MarchFourth Marching Band

Artist Information

Biography

With a rallying cry of “JOY NOW!” MarchFourth Marching Band (known as M4 by its growing legion of fans) throws itself and the audience into a swirling volcano of high-energy music and spectacle. What began as a Fat Tuesday party on March 4, 2003 in Portland, Oregon has over the last 8 years become one of the nation’s best live touring acts. The band will have spent over 180 days and 50,000 miles on the road by the end of 2011 alone, and thanks to word-of-mouth will soon be graduating from “best kept secret” to a band on the brink of exploding in popularity. Whether at a family matinee in a small town in Colorado or a sweaty nightclub in New York City or a festival mainstage in Louisiana, MarchFourth wins over audiences of all ages at every occasion, and has consistently been named a “festival favorite.”

Aside from the band’s marching band themed costumes, percussion corps and brass, M4 is far from a “marching band” in any traditional sense (though the band has been known to parade down Main Street before taking the stage). M4 is anchored by funky electric bass, and has been evolving into a more guitar- and vocal-driven musical experience. In one 90-minute set the band will take you on a journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the gypsy camps of eastern Europe to the African jungle by way of Brazil, along the way stopping to sample the deepest grooves of the best of American funk, rock, jazz and boiling it all together in cinematic fashion with high-stepping stilt-acrobatics and sexy dancers. This genre-busting approach is usually the territory of DJs, but this band is real people making music and art in real time—and every show is different.

At the core of the band is its DIY ethic. The band has been writing and arranging all of its own material, designing and fabricating its own costumes and merchandise, developing its own choreography and managing itself from Day One. With the addition of their booking agency (Skyline Music) in 2010, M4 has been touring relentlessly. MarchFourth is akin to a team sport with a roster of nearly 30 performers to choose from, though the band tours with approximately 8 horns, 5 drummers, bass, guitar, and 5 dancers/stiltwalkers.

The first two studio albums released by MarchFourth were recorded, produced and mastered entirely “in-house.” Their new release, Magnificent Beast (out 10/25/11) was produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and features a wide array of genre-mashing groove-based material that incorporates more vocals and guitar than previous albums. Following their 2009 release, Rise Up (a tribute to post-Katrina New Orleans), Magnificent Beast has now evolved into a full-blown big-stage brass-rock-funk assault peppered with moments of swing, jazz, bollywood, ska and metal.

With so many members and writers, M4's influences are all over the map, but fans of Sgt Pepper, Duke Ellington, Gogol Bordello, Ozomatli, and Cirque Du Soleil would likely feel at home in the audience. MarchFourth has shared the stage with a wide variety of acts, including Pink Martini, Budos Band, Balkan Beat Box, Trombone Shorty, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Beats Antique, Bassnectar, Antibalas, Melvin Seals and JGB, The Motet, Hot Buttered Rum, and Yard Dogs Road Show. The band has also been climbing the festival roster, with return appearances at Wakarusa, Bumbershoot, Voodoo Festival, Telluride Jazz Festival, High Sierra, Wanderlust, Lotus World Music Festival, and Strawberry Music Festival, as well as recently appearing on ESPN’s Espy Awards (Los Angeles) and WGN-TV (Chicago).

MarchFourth inspires dancing… when the audience can tear its eyes from the kaleidoscope of visual energy (and maybe even a crowd-surfing stilter) pouring from the stage. “Part New Orleans brass ensemble, part groove-heavy rock group, and part vaudevillian circus, this group unleashes such a technicolor experience that using the word ‘concert’ to describe their performance falls flat” (5820 Magazine). M4 provides the opportunity to come together in joyous union with a band whose mission is to seize the moment, bring communities together, and leave everyone feeling as if the world is a better place.

