'Museum' Worth Checking Out

One of the most obnoxious things someone can say about their band is that it’s “more of an art project.” Besides being an unbearably pretentious comment, it is also belittling to one of the greatest, most sought-after gigs in the world; being in a rock n’ roll band. If being in an “art project” is more appealing to you than being in a rock band, you are more than welcome to make a paper maché sculpture or an oil on canvas, but please put down your instrument. Nonetheless, artists as diverse as Jack White and Marilyn Manson have gone on record professing their artistry over their music, and lesser-knowns have made similarly pompous remarks.

This is not to say that a rock band cannot successfully pull off being an art project. Consider KISS, one of the most famous rock bands of all time, who embellished their act with outlandish costumes, an elaborate stage show, and distinct, larger than life stage personas. Even ignoring their laughably excessive merchandizing, KISS were flying, fire-breathing comic book heroes overflowing with artistic vision. KISS succeeded as an art project because they had no pretenses of being one. Rather, they were four guys who played rock ‘n’ roll because they wanted to get laid. The rest came naturally to them. Being in a rock band/art project is like being badass—those who really are don’t go around telling everyone, they just are.

Few musicians are able to pull off being a rock band and an art project, but one that does so particularly well are Oakland’s Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who brought their unclassifiable show to New York City’s Bowery Ballroom, March 15. SGM’s third album, In Glorious Times, will not see release until May, and as with the band’s first two studio albums, will most likely serve as an afterthought to their performances, an anthology of the magic they’ve been bringing to the stage since their last release, Of Natural History. On March 15, SGM played only three songs from their first two albums in their entirety, transcending the idea of a band playing the songs their fans like.

Onstage, the band is a monster, costumed and in make up. The instruments defy conventions, many of them-self made, including a stringed, seven-foot long board known as a piano log and some surprisingly percussive kitchenware. The band’s imaginative setup, which in the past has featured nightmarish Butoh performances, conjurings, “history” lessons, puppet shows, and most importantly, great music, reflects the band’s defiance of musical categorization and the boundary between the stage and the crowd. At the Bowery, vocalist/guitarist Nils Frykdahl, whose versatile voice can switch from carnival barker to death grunt to Disney movie villain, handed out lyric sheets in order to pull the audience into the performance. The sheets featured lyrics inspired by Finnegan’s Wake, and whether or not Frykdahl really has delved into Joyce’s nearly unreadable novel, he conducted the singalong in a convincing manner. Most bands would have sounded pretentious referencing Joyce and inane conducting a singalong, but SGM are not most bands.

In the Museum on finds an elaborate, detailed history. Their albums’ liner notes contain old photographs, indexes, footnotes, and a seemingly continuous Museum “history” told in chronological order with each album. There is much in the history about insects, museum “founders” John Kane and Lala Rolo, various manifestos, the Unabomber, and other meticulous, exhaustive aspects which could take up hours of analysis upon end. Is it all a crock of shit? Yes, the same way Batman and Don Quijote are. Appropriately, the band itself is a living, breathing museum, and the atmosphere they create is too real to deny.

Considering how well Sleepytime pulls off their artistic exploits, it’s amazing that they’re still a rock band. But rock they do, and no better proven when they unleashed Grand Opening’s “1997” on the Bowery crowd. This prompted a mosh pit, the first I’ve seen in years of attending Sleepytime shows and a sign of their growing audience. But the pit was not forced or imposed by drunk guys getting out their aggression; rather, it felt natural, as it often does at metal shows. The band had created an ideal metal setting, and the loud, impetuous music was every bit as compelling as the Joyce-inspired singalong. Few artists could pull off such a feat, and clearly this is a Museum that warrants many explorations and return visits.

Openers Secret Chiefs 3, a San Francisco collective featuring members of Mr. Bungle and Estradasphere, opened the show with a vibrant, animated set which included a decidedly original take on the Halloween theme. Stylistically unpredictable and making the most of first rate musicianship, the band perfectly set the stage for Sleepytime.

