IBOPA (pronounced eye-boh-pah) is nine-piece band of a mish-mosh genre personally dubbed "Cinematic Death Mambo" from Palo Alto, California. Their name is an abbreviation for the Indestructible Beat of Palo Alto, a parody on the album The Indestructible Beat of Soweto. At one point, they tried to shorten the name to something less obnoxious, but they couldn't agree on a final solution. The band name, all lyrics, and a great deal of the creative process can be credited to frontman Jamie Stewart, with Don Dias expanding on Stewart's ideas. IBOPA lasted around for about two years before they decided to break up as their label, Spongebath Records (subset of Elektra Records), dissolved 90% of their clientele. They played their last show on July 4, 1999.

As the band split apart, some moved on to other musical endeavors. Cory, Don, Jamie, Kurt, and Tim planned and formed Ten in the Swear Jar before IBOPA ended. Eventually, that disbanded too, and Cory and Jamie currently work on Xiu Xiu.

IBOPA were a nine piece band which played a style they called “cinematic death mambo”. It was kind of an amalgam of sounds which, together, created undeniably danceable beats.

IBOPA is a musical Voltron. It combines indie/alterna-rock, Hindi film scores, 80's synth-pop, and tango to operate on your hips, your ass, your broken heart and your phantom limb. IBOPA writes songs about being crazy, love, not taking crap off of nobody, weird little kids and starving to death.

IBOPA consists of Styx on drums, DJ Fonzi Dream Taco on optigan and synths, Purring Mantis doing lead vocals and guitar, Kona the Smiling Burger on accordion, The Bionic Millionaire on violin and vocals, Orlando Furioso on baritone sax and, but of course, Gigantor(Mecca-gigantor) on guitar and mandolin. For the past two years IBOPA has been uniting Jules Verne steam-tech with new wave hairdos.

IBOPA's critical acclaim has been super-duper from fans, music journalists, college and commercial radio. IBOPA was named best local band in a recent Metro reader's poll. IBOPA's second independent CD, Ballads for Benpadrone (Nubby Records) was in the BAM top ten local music charts for over nine weeks. The kids sing along at shows.

Songs by IBOPA have been remixed and altered and later adapted to a different style, such as When You Write which is on the Swear Jar album My Very Private Map, as well as Hives which made it on the Xiu Xiu album Knife Play and was retitled Hives Hives.

Band members
    * Big Daddy Rucker and Styx (Brady Fischler/ Tim Kirby) on drums and percussion
    * Bionic Millionaire (Joan Ling) on violin and vocals
    * DJ Fonzi Dream Taco (Mikel Zwissler) on optigan and synths
    * Fuck Machine (Tim Kirby) on double bass
    * Gigantor (Mecca-gigantor) (Cory McCulloch) on slide guitar and mandolin
    * Joe Stewart rapped
    * Kona the Smiling Burger (Don Dias) on accordion
    * Orlando Furioso (Kurt Stumbaugh) on baritone sax
    * Purring Mantis (Jamie Stewart) on lead vocals and guitar
    * Tim Kirby on trumpet and drums

Discography:
1996 - Squids: Obsession and Devotion
1997 - Ballads for Benpadrone
1998 - When You Write

1997 - Ballads for Benpadrone

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