JOHN: So how do you wanna do this review?ĪARON: Like you said: whip out your pad and write down everything you see. And while leaning against the tilt-fearing pinball machines of the Larimer Lounge, the idea struck me, and with our caustic cheer of superhero conviction, we started the night:ĪARON: If we do this, John, you have to promise me one thing. John suggested we take copious notes, which sounded wise and reasonable. In our eternal habit of devising plans, we realized we needed a direction, a path to follow. So I did just that, and it was like pre-empting serendipity.īut just how did my brother and I kick-off this night of musical indulgences and bizarre haircuts? And how would Sleepytime come to prove to me that manipulation is the ultimate form of creation, thus, in turn, slathering a positive connotation on the word 'manipulation?' But I would have to realize that I'd have to do that before I ever realized that that is just what needed to be done. The only way to describe this band would be to create wild word-disparities and wholly new experiences that would annoy the hell out of spontaneity. So, now, just what the hell is Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, you ask? I know no designed associations or past experiences to which to relate this band. We were Sleepytime's collective instrument, and it was orgasmic to feel them play us like a well-oiled machine. The most impressive instrument the group masterfully played, and without taking for granted, was the audience. They work with a well-tuned, unashamed purpose that's meant for me to experience and for Sleepytime to create. The band works with a freedom that some could call reckless abandon, which would be wrong. Afterward, they unleashed us in a stupendous clamor to spread their gospel in a holy fervor of religious objectivity. And not the court of white people but a court of jesters and merrymakers. Every member of the band obliterated the audience with abject creativity and courtly confidence. Then they lead us into chants about dumplings and goats and wild cheers for the expanses of Wyoming and Oklahoma, the words to which I fail to recall in totality due to my drunken stupor. Can't it? Sleepytime's art destroyed every conventional idea I'd ever thought or read. I thought to myself: the phrase "sleepytime gorilla museum" can almost serve as an intentionally daft description of America.
These songs encouraged bizarre thoughts and random associations. The most moving Sleepytime songs of the night started out by lulling and swaying the crowd and slowly crescendoed into convulsions of groaning and chanting supported by wild violins and unique percussions. Their faces were painted to match their overalls and their hair even said, "Please come touch me." Eventually these costumes were overshadowed by the intuitive ingenuity of their lyricism and vocalizations that could out-sing a thousand pop-songs. This in no way meant to compare Sleepytime with Manson.Įach member of the band wore long, white, comfy overalls-style dresses with red, flowery "inferiority dots" sewn over their chests. My eyes ate their appearance with a hunger that hadn't been satiated since the first time I saw Marilyn Manson in concert. The entire show was like a fast train crashing into a loud symphony.Īfter two opening acts of radio-station style rock, Sleepytime came on stage with a burst of lighting and visual aggression that one never expects in a claustrophobic Denver rock lounge. I cringe with understatement to say that I enjoyed Sleepytime. Their one-night only stop in Denver, camping out of a "crashed-green" tour-bus from 1954, introduced me and my friends to their brand of Heavy Gypsy Folk 'n' Roll for the first time. Praise the Lord! This certainly was no church revival, but by the time the show ended, I felt like I had been saved. Experiencing Sleepytime in concert reminded me of taking off all my clothes in church and letting the Lord loose the congregation on my naked corpse. On June 10 th, 2005, San Francisco Bay-area band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum deconstructed the eclectically cozy Larimer Lounge and reconstructed the crowd into its own festival of mayhem.
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