Instrumentation

John Averill: electric bass

PERCUSSION / DRUMS:
Michael Kennett: bass tom
Richard Cawley: repenique, chocalho
Heather McGarry: snare drum, bells
Topher McGarry: snare drum
Keith Vidos: toms
Jenny DiDonato: snare drum, bells, djembe, zils
Aspen Walker: bass drum
Dan Herrick: cymbals
Dan Stauffer: cymbals

HORNS:
Jason Wells: trumpet
Eric Miller: trumpet
Luke Solman: trumpet
Katie Presely: trumpet
Russel Scott: trumpet/alto saxophone
Dominic Adams: alto saxophone
Benny Morrison: tenor saxophone
Robin Jackson: tenor saxophone
Taylor Aglipay: bari saxophone
Daniel Lamb: trombone
Chris Long: trombone
Katie Colgan: trombone
Ethan Chessin: bass trombone

DANCERS & STILTWALKERS:
Faith Jennings: dance
Nayana Jennings: stilts
Nathan Wallway: stilts
Sid Phillips: stilts
Jeremiah Guske: stilts
Scarlett Torrance: dance/puppets
Kyrstyn Pixton: dance
Jen Forti: dance
LaTisha Strickland: dance/trapeze
Dan Stauffer: stilts/hoops/cymbals
Amy Hatfield: hoops/dance

Discography

"Magnificent Beast (October, 2011)

"Rise Up" (October, 2009)

"Live" (November, 2007)

"MarchFourth Marching Band" (March, 2005)

Official Website

http://www.marchfourthmarchingband.com

Links

• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• MarchFourth YouTube Channel
• video from the Bite of Oregon Festival

Audio

• Rose City Strut
  Listen  
• Lesley Metal
  Listen  
• The Finger
  Listen  
• Delhi Belly
  Listen  
• Skin Is Thin
  Listen  
• Fuzzy Lentil
  Listen  
• Fat Alberta
  Listen  
• A Luta Continua!
  Listen  
• Ninth Ward Calling (Rise Up)
  Listen  
• Dynomite (Rise Up)
  Listen  

Video

MarchFourth Promo Video

March4_PromoClip.mov

Photo Gallery

Press

• MarchFourth Marching Band: A Brassy Strut [+ Show ]
  

  The idea of an album of marching-band music is pretty funny, but MarchFourth Marching Band doesn’t g...The idea of an album of marching-band music is pretty funny, but MarchFourth Marching Band doesn’t go for laughs in “Magnificent Beast,” as trombonists, trumpeters and sax players use their horns to build alluring melodies and throbbing beats. The group goes even brassier in “Rose City Strut,” as it’s joined by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s clarinetist, tenor saxophonist and tuba. The Preservation Hall band had come to Portland, Ore., home base for MarchFourth, for a joint concert last April; the New Orleans players agreed to improvise some solos for free if the recording could be made at the concert hall.
  
  The horns push and pull, wail and oompah, share conversations and sometimes seem to have a difference of opinion, but always reunite in blissful harmony. The band was going for a dark, sultry mood, but an optimistic spirit is just as evident. The bah-BOMP-a-BOMP BOMP melody insinuates itself into the listener’s brain, while the pace is perfect for a stroll down the street. The song’s “Rose City” title calls out to a dancer named Rose who performs with the band, but it also functions as an homage to Portland’s nickname. Portland has many musical identities, but here, it sounds like the grooviest place in America.

• Call it the revenge of the band geeks [+ Show ]
  

  Call it the revenge of the band geeks. Call it the revenge of the band geeks. It seems that ev...Call it the revenge of the band geeks.
  
  Call it the revenge of the band geeks.
  
  It seems that everywhere you turn these days, you can find the folks who probably got a lot of grief for their stints in their high school bands -- marching and otherwise -- wielding their horns and drums and even accordions with great pride. Brass bands and various derivatives might just be the hippest things going.
  
