Each [...]]]> Taking back the streets for horns, bikes, and feet! Molly & I had a wonderful time at HONKfest in Boston, MA this weekend. We arrived Saturday afternoon and wandered the streets around Davis Square, stopping every few blocks to tap our toes and nod our heads and dance our hearts out to a different band.

Each motley crew of magnificent musicians had their own sound and their own aesthetic, from the Pinettes, the all-women’s Second Line band from New Orleans to the all-percussion Lloyd Family Players. With goggles and bunny ears, boas and fake mustaches, the bands all poked fun at the usual regimented marching band style, playing popular hits, original compositions, klezmer, swing, punk, gospel and everything in between. From plaza to park to stoop, it was as if music had taken over the streets – which it did, during the huge parade on Sunday!

Molly juggles in the parade

The parade was a honktastic lineup of bands and groups, including the Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble from Montreal, Canada (with a marching cello!), our friends Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band from Somerville, MA, Orkestar Zirkonium from Seattle, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra from NYC, and my new favorites, Environmental Encroachment from Chicago, IL. There was at least one coordinated dance team, a group of jugglers (who we fell in with for a time), several contingents of Bread and Puppet characters and puppets, and a silent clown-band with noiseless papier-mache instruments (who are actually our new friends The Royal Frog Ballet Theatre Company from Amherst, MA). It was incredible to feel the nearly tangible spirit of camaraderie, walking down the street with a veritable army of community support. I didn’t know it was possible for that many people to have that much fun at the same time without the universe imploding!

The parade emptied into Oktoberfest at Harvard Square, with the usual food and crafts vendors, marching bands continuing to perform in alleys and on corners during the afternoon. The weekend wrapped up with a floor-shaking five-hour marathon stage show in the Somerville Theatre, as each of the thirty-two bands played in succession for a full house of people who did not want to stay in their seats, but wanted to dance in the aisles and occasionally join the musicians onstage. We cheered and sang along, showing hearty appreciation for the wonderful folks onstage who traveled from far and wide to bring us HONK!

environmental encroachment really knows how to pump up a crowd

For those who couldn’t make it out to HONK! we’ve brought a dose of it back to the valley with us: TONIGHT in Northampton Downside-Up is performing alongside the Pink Puffers from Rome, the Yellow Hat Band from Seattle, and local favorites Rusty Belle. TOMORROW there is a parade around Hampshire at noon, followed by a performance and a workshop about the brass underground.

For more info on both the Northampton and Hampshire events go here!

From political puppets to mustached musicians to daring Downside-Uppers, Happy Pill Circus No. 4 was a stomping, hooting, singing success! The Primate Fiasco alternated musical sets with Bread & Puppet’s theatrical puppet-tastic offerings, making for a varied and engaging Circus experience. Despite the lack of room [...]]]>

clowning around backstage at the Academy of Music

From political puppets to mustached musicians to daring Downside-Uppers, Happy Pill Circus No. 4 was a stomping, hooting, singing success! The Primate Fiasco alternated musical sets with Bread & Puppet’s theatrical puppet-tastic offerings, making for a varied and engaging Circus experience. Despite the lack of room for dancing in the packed old-style opera house theatre, kids and grown-ups alike crowded into the aisles to do-si-do and clap along to the music, then cheered and gasped at the skits and songs of Bread and Puppet.

Our clowning, acrobatics, and juggling onstage to the Primate Fiasco’s music got huge cheers from the audience, as did Hoop Master Sass’s hula hooping. The show climaxed with a parade of all the performers down off the stage, through the audience, and outside onto the street, surprising the quiet Northampton Sunday night with a rollicking community dance party. Video and more photos of the night are on their way!

Thanks to the audience for their energy and the performers for their kinship – and major props to Dave from Primate Fiasco for pulling the whole thing together!

