Yeborobo
Encyclopedia
Yeborobo are a noize band, now based in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. They are one of the most notable members of the Mentalist Association, a tribal unit of diverse personalities originating from Maidstone, Kent.

The name may have been taken from that of a South African contestant to the UK television programme Robot Wars
Robot Wars (TV series)
Robot Wars is a British game show modelled on a US-based competition of the same name. It was broadcast on BBC Two from 1998 until 2003, with its final series broadcast on Five in 2003 and 2004. Additional series were filmed for specific sectors of the global market, including two series of Robot...

.

Yeborobo's music has grown out of a wild stage act, an always changing riot that at once revels in and laughs about the great follies of prog and metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

.

Props and costumes are enthusiastically built and then generally destroyed through crazed interaction between band and audience to such a degree that concerts often end in minor injuries to performers and fans alike.

The question of danger in live performance since The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...

 has often been used to create an interaction between audience and performer whilst relying on the hostility to keep them distinct.

Yeborobo have moved away from this divisive tension and genuinely allow the audience to virtually take over the proceedings within an inclusive tension more akin to the performance art of the 1960s.

This relies on a dichotomy created between different factions of the band.
The drums and the twin guitars create a solid yet complex groove, shifting and buckling under their own weight. In the foreground Andrew and Rob create mayhem, jumping and yelping, their pithy lyrics mostly lost within the clamour of their band, eventually abandoning their posts to climb a wall or ruck amongst the audience.
This creates an illusionary atmosphere of total chaos.

The controlling factor between these two parties is their bassist, Sophie, at once laying down the rhythm and increasingly becoming embroiled in the mania down the front.
This dynamic creates the excitement, humour and urgency of the spectacle whilst also supplying powerful and cerebral music to fuel it in a furtively structured way.

Yeborobo's moment in the spotlight came during 2007 when they went on tour as support act to Klaxons
Klaxons
Klaxons are a British indie rock band, based in London. Following the release of numerous 7-inch singles on different independent record labels, as well as the success of previous singles "Magick" and "Golden Skans", the band released their debut album, Myths of the Near Future on 29 January 2007....

, the Nu Rave pop band whose album, Myths of the Near Future
Myths of the Near Future
Myths of the Near Future is a short-story collection by J. G. Ballard, first published in 1982.It contains the following stories:*"Myths of the Near Future"...

, was soon to win the years Mercury Music Prize.

The transition from playing small dark venues of receptive and savvy art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...

 kids, mostly around London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, to playing in front of a much larger and wider audience was fraught, and they were often booed and looked upon with incomprehensibility by both public and critics:

"What an abortion of a support band Yeborobo turned out to be. Placing animal masks, face paint and giant cardboard arms above having two good songs to rub together. When they weren’t poking the audience with aforementioned cardboard limb, they were being sick on them. I think we can leave it there." http://www.wessexscene.co.uk/article.php?sid=2042

Yeborobo were also heavily involved with a project put together by the fashion magazine Dazed and Confused
Dazed & Confused (magazine)
Dazed & Confused is a British style magazine, that was set up in 1992 and published monthly. Its founding editors were Jefferson Hack and Rankin...

based around the various out-puts of the Mentalist Association.
More can be read about this here: http://www.dazeddigital.com/features/article.aspx?a=327.

In 2006 Yeborobo's 7" 'I'm Magick Gimme A Fiver' was chosen as Single Of The Year by The Daddy Said So Land radio broadcast on Resonance fm
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station run by the London Musicians' Collective .The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and over 300 volunteer technical and production staff.Until September 2007, ResonanceFM...

.

Collaborations

The emphasis within the Mentalist Association framework is on collaboration and a very open structure is generally adopted. The six members of Yeborobo are in over 20 other Mentalist bands between them, including Esiotrot, Tea And Toast Band, Neither Do I, Gasp! Cracking Eggs, Happy Crayon, Scrotal Volcano, Rabbit's Moon
Rabbit's Moon
Rabbit’s Moon is an avant-garde short film by American filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Filmed in 1950, Rabbit's Moon was not completed until 1972...

, Ten-Foot Blood Skull, CATTLE
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

, Asparagus Peru, Draculasaurus, Nasty Bee, Having Brunch With Peter and many more.

Albums

  • Buck Up Your Ideas Scout 2004, Mentalist Association
  • What A Fantastic Barrier Forthcoming, Mentalist Association
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