  Well, brass bands have always been hip in the Balkans and in New Orleans, so it's no surprise that it's sounds from those contrasting climes, with maybe some Mexican street music as well, that have provided templates for a bunch of the young American acts in the new brass class. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Slavic Soul Party's new album, 'Taketron,' is dominated by Balkan influences but takes a side trip into a funky piece by New Orleans' great Rebirth Brass Band. Portland, Ore.'s MarchFourth Marching Band -- they even use "marching band" in the name! -- flips the formula, its 'Rise Up' album drawing mostly on Crescent City funk with a few nods to the jittery Balkan rhythms along the way. Then there's New York band Red Baraat, whose new 'Chaal Baby' does a sort of Balkan-Bayou-bebop-bhangra with its Rajasthani roots. And let's not forget such recent brass-ieres as Gogol Bordello, DeVotchka, Beirut and alt-rock darlings the Arcade Fire, who are nothing if not a marching band at heart.
  
  But they all must stand aside as another parade comes through: Trumpeter Boban Markovic, the true giant of Balkan brass music, has a new album, too. With son Marko having been the co-leader of the band for a few albums now, the Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestra's 'Devla' continues in a long line of standard-setting for the Serbian clan, as you can hear in the title song:
  
  "'Devla' means 'Oh, my God,' here taken positively, as one can see where Marko -- just a very talented kid a few years ago --now takes our music," Boban says in an e-mail interview translated by his manager. "But also it is as a call to make our lives brighter and happier."
  
  And he adds, ruefully, "The modern world is sometimes very difficult for everyone."
  
  Perhaps there's some irony that the same modern world that has allowed this music to find fans all over can make like tough in the land of its origin. It's sort of a theme running through Serbia and the other former Yugoslavian countries -- not just in the sectarian and ethnic conflicts that devastated the region not long ago and have left it with tentative hope amid poverty and uncertainty, but arguably through centuries of being a cultural and military crossroads.
  
  But on a purely musical front, 'Devla' celebrates the richness of the history -- and the modernity.
  
  "Our hometown is Vladicin Han, 350 kilometers south from Belgrade, the region where is the heart and soul of gypsy brass bands," Boban Markovic says proudly. "This is the dominating music there, hundreds of bands are living there. But in the modern society, you are introduced with different musics every day."
  
  On the tradition side, Boban and Marko took the opportunity to give the spotlight to some key figures in their own history, bringing in several singers of local and regional renown -- of not quite the global fame they're reached.
  
  "Ljubisa Stojanovic was our collaborator on the album 'Go Marko Go' and we became friends," Boban says. "Rade Krstic is one the most prominent folk music composers for many years. He helped me at the beginning of my career, and he mostly retired from music world over the last few years. But I felt he has more things to say, so I pushed him back to do some songs, but then in the studio I asked him to sing, as he has not done it for almost 20 years. Hopefully, this will bring him back to composing of nice tunes. Sofi Marinova is surely the best known Bulgarian singer, but this happened as an accident. When we performed in Sofia, she came to greet us, we invited her onstage and we hear that we match well, and the idea was there. I am really happy to have her on record. Mustafa Sabanovic is legend among Gypsies in Serbia but absolutely unknown elsewhere, so let people hear more pearls from Gypsies."
  
  (In an interesting side note, Stojanovic is sometimes known as Louis, as a nod to his great love for the music of Louis Armstrong. So there is a kinship between New Orleans and Balkans brass music, even if the respective rhythms sometimes seem to be at odds with each other. "Satchmo was also influencing us -- more Marko than myself as I came to his music late," says Boban, noting that Miles Davis also provided a lot of inspiration.)
  
  At the same time, the album is a culmination of the increasing leadership role Marko has taken as he's grown from teen phenom to accomplished adult.
  
  "Marko is adding new things in our music all the time," Boban says. "These are all his ideas, and he's done it in concerts for years. It works well and now it's on CD. And more surprises are yet to come."
  
  The song 'Kazi Baba' gives a few new twists with some almost hip-hop spoken-word delivery that modernizes alongside the very traditional manic brass.
  
