Yeborobo

Infobox musical artist
Name = Yeborobo


Img_capt =
Background = group_or_band
Origin = Maidstone, Kent, England
Genre = Rock
Punk
New Rave
Years_active = 2003-present
Label = Mentalist Association
URL = [http://www.mentalistassociation.co.uk/ Official website]
Current_members = Andrew Kerr
Rob Bidder
Russell Bailey
Matthew Rains
Sophie Simpson
Sam Eden Green

Yeborobo are a noize band, now based in London. They are one of the most notable members of the Mentalist Association, a tribal unit of diverse personalities originating from Maidstone, Kent.
Fact|date=August 2008The name may have been taken from that of a South African contestant to the UK television programme Robot Wars.Fact|date=August 2008

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.
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 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 The Klaxons, the Nu Rave pop band whose album, 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 kids, mostly around London and Brighton, 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" 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.

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, Scrotum Volcano and Having Brunch With Peter.

Discography

Albums

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

ingles

"I'm Magick Gimme A Fiver" 7" 2006, Mentalist Association