Divine Monkey Empire

Saved from a life of crime and depravity by music, Divine Monkey Empire first discovered their affinity for sound during one of their frequent and daring robberies.

Finding themselves a little worse for wear after a night of drinking rice wine and playing extreme tiddlywinks, they realised that what they had at first assumed to be a bank, was in fact a fruit stall (an easy mistake to make). Confused and angered by the realisation that the bank could so easily dash their plans by transforming into a greengrocer's (presumably at the press of some cunningly hidden button), and surrounded by a growing mob of angry bystanders, they proceeded to start banging various types of fruit and vegetables together and shouting in a random fashion in order to ward off the hostile crowd.

To their great suprise this not only seemed to work, but (as the banana based beats and durian and pumpkin melodies slowly congealed into a grooving, rhythmic whole), people actually started to applaud. Rock! Shock! The penny dropped... "Aha!!". In this manner, they managed to both distract the crowd long enough to make their escape on a hastily constructed melon-wheeled unicycle, and discover a new occupation in music. Shortly afterwards (and after a brief but unsuccessful period of trying to compose songs using meat and seafood) they moved on to using more traditional types of instruments and began to perform to people who didn't actively start out wanting to kill them.

Frequently loud and rocking, yet sometimes as soft and soulful as a wee baby duckling raised on Tim Buckley records - D.M.E. are kind of grungy with a large helping of 70's rock and an alternative twist.