No Time For Sleep

Salt Lake City Upcoming Concerts: Take Action Tour, My Chemical Romance, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

By Brian Staker, 3-06-07

	Staker Pick of the Week: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Take Action Tour

Far more than just another label showcase tour, the Take Action Tour takes Sub City, the charity/activist arm of punk imprint Hopeless Records, bands on the road to benefit the National Hopeline Network, 1-800 SUICIDE to try to educate and provide resources to battle the epidemic of teen suicide and mental health challenges like depression that can lead to suicide. Besides a lot of lip service, which is helpful in itself because of the stigma against just talking about the malady, organizers put their money where their mouth is and donate ten percent of the gate to the Network.

The approach is an ingenious one, aiming the de rigeur punk rock anger at a target that does its damage more quietly, yet perhaps the listeners engage with that more rancorous, caustic emotion to learn to express their own issues, and thus feel less isolated. Now in its seventh year, the tour is headlined by emo/screamo Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who made their mark debuting on last year’s Warped Tour. A Static Lullaby traverse the post-hardcore Netherlands (‘post’ meaning not ‘over it’ but ‘taking it to the ultimate level’). Emery, Kaddisfly and Scary Kids Scaring Kids round out the bill.

March 6, In the Venue
Also appearing:
March 7, Englewood CO (Gothic Theatre)

My Chemical Romance

At the heart of every great rock band is a great voice. While My Chemical Romance might not attain that lofty appellation, and Gerard Way might not have a classical vocal persona for the ages, in contrast to countless bands in the pop/punk/emo spectrum, the New Jersey combo has a real, identifiable musical personality, and the music and vocals have real drama as opposed to just histrionics.

Perhaps it has something to do with the impetus of the band forming, after Way witnessed 9/11 firsthand while an illustrator in New York, and left that occupation to do something he found more meaningful. And literary connections, while a hazardous pursuit for rockers, made serendipitous here as their name an allusion from author Irvine Welsh, who penned Trainspotting. Last year’s The Black Parade (Reprise) was dark without being dire, no small feat. Local connection: drummer since 2004 Bob Bryar was hooked up with while he was doing sound for Orem boys-made-good the Used.

March 6, E Center
Also appearing:
March 7, Las Vegas NV (Orleans Arena)
March 8, Glendale AZ (Jobing.com Arena)

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum **Staker’s Pick O’ the Week!**

You might have seem Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s Nils Frykdahl (Norwegian for ‘freak doll?’) here last Fall performing with Faun Fables, accompanying her utterly transfiguring pagan-influenced European folk music, her Transit Rider (Drag City) one of the must-have albums of the year. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, as the dada-esque title implies, is much more experimental, noisy and surreal, more akin to his work with his old group Idiot Flesh, which was like a cross between Crash Worship and King Crimson, violinist and all.

Their website will tell you SGM “opened its doors to the public in 1916,” and that’s fitting with the late 1900’s traveling tent show aspect to everything Frykdahl has pursued, right down to the Pippi Longstocking-as-carny-trash ensemble he would attire himself in with Idiot Flesh. But he’s also a gifted performer, vocally and on a variety of instruments. The group’s releases have a wonderful 1900’s design feel, sepia-toned and text-heavy, filled with unexplainable items like the diatribe “Sleep Is Wrong” and theoretical explorations like “The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity.” If you were ever wondering where the avant-garde has gone, its back to the opium-tinctured and endlessly expostulating books.

March 6, Urban Lounge ,
Also appearing:
March 7, Denver CO (Bluebird Theater)

Eric Clapton

What can you say about Eric Clapton? The dude is an institution, with all the good and ill that term implies. Without recounting ancient rock history, I guess the question is, at this late date and stage of life, can the AARP-eligible, easy listening station playlisted musician have anything relevant to say, about matters of rock and roll, and by rock I mean boulder-sized, of both pretention and volume. Substitute ‘life’ for rock, and ‘death’ for roll, that’s the type of poser I am trying to get you to ponder. That’s the kind of weight that’s been on the original ‘guitar god’s shoulders, almost since he debuted with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers so many centuries ago. If he comes out with the fluff version of “Layla,” it means he’s used his celebrity to sidestep the question. If the famous riff ignites full-fledged, it’s a missive coming down from Mount Olympus (the one in Greece, where the gods hang out, not the nearby one you hiked up last summer)

March 8, Energy Solutions Arena
Also appearing:
March 7, Denver CO (Pepsi Center)
March 10, Las Vegas NV (MGM Grand Arena)
March 11, Phoenix AZ (US Airways Center)

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