Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

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Oakland, California, USA (1999 – present)

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum formed in 1999 in Oakland, California, USA. The band was founded by Nils Frykdahl (guitars, flutes, vocals) and Dan Rathbun (bass, log, trombone, lute, vocals) of the band Idiot Flesh, with Carla Kihlstedt (violins, percussion guitar, autoharp, organ, bulbul, vocals) of Tin Hat Trio, 2 Foot Yard and The Book of Knots, after the three worked together in Charming Hostess. Matthias Bossi (drums, glockenspiel, xylophone, vocals) and Michael Mellender (percussion, assorted melodic instruments, vocals) both joined in 2004. Previous members include percussionist Moe! Staiano, founding drummer David Shamrock, and drummer/manager Frank Grau.

The band tour the U.S. frequently in a renovated vintage Green Tortoise bus, and their live performances have featured puppet shows, pseudo-scientific scholarly presentations, and performances by members of the Butoh group inkBoat. SGM’s music has been categorized as anything from avant-prog to art rock to experimental metal to rio (Rock In Opposition). Many reviewers have remarked that the group is altogether unclassifiable.

The band uses many homemade devices as instruments, such as the viking row-boat and the spring-nail guitar. Rathbun plays a stringed bass instrument of his own construction called The Log which uses piano strings and is perhaps 7 feet long; it is played with two sticks: one in the left hand generally used as a fret, another in the right hand striking the strings.

Tagged as:

avant-garde, experimental, progressive metal, avant-garde metal, progressive rock
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Top Albums

Of Natural History
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Buy at Web of Mimicry ($14.00)
In Glorious Times
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
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Grand Opening and Closing
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
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Grand Opening And Closing!
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
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Top Tracks

1	Phthisis full track	153
2	Helpless Corpses Enactment	145
3	The Companions	143
4	A Hymn to the Morning Star full track	138
5	Angle of Repose	134
6	Sleep Is Wrong full track	131
7	Puppet Show	121
8	Bring Back the Apocalypse full track	119
9	Formicary	111
10	The Donkey-headed Adversary of Humanity Opens the Discussion full track	108
11	Ossuary	98
12	Cockroach full track	92
13	Ambugaton full track	90
14	The 17-Year Cicada full track	86
15	Gunday's Child full track	82

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BeauxJangles wrote:
yesterday evening

I was actually referring to the new new song Standing Still which punxtr said is Michael's. And Michael Mellender got the writing credit for the Widening Eye which is the best song ever so I think he's great a composer.

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Malamuitten wrote:
yesterday afternoon

You're presumably referring to Salamander? I, for one, can't stand Michael Mellender's contribution to SGM. His seemingly arbitrary, yet contrapuntally coherent progressions make the music sound like synthetic shit to me. The clever compositions and the very fine understanding they had of how to construct sound, evident on GOaC and to an even greater extent on ONH, is lost somewhere. It's a shame - Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are among my all time favorites.

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BeauxJangles wrote:
yesterday morning

holy fuck this new song. Michael Mellender is a genius.

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punxtr wrote:
Sunday morning

The thing with Sleepytime is that they don't seem to try and veer away from the sickness of humanity, only recognize it and discuss it. A sort of position where you criticize your races evils yet acknowledge your own participation in them.

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Etothe3 wrote:
Saturday morning

SF show was spellbinding. The whole crowd was in awe, not making a sound until the last note of every song was played. Then, we erupted. I love this band, and was still blown away by the live performance. I can't wait to see them again! But on another note, what is this about babies? Lead by example! Or just make cool music without such a hypocritical message.

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punxtr wrote:
Friday evening

Here's a nice matrix recording of that show at Neumos: http://www.archive.org/details/sgm2009-11-12.flac16 Check out Michael's new song!

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radioastrolog wrote:
Thursday morning

darshun - thanks for bootleg!

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alTerngOth wrote:
last week

Y_Y

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Tommytwo wrote:
last month

dada-metal

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amand_uhh wrote:
last month

si, I thank you also for playing Eugene! you all are magic...

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Please_Go_Die wrote:
last month

Thank you for playing Eugene!! The show was spectacular!!

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punxtr wrote:
last month

no problem

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darshun wrote:
last month

http://el1011.com/SGM/SGM.html live Sleepytime @ the Keyclub! Enjoy, thanks Punxtr fer yer help!

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begily wrote:
last month

when will this awesome band come to the UK?

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punxtr wrote:
October 2009

May possibly be the vocals. I don't feel like attaching a genre to any song or album of any act for that matter, but I will admit there is a different approach in composition and vocal delivery of the first album. I personally find the first album my favorite. It's strange, David Shamrock did the drums for both Acid Rain/Idiot Flesh's and SGM's first album. Nils has referred to him as a composer, and both times his influence makes the first album sound markedly different from the later albums.

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inimicalBASTARD wrote:
October 2009

i'm just about obsessed with "Of Natural History", but something about "Grand Opening and Closing" reminds me of nu-metal. Almost like i'm listening to disturbed or some other band of the like. Not all the tracks, just a few. I'm not bashing SGM, I love them, just an opinion.

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BeauxJangles wrote:
October 2009

very cool blog Darshun

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Biggstheclown wrote:
October 2009

i totally know which one your talking bout man.

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JBarracudaL wrote:
October 2009

I just got done seeing this two year old 13 part concert of these guys on youtube. All I've gotta say is that I'm disappointed in myself for not paying more attention to this group; they're dynamite. Also, <3 Carla

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snupy123 wrote:
October 2009

cool band

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