Extra Action Marching Band

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Extra Action Marching Band
2006 East Coast Tour
2006 East Coast Tour
Background information
Origin Oakland, CA
Genre(s) Marching band, Punk Rock
Years active 1998-Present
Website extra-action.com

The Extra Action Marching Band is loosely based on the American Marching Band construct. Wielding an all brass and drums instrumentation and being lead by a flag waving colorguard, they are like a drum corps formed by performers covered in glitter.

"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 Weekly 2005


Contents

[edit] History

Members of the San Diego based Crash Worship started Extra Action in the mid to late 90s. Since then, the band has found new roots in the Northern California Bay Area and currently boasts approximately 35 members.

Perhaps the band's most ambitious project, a to-scale replica of a wooden sea-going 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.[1]

[edit] Performances

Extra Action has performed in countless protests and street festivals, but some of its more notable performances have been with David Byrne at the Hollywood Bowl where they performed "Crazy In Love" by Beyoncé as the final song of the show. In 2005 they toured with Extreme Elvis performing the entire first album of Black Sabbath.

[edit] Performance highlights

Hunter Thompson's wake and East Bay Rats Fight Party aside, performance highlights include opening for David Byrne on his 2005 SoCal tour, stopping at the Hollywood Bowl, and later careening through a pelvic thrust–heavy version of Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love." And then there was a Mardi Gras tour that re-created Black Sabbath's heavy metal debut classic, with plain ole heavy eXtreme Elvis on vocals, and special, sexy rifle and fan-dance routines, flag team dancer and original member Kelek Stevenson relates. Since these performances Extra Action has gone on to perform at other large crowd 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. 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.

[edit] 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)

"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

[edit] Tours

Europe 2007: NYC, Holland, Germany, Czech, Austria, Switzerland, Italy

East Coast 2006: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island

East Coast 2005: Chicago, Toronto, Upstate NY, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey

Europe 2004: Holland, Germany, Czech, Serbia, Austria

Playing Black Sabbath's first album with Extreme Elvis 2003: New Orleans Mardi Gras,dallas,austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco

[edit] 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

[edit] Recordings and DVDs

  • Live on Stubnitz Recorded Live on the Motorship Stubnitz
  • Extra Action in Euroland documentary of Europe tour 2004

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jones, Steven T. A galleon destroyed by fire. A priceless missing statue. Welcome to one of the great mysteries of the San Francisco underground. San Francisco Bay Guardian Online

[edit] Links