Image by me when I went to NY with the band in 2005!
They have *no* idea… ! Congrats to my friends and family in Extra Action for this great writeup in Naughty America, snip:
“It felt like everything was coming to a climax – and all of the sudden the floor below me was completely wet,” recalled Lily Greene. “My shoes were drenched, literally, up to my ankles. Everything was soaking wet! I had no idea what was going on.”
It was, after all, 29-year-old Greene’s first time seeing Extra Action Marching Band. But stories like Greene’s are a dime a dozen whenever this particular group is involved.
The Oakland-based band’s obstreperous birth took place in the late ‘90s when group founder Simon Cheffins connected with a handful of drummers and began playing gigs around the Bay Area. In a matter of years the band had exploded in size, from five people when it started to well more than 40 members in 2002. That number has decreased only slightly since then.
The percussionists, a muscly crew of strikingly attractive and heavily tattooed guys and girls, were joined by the brass section, a riotous mixture of fedora-wearing, mutton chop laden men and seductive, 1950s pin-up-model-quality women.
Add to these a wildly salacious and scantily clad flag team, a sincere love of performance art and an overwhelming proclivity for hedonism, and the Extra Action recipe is complete.
As Extra Action percussionist Jon Schainker explains, one of the main goals in the formation of the band was to break the mold of the pedantic, straight-laced marching band stereotype held by many people.
Link.