Dozens of bicyclists drifting through the streets of Seattle, hauling guitars, cellos, multiple drum kits, a 2000-watt pedal powered PA system, smiling and waving at confused pedestrians and annoyed drivers, being serenaded by a musician on a bike-stage:  this is the essence of the Bicycle Music Festival.

It was, put simply, AWESOME.  There [...]]]>

live on-bike music

Dozens of bicyclists drifting through the streets of Seattle, hauling guitars, cellos, multiple drum kits, a 2000-watt pedal powered PA system, smiling and waving at confused pedestrians and annoyed drivers, being serenaded by a musician on a bike-stage:  this is the essence of the Bicycle Music Festival.

It was, put simply, AWESOME.  There are about 15 touring musicians, orchestrated by the Ginger Ninjas, who teamed up with about 10 other local bands.  A few bands would play at a park – the sound entirely powered by audience members pedaling on bikes – everything would be packed up onto the bikes, and we would critical mass through the streets to the next venue.

Max juggles heavy bike locks - very impressive

The music was great, the atmosphere was spirited, vegetarian sandwiches and vegan donuts were handed out by Food Not Bombs, good times were had by all.  One of the highlights for me was meeting up with a bunch of other jugglers.  It’s incredible how magnetic whipping out a few juggling balls can be.  Some of them were better jugglers than I was, but I taught all of them how to pass and how to steal – I think partner and multi-person juggling is even more fun than individual tricks.

When I was handing out Downside-Up business cards and telling folks about our planned bicycle-tour, Max the juggler said Hey! I’ve heard of the Downside-Up Circus!  My face contorted into an interrobang of disbelief and exclamation.  It turns out that he knew one of our troupe members, Corvus.

It was fantastic to see the results of a successful bicycle performance tour, to prove that we aren’t just chasing an impossible dream, and exciting to hear about the Ginger Ninja’s next venture: a bicycle tour of Europe!

More photos from the day can be found here.

the Sprockettes dance their [...]]]> This weekend I went to the Tour de Fat in Seattle at Gasworks Park, a touring festival sponsored by the New Belgium brewing company to promote their beer, but mostly to celebrate bicycles and art.  There were a few spectacular performances that I thought I would to recap and review here.

the Sprockettes dance their biker girl hearts out

First, I saw the Sprockettes, an all female bicycle dance troupe from Portland, Oregon.  Clad in hot pink and black, they gave a spirited performance dancing to what sounded like 80s/90s pop-punk music, half of them lip-syncing along.  Some of the simple acrobatics they did using their little trick bikes were really clever and fun.  Their dancing wasn’t always synchronized, but that was not the point.  The point was that every move they made, they made with such GUSTO, such vigor and spirit.  Watching them made me feel like our culture is not actually doomed, and the revolution will be lead by girls on bikes clad in pink hot pants.

the Baron Vegan von Hamburger

The other show I saw was the Squirm Burpee Circus, by a group know as the Handsome Little Devils.  Their show, as they proclaimed, was a “vaudvillian melodrama, with good guys and bad guys.”  Their schtick was pretty straightforward, but effective and enjoyable.  The bad guy, the Baron Vegan von Hamburger, had a contraption he used to to turn the audience’s applause into pure evil, in the form of a giant black balloon.  But!  if the audience applauded TOO loud, the machine would malfunction and the balloon of evil would burst.  The good guys, brothers Mike the Handsome and Dashing Dave, with their assistant Lolo making a love triangle, performed some first rate juggling, swing dancing, and tricks, as well as having some of the best audience banter I’ve seen.

my dad enjoys a very unusual bike

Unfortunately I missed a show by Nanda, a group of juggling and acrobatic ninjas from Port Townsend.  In addition to the variety of performances, there was other bike fun to be had, at a section of the park full of funky, rideable art bikes that were some of the strangest (and funnest) looking bikes I’ve seen.

Seeing such an outpouring of bike love and creativity got me really exciting for bike touring around the northwest, and seeing the performances got me really excited to start developing our own show, INTERROBANG!