Extra Action Marching Band
Encyclopedia
The Extra Action Marching Band is an American musical group loosely based on the American marching band
construct. The instrumentation is entirely brass
and drums. At performances, provocatively flamboyant cheerleaders with pom-poms and flags engage the audience.
started Extra Action in 1999 after relocating to Bay Area
. Since then, the band has expanded from a loose configuration under a dozen to approximately 35 plus members.
Perhaps the band's most ambitious (non musical) project, a to-scale replica of a wooden seagoing vessel built around a schoolbus, was called "La Contessa", and was burned to the ground in early December 2006 by Mike Stewart, a disgruntled Nevada resident who owned the land that La Contessa was being stored on.
, circus music, New Orleans jazz
, Black Sabbath
, and gypsy music from Eastern Europe
.
The group has often appeared uninvited at corporate events, protests, marches, weddings, and other public occasions. They appeared unexpectedly at a book signing
by David Byrne
, which impressed Byrne so much that he invited them as an opening act
for various performances in California.
Other performance highlights include stopping at the Hollywood Bowl, and later sloshing through 3 inches of toilet water that covered the entire floor of the sandiego club, the casbah. There was a tour of the American South, that re-created Black Sabbath's heavy metal debut classic, with plain ole heavy eXtreme Elvis on vocals. After these performances, Extra Action performed at other large venues such as the Download Festival (U.S. version), where they performed on stage with Modest Mouse and The Arcade Fire, as well as the Fusion Festival (Germany) and the Rock For People Festival (Czech Republic) in 2007, and festival I.D.E.A.L in France (2008),to name a few. However, the band is most at home in small to medium sized venues where they can get up close and personal with their audience (often spending more time in the audience than on stage). Sex and sensuality play a key role in this group's dynamic and stage (as well as floor) presence. Also of note is the manner in which the band uses "military-style" formations to careen through, corral, and otherwise manipulate their audiences.
"When they marched onto the stage at Shoreline Amphitheater to join Arcade Fire (after crashing the women's room) at last year's Download Festival — ragtag horn and drum corps ripping through a few numbers as the flag girls and boy bumped and grinded in blond wigs and glittery G-strings — you realized what was really missing from indie at this performance, at so many performances: sex appeal. Theater. A drunken mastery of performance and the dark arts of showmanship, along with the sense of team spirit linked to so much marching band imagery bandied about in today's pop." - Kimberly Chun, San Francisco Bay Guardian
East Coast 2006: New York, Asbury Park,Boston, Providence
East Coast 2005: Chicago,Detroit, Toronto,some hippy festival somewhere in Connecticut,Providence, New York,
Europe 2004: Holland, Germany, Czech, Serbia, Austria
Playing Black Sabbath's first album with Extreme Elvis 2003: New Orleans,Fort Worth, austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
construct. The instrumentation is entirely brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
and drums. At performances, provocatively flamboyant cheerleaders with pom-poms and flags engage the audience.
"There's really no need to introduce the Extra Action Marching Band: The Bay Area institution has been crashing parties, invading bars, and blowing minds with its signature "high school marching band on acid" punk-meets-Sousa bombast for years now. The tuba players, flag team, and percussion section take perverse delight in twisting the staid conventions of their respective forms, and it can be downright disorienting to spot a sexy trombone player." - Hiya Swanhuyser – SF WeeklySF WeeklySF Weekly is a free alternative weekly newspaper in San Francisco, California. The newspaper, distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area every Wednesday, is published by Village Voice Media, a 16-paper alt weekly newspaper chain that also includes the New York City Village Voice and the Los...
2005
History
Simon Cheffins of the San Diego based Crash WorshipCrash Worship
Crash Worship or ADRV was a San Diego based experimental-aktionist-industrial-noise performance group formed in 1986. Most renowned for its live shows in which three stand-up percussionists hammered out concussive poly-rhythms to abstract mutated guitar, synthesizers, effects and dualling vocalists...
started Extra Action in 1999 after relocating to Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. Since then, the band has expanded from a loose configuration under a dozen to approximately 35 plus members.
