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Although the music of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum has been described as difficult to categorize, no one has accused the Northern California band of being unable to make an impression.
That’s why Indianapolis resident Nick Ohler was confident Sleepytime Gorilla Museum—which combines brutal and beautiful sounds in a single package—would succeed when launching a crowdfunding campaign to finance a reunion album and tour more than a decade after the band broke up.
The members of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum sought $75,000 in 2023, and fans donated more than $144,000. For Ohler, who’s promoted concerts in Indiana featuring members of SGM since the mid-1990s, the fundraiser made it possible for him to organize a March 14 show at the Irving Theater.
Made up of multi-instrumentalists and rotating vocalists Nils Frykdahl, Carla Kihlstedt, Michael Iago Mellender, Matthias Bossi and Dan Rathbun, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum incorporates unusual instruments such as the marxophone and homemade electric pancreas into its over-the-top concerts.
“They just deliver a really good stage show,” Ohler said. “If anybody coming to the show is a Tool fan or a Black Sabbath fan, there’s enough interesting twists and turns that they will dig it.”
This time, Ohler is more than the promoter of an Indiana tour stop. He signed Sleepytime Gorilla Museum to his new Indianapolis-based record label, Avant Night.
The venture, an imprint of Indianapolis-based Joyful Noise Recordings, issued an album titled “Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of the Last Human Being” in February.
In recent years, Ohler has coordinated operations of another Joyful Noise imprint, Shimmy-Disc. Ohler and Joyful Noise founder Karl Hofstetter are kindred spirits in the realm of experimental music.
Hofstetter founded Joyful Noise in 2003 so he could release an album by his instrumental noise-rock duo, Melk the G6-49.
Since then, Joyful Noise has worked with artists such as Lou Barlow, Kishi Bashi and Deerhoof.
Ohler met Sleepytime Gorilla Museum members Frykdahl and Rathbun when they were members of Idiot Flesh—a band that opened for Czech-based Uz Jsme Doma at A1 Records and Gifts, a store Ohler owned in Anderson.
Ohler said running a record label requires less time and effort than overseeing a record store or promoting shows under his former banner, Mythopeic Industries.
“I guess the thing that I appreciate the most is that it allows me to make an artifact that is going to outlast me,” Ohler said. “If I’m not remembered for anything, I’ll at least be a credit in [online music database] Discogs.”
Hofstetter said Joyful Noise imprints Shimmy-Disc (founded by New York composer Mark Kramer), Stone Tapes (founded by New York musician Yonatan Gat) and Avant Night allow “more good music to exist in the world.”
Ohler said Joyful Noise provides access to international distribution and warehouse resources for his new company.
“These labels basically were able to skip the first 10 years of hardship,” Hofstetter said.
Looking ahead to what’s next for Avant Night, Ohler said he expects to be busy working with the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum catalog and side projects from band members through the years.
“I would like to venture out into modern composer work and experimental jazz,” Ohler said. “It’s the stuff I booked for years and years and years. I think anybody who attended all of those shows or a good chunk of them wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an eclectic mess.”
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
- When: 7 p.m. March 14
- Where: Irving Theater, 5505 E. Washington St.
- Tickets: $25 if purchased in advance
- Info: Visit attheirving.com.
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