  It's one thing for Balkan music to incorporate various sounds from cultures both near (as it has for centuries) and far. It's quite another for music elsewhere to incorporate Balkan sounds. Boban is thrilled to hear that happening, and he offers some pretty simple advice for the Americans and Europeans latching on to those sounds:
  
  "Do listen, open your ears, practice a lot and be modest," he says.
  
  Matt Moran, who founded and leads Slavic Soul Party while beating boisterously on a big bass drum, has all those covered. Especially the modesty -- in part thanks to friendships formed with the Markovic crew and other musicians on trips to Serbia.
  
  When Slavic Soul Party were invited to participate in the Sabor Trubaca festival in Surdulica -- one of the regional competitions leading up to the annual national Sabor Trubaca battle of the brass bands in the town of Guca -- Moran asked tuba player Cerim of the band Vranjanski Biseri ("Pearls of Vranja") for an evaluation.
  
  "I said, 'Honestly, what do you think?' Moran says. "And he said, 'Matt, you play very excellent. But it's very different style to us.'"
  
  But then, Moran stresses that SSP aren't trying the pretty much impossible task of playing "authentic" music from that region.
  
  "People who really know Balkan music know we don't play straight-up Balkan music -- and that's a struggle for the band," he says, concerned about persistent misconceptions. "People in the US think, 'Oh, they're trying to be Balkan!' I think 'Taketron' will clear up that misunderstanding."
  
  At a recent show in Los Angeles club the Echo, whatever people were thinking about SSP's music, they were dancing. This was a crowd largely made up of young people in a neighborhood long known for jaded detachment and artistic irony, elements that would find this music a hostile environment. And that, says Moran, is the whole point.
  
  "There's just a direct, joyful energy that people really connect to," he says. "We're so used to all the layers of self-awareness and filtering of music in America all of the time that people have been getting tired of getting music that has got so much corporate control or has to go through a guitar amp -- all these ways for music to be less direct. And Balkan brass music is really direct. Fundamentally, brass band music is a little subversive or independent. Like trying to live off the grid or grow your own vegetables. The ability to not need a stage or a p.a., to move in the street and do anything really appeals to a lot of us in America now. That unmitigated authenticity is a big reason why a lot of indie rock fans and younger kids are getting into it."
  
  Illustrating that point, SSP closed their Echo set off the stage, with no amplification, mingling with the audience as they played a couple of boisterous, hip-shaking tunes. (As did the also brass-heavy opening act Killsonic, taking the concept to extremes both in lineup -- as many as nine horns, six accordionists and five or six percussionists -- and music leaning at times toward the exhilarating Albert Ayler/Arthur Blythe free jazz end of marching band street music.)
  
  (In another side note, Moran further blurs the Balkan/New Orleans border by every Mardi Gras heading to the Crescent City to sit -- er, march -- with the Panorama Brass Band, an alternate version of the Panorama Jazz Band, an ensemble that in its regular incarnation gleefully mixes traditional jazz with Balkan tunes, not to mention a few Caribbean dance numbers along the way.)
  
  Andy Sterling, leader and percussionist of MarchFourth, has a similar take on the current brass band explosion. He sees it as a reaction to the DJ culture, which moved the audience away from the actual performers -- though he traces the distancing all the way back to the advent of modern jazz.
  
  "It started when jazz moved to bebop, that long ago," he says. "Before then, it was dance music, connection between bands and dancers. Then bebop became more about the performers, solos, more separation with the audience. Then rock came along and culminated with the big shows and performers way up on stage. DJs were the next progression: one guy who knows everything playing records. Still a connection to dancers."
  
  And, he agrees with Moran, more reliant on technology.
  
  "The other side is a backlash from where music has gone into the depth of electronic creation," he says. "Couldn't get any more acoustic than a brass band and drum. Blowing through things and whacking things are the roots of music."
  
  Won't get any argument from Boban Markovic to all this.
  
  "This is music played with great energy and passion, and people recognize it everywhere," he says. "Plus people can dance to the music and leave after the show ecstatic. In the modern world, this is very important."
  
