herrsatan | Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

So Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is my new favorite band ever. My friend Ben invited me to their show at the last minute on Sunday at the Middle East Down.

Their opening act was Stinking Lizaveta, who play what can only be described as doom jazz. Just crazy shit - fast, weird time signature and dynamic changes, lots of modes and Eastern scales. Their bassist played an electric upright bass that he made himself, and he played ridiculously fast Iron Maiden-style galloping shit on it that I couldn't play on a bass guitar with a pick. The drummer made the most ridiculous faces I've ever seen. Every drum had its own specific face. When she hit her snare it was kind of a snarl, and when she was on her ride cymbal she made a face like that retarded talking keyhole in the Alice in Wonderland cartoon. And the guitarist did 3 of the craziest things I've ever seen a guitarist do, all during one song.
1. During a song he jumped down into the audience and handed some random guy his guitar, and then jumped back on stage and started "dancing".
2. When he retrieved his guitar, as well as when he took it off, he continued playing the entire time. This is harder than it sounds.
3. After he got his guitar back, he unplugged it and started using the sound of his fingers opening and closing a circuit on the cable still plugged into the amp to make weird rhythmic distorted noises which somehow made sense with what the rhythm section was doing.
Also, there was no singing. Occasionally the guitarist would yell into the pickup of his guitar, which if you've never heard it is an interesting sound.
At one point during the show, some random guy yelled out, "LSD!!" and everyone in the band simultaneously smiled knowingly and said nothing. But they did have the best stage banter. Example:
Guitarist: "This song is called 'I'm sick of the war'!"
(smattering of applause and cheers)
Bassist: "It's also called 'Willie Nelson'. It has two names."

And then it was time for Sleepytime. Their entrance alone was enough to make it the best show ever. They gathered in the back of the hall and approached the stage in a procession, waving a flag and playing wind instruments and hand drums. They broke into several verses of Sumer is Icumen In while standing right in front of me.

Here's a picture of Nils, the lead(ish) singer:

And then the madness began.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum plays music that is truly unclassifiable. It's somewhere between thrash metal and pointillist or twelve-tone music, with some jazz and folk thrown in. Everyone in the band plays at least 3 instruments, ranging from violin and metal percussion to bizarre instruments with names like the wiggler, the auto-bass log,* and electric pancreas. Most of these were invented by the bass player, who also engineers and mixes their albums. As if that wasn't inaccessible enough, their newest album also has a song whose lyrics are entirely comprised of lines from Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. No, I'm not kidding. But somehow, it works. Their songs are often poignantly beautiful while being dissonant, angular and dense. Their level of musicality is truly awe-inspiring, and they bring a sense of theater to the proceedings.
On this night, it was the bassist and drummer's birthday. During their encore, in the middle of the bridge, 3 or 4 people in white robes and devil masks rushed the stage and forcibly shoved kazoos into everyone's mouths. They also put jumbo novelty-sized mardi gras beads around the bassist and drummer's necks. Then they threw handfuls of kazoos into the audience while paper and confetti flew through the air. As if on cue, the band and audience members began playing the Happy Birthday song on their kazoos. A moment of reflection, and then the band picked up on the note where they left off on and finished kicking our asses with music.

*Damn you, serial comma!