Perhaps the band's most ambitious (non musical) project, a to-scale replica of a wooden seagoing vessel built around a schoolbus, was called "La Contessa", and was burned to the ground in early December 2006 by Mike Stewart, a disgruntled Nevada resident who owned the land that La Contessa was being stored on.
Performance highlights
The band's musical styles and influences include the Master Musicians of Joujouka, funkFunk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, circus music, New Orleans jazz
New Orleans Jazz
New Orleans Jazz may refer to:*Dixieland, a style of jazz music*New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park*Utah Jazz, a professional National Basketball Association franchise that was previously based in New Orleans and known as the New Orleans Jazz, in recognition of the jazz music of New Orleans*A...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, and gypsy music from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
.
The group has often appeared uninvited at corporate events, protests, marches, weddings, and other public occasions. They appeared unexpectedly at a book signing
Book signing
Book signing is the affixing of a signature to the title page or flyleaf of a book by its author. A book signing is an event, usually at a bookstore or library where an author sits and signs books for a period of time....
by David Byrne
David Byrne
David Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
, which impressed Byrne so much that he invited them as an opening act
Opening act
An opening act or warm-up act is an entertainer or entertainment act that performs at a concert before the featured entertainer...
for various performances in California.
Other performance highlights include stopping at the Hollywood Bowl, and later sloshing through 3 inches of toilet water that covered the entire floor of the sandiego club, the casbah. There was a tour of the American South, that re-created Black Sabbath's heavy metal debut classic, with plain ole heavy eXtreme Elvis on vocals. After these performances, Extra Action performed at other large venues such as the Download Festival (U.S. version), where they performed on stage with Modest Mouse and The Arcade Fire, as well as the Fusion Festival (Germany) and the Rock For People Festival (Czech Republic) in 2007, and festival I.D.E.A.L in France (2008),to name a few. However, the band is most at home in small to medium sized venues where they can get up close and personal with their audience (often spending more time in the audience than on stage). Sex and sensuality play a key role in this group's dynamic and stage (as well as floor) presence. Also of note is the manner in which the band uses "military-style" formations to careen through, corral, and otherwise manipulate their audiences.
Press Quotes
"Witness them perform and they don't as much walk on stage as storm it . . .Their music has been described as a fusion of Balkan brass and New Orleans funk, which references circus themes and Black Sabbath's first album." - Dazed & Confused (magazine)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...
"When they marched onto the stage at Shoreline Amphitheater to join Arcade Fire (after crashing the women's room) at last year's Download Festival — ragtag horn and drum corps ripping through a few numbers as the flag girls and boy bumped and grinded in blond wigs and glittery G-strings — you realized what was really missing from indie at this performance, at so many performances: sex appeal. Theater. A drunken mastery of performance and the dark arts of showmanship, along with the sense of team spirit linked to so much marching band imagery bandied about in today's pop." - Kimberly Chun, San Francisco Bay Guardian
Tours
Europe 2007: NYC, Holland, Germany, Czech, Austria, Switzerland, ItalyEast Coast 2006: New York, Asbury Park,Boston, Providence
East Coast 2005: Chicago,Detroit, Toronto,some hippy festival somewhere in Connecticut,Providence, New York,
Europe 2004: Holland, Germany, Czech, Serbia, Austria
Playing Black Sabbath's first album with Extreme Elvis 2003: New Orleans,Fort Worth, austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco
European Tour June/July 2007
- Amsterdam, Holland
- Hamburg, Germany
- Fusion Festival (Germany)
- Berlin, Germany
- Rostock, Germany
- Rock for People Festival (Czech Republic)
- Vienna, Austria
- Linz, Austria
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Florence, Italy
- Pisa, Italy
Recordings and DVDs
- Live on Stubnitz Recorded Live on the Motorship Stubnitz
- Extra Action in Euroland documentary of Europe tour 2004
External links
- Official Web Site
- Extra Action at Guca Brass Festival
- Glasgow Times "Brass Bells" 4/27/2007
- Dazed and Confused "Extra Action Marching Band" 1/01/2007
- Current TV "Marching Madness"
- SF Bay Guardian
- Spin Magazine "Blood on the Sousaphone" 2/1/2006
- http://www.noisepop.com/2007/artist_profile.php?artist=98
- http://entertainment.signonsandiego.com/profiles/events/278355
