’s instrumental post-rock draws as much on Sabbath as it does on Sonic Youth or Slint. By combining a stoner/doom metal edge with jazz, the precision and repetition of math rock, and the blasting assault of early Black Flag, Stinking Lizaveta — their name is derived from a Dostoevsky character in The Brothers Karamazov — come on with a sound all their own.
Fortunately, they are based on Philly so I’m sure I’ll see them one of these days.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum actually seems to meld the two openers into one. I hadn’t heard of them but when I saw the blurb about them I knew I wanted to see them live. I’d probably never listen to them on record, but a live show sounds amazing.
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. Some critics have compared the band — which hails from Oakland, California — to one of the quirkiest bands of all time, Mr. 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). Strange costumes, makeup, and instruments that are both traditional and homemade turn out to be some of the key ingredients to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who have built a sizable cult following along the way. Comprised of members — deep breath now — Matthias Bossi (drums, glockenspiel, xylophone, vocals), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, vocals), Carla Kihlstedt (violin, percussion guitar, autoharp, organ, vocals), Michael Mellender (percussion, assorted melodic instruments, vocals), and Dan Rathbun (bass, piano log, trombone, lute, vocals), SGM originally formed in 1999.
Their music is manic and crazy–although I don’t really like the growly vocals. But I’ll bet they’re wild live.
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