  Band geeks rule. 10/20/09

• CD Review [+ Show ]
  

  March Fourth Marching Band - Rise Up (Independent release, 2009) One of the strongest rhythms ar... March Fourth Marching Band - Rise Up (Independent release, 2009)
  
  One of the strongest rhythms around is the marching beat. It falls into the category of rousing rhythms such as hip-hop, rap, and rancheras in that a listener cannot escape its spell. This might be why marching bands grab our full attention as they parade down the street or into a sports stadium, getting everyone up on their feet, swaying and clapping along to the polyrhythms played on snares, bass drums and sometimes bells. Horns pierce over the top of the rhythmic cacophony and woodwinds contribute a swirling circus feel.
  
  But some of us unfortunately remember those nerdy marching bands from high school and middle school—you know those poor musicians stuffed into wool costumes, marching in 80 degree weather with sweat dripping down their faces. Then the tuba players and those carrying the bass drums called out for mercy and sympathy.
  
  Ah, but this is a new era where marching bands, at least one in particular, Portland’s March Fourth Marching Band, decked in whimsical costumes and combining the circus big ring with world music sensibilities. M4, known by their fans, has the rest of us thinking or re-thinking our concept of a marching band. Heavy on the brass, bass and drums, not to mention, stilt-walkers, M4 brings the Balkans to us, then mixes it with New Orleans jazz, gospel and all things cool and groovy.
  
  Songs such as “Dynamite,” from M4’s independent release, “Rise Up,” recalls the The Tiptons Sax Quartet (from nearby Seattle) and lumped in with the opener, “Ninth Ward Calling,” listeners might find themselves on a plane New Orleans-bound. Whereas, “Contada Ridiculata” will have us all joining the circus and “Simplon Cocek” might remind us of that overdue trip to the Balkans.
  
  I am not surprised that M4 hails from Portland. Similar to Seattle, the Pacific Northwestern city has had its share of successful do-it-yourself music ensembles. But a marching band from a region where it rains most of the time? That must be why the band packs up its bus and hits the road. With circus motifs, musical diversity and the do-it-yourself ethic, M4 and France’s Lo’Jo would get on famously.
  10/22/09

• Artist Review [+ Show ]
  

  New Orleans style brass band music with a twist. Founded in Portland, Oregon in 2003 the band is a c...New Orleans style brass band music with a twist. Founded in Portland, Oregon in 2003 the band is a circus-like spectacle with stilt-walkers, puppeteers, fire-eaters & clowns and the music a lively mix of traditional New Orleans with Fela, Fleetwood Mac, and other Looney Tunes -- in short all the staples of a hip high school band. It's all brass and drums with the addition of electric bass. There's 13 brass instruments and 11 percussion, so it's a big sound, but the disc is clear as a bell so you hear baritone sax or trumpet soloing against the tight sheen of sound. The compositions are mostly original, with the old standby Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse," and a cover of "Simplon cocek," a traditional Balkan piece that was the lead track on Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band's Rounder CD "No Strings Attached." Nino Rota looms large in "Contada Ridiculata" which quotes some familiar Fellini-esque motifs. "Nightmarika" riffs off Leonard Bernstein's "America" attaining a nightmarish grandeur. "Freestyle for Miles" is a pastiche of some Miles grooves with sharp soloing. 12/01/09

• March madness: The rise of rock club marching bands [+ Show ]
  

  Popular music can't stand still, and neither can the bands at the heart of rock's unlikely new trend...Popular music can't stand still, and neither can the bands at the heart of rock's unlikely new trend
  
  By Ricardo Baca
  Denver Post Pop Music Critic
  
  Posted: 11/01/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
  
  The most unexpected trend seen in rock clubs over the past few years? The emergence of the madcap marching band.
  
  Yep, that high-school aesthetic of geeky uniforms, bulging horn sections, pep-rally spirit and booming drum collectives is on the scene in clubs and bars — not to mention parades and adult bookstores and festivals and art galleries and pizza shops and house parties.
  