Lamb of God, Machine Head, and Gojira Were Awesome

It’s hard to believe that Lamb of God have made it big. Singer Randy Blythe, who’s 17-year-old band spent most of its history known as ‘Burn the Priest’ and has recently seen an appearance on ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien,’ expressed this sentiment looking over the crowd of his band’s March 22 show at the Roseland Ballroom. An engaging frontman who works the crowd without rock-star showboating or getting too verbose, Blythe was bewildered that his band had sold out the venue. He wasn’t the only one; I paid, literally, for my inability to believe Lamb of God couldn’t sell out Roseland when I ended up getting my ticket from a scalper.

Lamb of God are one of the heaviest bands to ever score a Billboard top ten debut, and while they haven’t reached the mainstream success of Slipknot or Pantera, Blythe’s band has precious few peers in metal who more than 100,000 music buyers have caught up t. Not that Lamb of God have compromised their sound at all, abandoning thrash for trash. Rather, just as when Master of Puppets went platinum without any mainstream coverage, the rest of the world seems to be catching up.

If there’s any justice in the world, the world will soon catch up to Gojira, the French-prog thrashers who opened up the show by setting a high bar for the rest of the evening. Playing songs off their excellent recent album, From Mars to Sirius, Gojira proved themselves to be a dynamic force onstage, giving their songs even greater energy and enjoying a well-received cameo from outspoken fan Blythe. If you still needed a reason to ignore Bill O’Reilly’s “Boycott France” farce, surely this is one.

Gojira were followed by Machine Head, Oakland-area thrash metal vets who’ve clearly been around long enough to know how to please a crowd. The band ran through a fast-paced set, mixing volatile songs off their new album, The Blackening with fan favorites that had the front of the venue shouting along. Save for a moment taken to serve a potshot to a conservative rag which had taken a swipe at the late “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott,, Machine Head clearly enjoyed themselves as much as the packed room did. I will be picking up my first-ever Machine Head album sometime this week.

The next act, Trivium, brewed a melodic, singsongy brand of metal not unlike the artists parodied in Brian Posehn’s widely-circulated “Metal by Numbers” video. Live, they were passable but unremarkable, and their position as the night’s odd band out was apparent, both in the audience’s booing audibly fighting the cheers and in Blythe, whose calls for the audiences to pay respects to the openers played along the lines, “A great band which you’ll be hearing a lot from in the forthcoming years, GOJIRA!! A legendary band which we are honored to play with, MACHINE HEAD!! The band that played before us, TRIVIUM!” The last name was greeted with boos—Trivium sells, but who’s buying?

Lamb of God quenched the energized crowd’s anticipation with a blistering set. The band came out swinging with Ashes of the Wake’s Hourglass, and tore through tracks from their Burn the Priest days up to 2006’s Sacrament. Their catalogue, while not as consistent as, say, Mastodon’s, is undoubtedly large enough to fill the evening with great music while the audience screams for more. The band also never succumbs to the musical showiness that plagues many metal bands, with much credit due to guitarist Mark Morton and drummer Chris Adler. Coupled with bassist John Campbell and guitarist Willie Adler, the band proves their musical capabilities by focuses on the songs themselves, which erupt with relentless force onstage. Part of the band’s onstage explosiveness may stem from tension within the band—In 2005’s Killadelphia DVD, Blythe and Morton engaged in a fistfight now infamous on youtube.com. Whatever animosity may occur between bandmates, thank Ozzy they keep it together long enough to partake in shows like this.

The only halt in Lamb of God’s set came when the sound blew out, causing the composed band to leave the stage for several minutes. Roseland’s sound problems also caused Marilyn Manson to temporarily leave the stage during his most recent New York performance, and infamously accounted for Fiona Apple’s onstage meltodwn several years ago. Shouldn’t someone have done something about that by now?

“Redneck,” the band’s propulsive, Morton-written single off of Sacrament, was appropriately dedicated to former Death and Iced Earth Drummer/Howard Stern cohort Richard Christy. As the song ended, Blythe led into “Black Label,” bellowing, “This next one is our last song. We don’t believe in encores.” There was no reason for the disclaimer; if anyone came to Roseland believing that Lamb of God was capable of such pseudo-spontaneity, the thought should’ve been stomped out by the time they took the stage.