Reunited local experimental rock band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum headlines UC Theatre
Reunited Oakland experimentalists Sleepytime Gorilla Museum play their first Bay Area show in 13 years when they top an epic five-band bill at the UC Theatre Saturday night.
While the group only emerged from a long period of dormancy last year, for a dozen years starting in 1999, the band rose to become one of the Bay Area's foremost purveyors of DIY avant-rock insanity, Principle players Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, vocals) and Dan Rathbun (bass, vocals) had history dating back to the mid-1980s, having started the similarly fractured ensemble Acid Rain with collaborator Gene Jun and several different drummers while they were UC Berkeley students living at notoriously debauched co-op Barrington Hall. By the turn of the decade, Acid Rain would morph into Idiot Flesh, a band that explored a heady mix of progressive rock, modern classical dissonance and corrosive metal over the course of three albums and extensive touring of underground venues across the U.S.
The ensemble's live shows featured the band members in corpse paint and elaborate (sometimes inflatable) costumes to go with a variety of dadaist theatrical elements including Punch and Judy puppetry, Japanese butoh dance and subversive philosophical lectures amid their mind-bending performances until the band played its final performance in 1998.
The following year, Frykdahl and Rathbun teamed with violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt -- a regular collaborator in fellow experimental band Charming Hostess -- along with latter era Idiot Flesh drummer Dave Shamrock and percussionist Moe Staiano to form Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The new group pushed the musicians' peculiar philosophy of "rock against rock" further into orbit, featuring increasingly complex vocal harmonies and counterpoint that recalled British prog-rock band Gentle Giant while embracing more extreme elements of black metal, avant-garde chamber music, industrial percussion. Rathbun's growing arsenal of outlandish homemade instruments including the "percussion guitar," the "sledgehammer dulcimer" and the "pedal-action wiggler" added to the band's unique sound as they mixed apocalyptic visions with absurdist humor.
Shamrock would part ways with the band during the recording of their first album Grand Opening and Closing that came out in 2001, with new drummer Frank Grau (who made his name leading improv outfit Species Being) taking over the drum stool. The band would follow up with a live album compiled from various performances around the Bay Area and elsewhere two years later before issuing its second studio effort of Natural History in 2004 via Web of Mimicry, the imprint run by like-minded musician Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3 fame.
During the recording of the album, Grau would make his exit during the production of that album, with former Skeleton Key drummer Matthias Bossi taking his place and contributing to the recording. Staiano left the band following the tour for the album and multi-instrumentalist Michael Iago Mellender took over the departing percussionist's role, solidifying the band line-up through the remainder of its initial existence.
SGM built an even larger devoted cult following as the band expanded its touring horizons, visiting Europe in 2007 as well as playing before bigger crowds on a co-headlining tour with Secret Chiefs 3 across North America the same year. They also released arguably Sleepytime's most ambitious album yet, In Glorious Times. Heavier and more dissonant and intense than the band's earlier recordings, the effort found Frykdahl drawing text from Irish modernist novelist and poet James Joyce's final book Finnigan's Wake for the lyrics of "Helpless Corpses Enactment" while Kihlstedt incorporated the work of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and American poet Wallace Stevens for her songs "Angel of Repose" and "The Only Dance."
The band had already commenced work on its fourth album in 2011 when the strain of bicoastal living -- Frykdahl, Rathbun and Mellender were in California, while Kihlstedt and Bossi, now married, were situated on the East Coast -- led Sleepytime to call it a day after several farewell shows. The musicians found other outlets, with Frykdahl, Rathbun, Mellender teaming with Shamrock and guitarist Drew Wheeler formed the experimental metal band Free Salamander Exhibit in 2013 that, while still plenty strange, took a somewhat more straightforward approach to heavy music, while Kihlstedt and Bossi worked together in their duo Rabbit Rabbit. Frykdahl also plays in his wife Dawn McCarthy's freak-folk act Faun Fables (a band that has grown to incorporate their children) and voiced the title character in the Adult Swim series Tigtone.
After a long period of silence, it was announced in 2016 that the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum back catalog would be pressed on vinyl for the first time by Finish imprint Blood Music. However, it wasn't until just over a year ago that cryptic rumblings on the band's social media pages indicated a proper reunion might be happening. The launch of a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the completion of both the band's unfinished fourth album of the Last Human Being and an accompanying short film as well as mounting a limited tour. The overwhelming response from fans who met the initial $75,000 goal in two days led to an stretch goal of an additional $25,000 for a more extensive road trip. The new album and the accompanying five weeks of live performances across the country, including featured dates as part of the experimental Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, have been met with an ecstatic response from fans and critics alike, many who never had a chance to see SGM in the flesh during their initial run.
For this special tour-ending homecoming show at the UC Theatre in Berkeley -- the same place where Acid Rain first bewildered audiences almost four decades ago -- Sleepytime will be joined by an array of forward-thinking acts. Cassette Prophet, the new all-star noise-rock project led by Steel Pole Bath Tub guitarist Mike Morasky and featuring former Neurosis keyboardist and Christ on Parade guitarist Noah Landis and onetime Idiot Flesh drummer Wes Anderson, will play main support. The aforementioned Faun Fables, Oakland-based Eastern European women's vocal group Kitka and Staiano's post-punk group Surplus 1980 round out the proceedings.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum with Cassette Prophet, Faun Fables, Kitka, and Surplus 1980
Saturday, April 6, 7 p.m. $27.50-$30
UC Theatre