  The marching band is a jubilant outpouring of sound and emotion, and it's an unusual treat to run into a party-crashing band like Denver's own Boba Fett and the Americans at the First Friday art walk on Santa Fe Drive — or go to an actual rock show to see Portland, Ore.'s March Fourth or Chicago's Mucca Pazza.
  
  In honor of March Fourth, which plays a show Wednesday at Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom, and Boba Fett, which announces surprise musical attacks via its Twitter feed (twitter.com/allamericanband), here is a look at three of North America's hippest, most indie-spirited marching bands.
  
  Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.co
  
  MARCH FOURTH MARCHING BAND.
  
  March music. Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom, 2637 Welton St. Wednesday. 8 p.m. $10. cervantesmasterpiece.com
  
  March Fourth
  
  (answers by bass player John Averill)
  
  Hometown: Portland, Ore.
  
  How many members: 25-35
  
  Signature song: "Gospel" (an original song that contains "Rise Up" lyric that is title of our new album)
  
  Marching style: We have no formation, unless you want to call it the "amoeba." Generally, we just try to walk without falling down (a technique involving putting one foot in front of the other, and then repeating until the destination is reached; sometimes we get the whole band to do it at the same time).
  
  Most unique venue played: On the top deck of a ferry in Vancouver, B.C. We were late for a gig and decided to play on the ferry instead. It was a spontaneous moment, and we sold 40 CDs in less than an hour. Another unique venue was playing a cappella on a subway train in Hamburg, Germany. We also played at the dog track once (that was weird).
  
  Band philosophy: "Eat first, drink second, sleep third and march fourth." We have other mottos, but none that are fit to print.
  
  How do you travel together? Tour bus
  
  What's more important, drums or horns? They are equally important. Why? Because we're a band, and the sound of the band is determined by the sum of its parts. Without horns, there is no melody; without drums, there is no rhythm. The electric bass is what glues them together. We also have dancers and stiltwalkers that add to the visual presentation. We are not a "traditional" marching band by any stretch of the imagination.
  
  Why a marching band? We were created to play a Mardi Gras party. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
  
  
  Boba Fett and the Americans
  
  (answers by Boba Fett)
  
  How many members: The mandalore's got band galore — so many, in fact, that it's difficult to pin down a true count. Tuba Steve counts as at least three, and I'll rock it a cappella sometimes. So probably somewhere between one and 324.
  
  Signature song: The "BFATA Theme Song" is our signature song because it's called "BFATA Theme Song."
  
  Marching style: We rock your pants off with a good, old-fashioned American dance-off!
  
  Most unique venue played: Famous Pizza? Kitty's? Vitamin Cottage? Sarlac Pit? The DMV? The venue of Colfax Avenue for one lonely and previously sleeping homeless woman?
  
  Band philosophy: Enthusiasm Trumps Talent. Rock Pants Off. I do believe in Tuba Steve.
  
  What's more important, drums or horns? Which is more important, the bounty hunter or the bounty hunted? Would one exist without the other?
  
  Why a marching band? Well after Lucas kind of played me for a sucka in "Jedi" I decided to get out of acting. You know, really stretch my self creatively. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at music. I toured with the Max Rebo Band for a while, opening for them a cappella on the megaphone and selling merch, but it just wasn't going anywhere. Homeless and destitute, I stumbled upon a lonely trumpeteer (I know it's supposed to be trumpeter, but this cat is more of a trumpeteer, rhymes with funkateer, trust me) on the 16th Street Mall, and it just clicked. Together we recruited the best players we know in the boundless universe, and the rest is history.
  
