Album Notes

By popular demand, The Giraffe Had A Voice’s legendary 1998 self-titled album has now been re-issued. The Giraffe Had A Voice was part of San Francisco’s happening underground music scene in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and was the only band on that scene not to have a guitar player. Calling their sound “basscore” or “surf-goth”, and featuring not one but two bass players, The Giraffe Had a Voice was a trio consisting of Robby Virus on lead bass, lead vocals, and occasional theremin, Jean Marx on the other bass and backing vocals, and Danny Noonan on drums. Their songs were heavy on the low end, quirky, literate, and extremely catchy. The band player to packed crowds in divvy San Francisco punk bars, and for awhile were expected to break out to bigger things. Alas, they broke up soon after the release of this, their only album, and the members went their separate ways to pursue other projects (Robby currently plays theremin in the lounge band Project: Pimento). Rumors are swirling, however, about a possible reunion of this innovative and unique band.

Here’s a review of their CD from the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Howard Myint:

Singer-bassist Robby Virus’s range is right down there with Crash Test Dummies’ singer Brad Roberts. But that’s where the similarity ends. Put on your sleek, new-wave wraparound shades and contort to this trio’s fondness for the low and unusual. Two bass guitars (Virus processes his sound to resemble anything BUT a bass), drums, voices, and an occasional theremin are what this trio have to offer on the surface (besides a terribly long moniker). But the heart of The Giraffe Had A Voice is Virus’s quirky pop songs. “Pandora’s Box” shuffles about like The The’s “This is the Day”. Virus seems the space oddity among space oddities as he takes on the mythic Bowie (“But Major Tom has nothing on me/For I will light the sky for everyone to see”) on “Obvious”. A woozy theremin solo and its cha-cha-cha ending are the cherries on top.