Sleepytime Gorilla Museum has a history. It is true, but it is not the one that they have published. They have a history of providing misinformation, not false, but simply irrelevant to the matter-at-hand. Their public statements continually deflect attention away from the fact that they are a group of musicians who travel the country in an old white bus, cooking and visiting National Monuments. Their name (and literary mannerism) is borrowed from an early 20th century American Futurist group associated with "black math"-ematician John Kane. This group was also not a museum, also quite mobile, and also dedicated to undermining bloated contemporary notions of freedom. They would like you to believe that they are the "fastest museum alive", but they are quite slow, rarely exceeding 55mph and dropping to a snail-like 22mph over the nation's many hills: a relaxed pace befitting a 14-ton mass of machine and blood.
Their instrumental array shifts from song to song, including many homemade devices suggestive of the avant-garde, but they are thoroughgoing populists, warmly regarding their varied audiences and embracing their role as entertainers. Though not without humor, their often wide-ranging musical choices are rarely ironic. They love rock. They hate rock: Rock against Rock.
In this tradition they were preceded by Oakland-based bands Idiot Flesh and Charming Hostess, which brought together Museum members Carla Kihlstedt (violin +), Dan Rathbun (bass +), and Nils Frykdahl (guitar +). In 1999 they wrote with drummer/composer David Shamrock and percussion tornado Moe! Staiano and debuted in the summer of the year for a single well-lit (it's true) bananna-slug. "Higher" species were allowed the second night. From the outset they were wary of allowing their propensity for composition to supercede the primacy of texture and emotion. To what extent they have failed in this regard is a matter for you, the commenter.* With the ascension of Frank Grau of Species Being to the drum throne in 2001, the band became an active touring show and co-released "Grand Opening and Closing" on Frank's Chaosophy and Seeland. The intervening years have been filled with driving and identifying oak-varieties in virtually all regions of the country, for which they have developed fondnesses, finding fine and generous folds everywhere. Increasing abuse of their own material, improvisation and babble are documented on 2003's Live album released on Chicago's Sickroom records. As of this writing, Frank has relinquished the drums but is continuing to act as manager because he is an insoluble pancake of a man. Their forthcoming album on the Web of Mimicry label will treat religious themes and growling under the provisional title "Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of Natural History". They have portrayed various animals, none winged, but the new drummer Matthais Bossi of Skeleton Key says he is "ready to roost". It's true.
The list of related projects reads like a who's who of SGM related projects:
Carla: Tin Hat Trio, Two-Foot Yard, Ink Boat dance theater company ... Nils: Faun Fables, Ink Boat Moe!: Moe!kestra! (massive conducted ensembles), Vacuum Tree Head Dan: Inkboat, Faun Fables, producing SGM and countless others