Mucca Pazza is a 30 piece self-described "circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 marching band

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...

" based in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. The band, whose name comes from the Italian for "crazy cow," has been performing in and around the Chicago area for over seven years. Their repertoire ranges from Balkan-brass to covers of 60's television show themes as well as themes from Shostakovich and Bartok. They have performed nationally at many well known venues and concerts including McCarren Park Pool, True/False Film Festival

True/False Film Festival

The True/False Film Festival is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The festival usually happens on a weekend toward the end of February or the beginning of March, with films being shown from Thursday night to Sunday night...

, Looptopia

Looptopia

Looptopia was a dusk-to-dawn cultural event that was held in 2007 and 2008 in the city of Chicago. Billed as "Chicago's White Night", Looptopia was modeled after Nuit Blanche held annually in Paris. It premiered on the evening of May 11 through the morning May 12, 2007 in Chicago's central business...

, Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...

, Rothbury Music Festival

Rothbury Music Festival

The Rothbury Festival is a four-day jam band music festival in Rothbury, Michigan at the Double JJ Resort. The festival first occurred in 2008 during the Independence Day holiday weekend. In addition to music and arts, the festival is intended to promote sustainability and promote overall...

, Tour de Fat, Theatre Bizarre

Theatre Bizarre

Theatre Bizarre is an annual Halloween masquerade staged in a residential Detroit neighborhood. Occupying several adjoining properties, the grounds include a haunted house, a Ferris wheel and several stages that accommodate over 150 performers each year. The performers include local and national...

, and were featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...

in 2006.

Their debut album, A Little Marching Band, was released in 2006 and is distributed by Southern Records

Southern Records

Southern Records is an independent record label closely associated with Crass Records, Corpus Christi Records and Dischord Records. It is based in London and previously had offices in Chicago , Le Havre and Berlin .Southern was originally a recording studio owned and operated by John Loder...

. Their second full-length album, Plays Well Together, was released in June 2008. The band's song "Borino Oro" was featured in a season 4 episode of the Showtime television show Weeds

Weeds (TV series)

Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

.

Instrumentation

Mucca Pazza orchestration includes:

• Accordion, violin, mandolin, elec. guitar, melodica
• Clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, bari sax
• Trumpets/mellophone
• Trombones
• Sousaphone
• Percussion: marching snare drums, bass drum, concert tom, crash cymbals, glockenspiel, middle eastern hand drums, various percussions.
• Cheerleaders/Poms

+ speaker helmets