18-10-2007 Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Support: Oren Marshall; Venue: Bimhuis, Amsterdam (NL)
By: Wouter van de Kamp

  Again a name that has been heard here before. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
  But this time a live concert in Bimhuis, Amsterdam. This venue, attached to
  Muziektheater aan t IJ, is dedicated to jazz and improvisation. And that’s exactly
  the corner in which the support act, Oren Marshall, can be put. This solo artist
  continues to explore strategies for extending the tonal range of the tuba and
  opening up a whole new vocabulary for this wind instrument. His groundbreaking
  solo work led to a nomination for the BBC Innovation in Jazz award with his
  composition “Introduction to the Story of Spedy Sponda; pt1: In a Silent
  Room”. “How can just one tuba be entertaining enough not to fall asleep?”
  you might ask. Well the answer could be found last night in Amsterdam. Through
  his free jazz, Oren let the tuba do the talking. He didn’t say one word throughout
  the show. He did use his vocal chords though. Just to make odd squeaks to add
  to the collection of strange sounds he managed to get out of the tuba. He regularly
  got the crowd laughing and was a good support act of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

  I had seen Sleepytime Gorilla Museum before in this exact same venue and also
  on the Headway festival this year. So I sort of knew what to expect from them
  live. I hoped for a different set as compared to last time and that’s what I
  got. Including new clothing. Would they make the same impression as last time?
  Would they leave me evenly startled? Would the fact that it was a seated concert
  again annoy me so much? We were soon about to discover.

  Ah… New clothing… And even more: they are opening up with a different song.
  That’s promising. Was it because I wasn’t in the first row? Was it because I
  know all songs by head meanwhile? It wasn’t as enchanting as last time. Nonetheless
  this quintet plays awesome music and knows how to play the audience as well.
  With their incredible range of instruments, of which many are selfmade, they
  produced a brilliant cacofonie of sounds. Totally different arrangements were
  concocted into compositions that cannot be put into one section. Were you to
  look for a section in your local cd shop that you could pick up one of their
  albums, you should not be surprised to find them in the jazz section as well
  as the experimental or the metal corner. Besides playing Phthisis, Sleep is
  Wrong, A Hymn to the Morning Star, The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity  Opens the Discussion, Ossuary, Babydoctor, The Greenless Wreath, Angle of Repose and
  some more that I can’t come up with, they also played a new song called The
  Grey Old Heron. Announced by the bass player, this song was about his father
  who is dying of old age. Again new instruments that I had not seen before with
  this band: the recorder (that wooden wind instrument, yes). Both the singer
  and the bassist whistling on it and it was again a brilliant song. It got me
  enchanted just like they did when I saw them last time. Although the overall
  vibe wasn’t what it was back then it still was a brilliant performance and I
  am really looking forward to the standing concert in P60 on the 13th of November.

  Links:

Oren Marshall Official
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum Official