  
  Sometimes, a stage is just too small
  
  Mucca Pazza
  
  which is Italian for Crazy Cow/Mad Cow Disease (answers by guitarist Jeffrey Thomas)
  
  Hometown: Chicago
  
  How many members: Up to 30
  
  Signature song: We have two that reflect our musical/ theatrical sensibilities. One is called "Peace Meal," written by our mandolin player, Gary Kalar. The "Meal" is comprised of many of our favorite dishes: Some gypsy melodies complemented with a little Egyptian tonality, cooked up by John Bonham drunk on 40s, served up by the Wu-Tang Clan. The other tune is called "Alarm." It is our first collaboration as a band. We wrote this one practicing at our favorite rehearsal space, a parking lot in a steel refinery here in Chicago. It was inspired by a sound we hear constantly in Chicago, the car alarm. It is basically our arrangement of the melodic fragments of different car alarm "alerts."
  
  Marching style: It varies on the situation. We were asked to march in the Derby Days parade in Louisville, Ky. We marched past the news coverage booth doing a step in 9/8, a sort of square wheel on a wheelbarrow step, then broke off into the audience playing random "honking" noises like a swarm of bees. The TV anchor, assigned to anchor the parade, said something like "and here is Chicago's own Mucca Pa . . . um. . . I'm not sure I've seen anything like this."
  
  Most unique venue played: Performing in canoes on the Chicago River. We worked out some formations with rowers, and floated down the river playing our music. Gorgeous!
  
  How we travel: We've been renting vehicles, but this year we have saved our money and are planning on buying a bus. If we are doing local gigs, weather permitting, we strap our equipment on bike trailers, and bike our equipment around town. We are usually wearing our uniforms, so it looks like a funny bike trailer parade.
  
  What's more important, drums or horns? We also have an electric guitar, an electric mandolin, an electric accordion and an electric violin . . . and cheerleaders.
  
  Band philosophy/motto: There have been a lot of mottos that have entered our band's lexicon that no one outside would understand. Philosophically, the band is a reflection of many individual performers/personalities working as a musical community.
  
  Why a marching band? Many of us had worked together in the music community and/or the theater community in Chicago. A marching band seemed like the perfect form to explore our musical and theatrical ideas. It was important for us to feel unrestricted to being just a stage band. Sometimes a song just sounds better when the horns are on the bar, the drums in the audience, the electric instruments (played through speakers mounted on hockey helmets) jammed into a microphone. Not sure that the typical indie rock band could accomplish that.
  11/01/09

• Concert Preview [+ Show ]
  

  Most people would consider this Portland, Oregon, ensemble a random troupe of eccentric oddballs. Af...Most people would consider this Portland, Oregon, ensemble a random troupe of eccentric oddballs. After all, who on earth tours in a decommissioned fire truck playing impromptu concerts on streets, subway stations and ferries while dressed in costumes made from bicycle parts or recycled thrift-shop outfits? Not many. But the fact is that this 35-piece product of the DIY phenomenon doesn't take itself too seriously except when it comes for the music. When performing, MarchFourth takes on an eclectic array of tunes, going from New Orleans-style jazz stomps, Slavic drinking songs, polkas and tarantellas, all the way to Maynard Ferguson's "Theme from Rocky," and pretty much anything else in between they can fit into a brass format. Unlike other marching bands, they don't use a tuba for their bass parts — instead, bandleader/founder John Averill plugs an electric bass to a battery-operated amplifier, leading the band while lugging the speaker behind him. In the meantime, dancers and acrobats make the crowd get up and dance, often with unpredictable results. In fact, fans have been known to drop everything and join them on the road, just as kids joined the circus in the late 19th Century. You are hereby forewarned. 10/13/09

• Live Show Review from Ashland Armory [+ Show ]
  

  A dozen musicians coat the stage of the Ashland Armory launching comic book BAM! SPLAT! POW! ripples...A dozen musicians coat the stage of the Ashland Armory launching comic book BAM! SPLAT! POW! ripples of music through the brass bellow, rat-a-tat percussion drive of a full marching band escaped from the Dominatrix School of Burlesque Circus Performers. Complete with a fishnet wrapped, black and white striped promoter working the line for more money, I feel transported to a 1920’s ruse at the Madam’s House and look forward to leaving with a cat and my gypsy curse.
  
  The band’s sexy funk keeps me looking for James Bond posed in colored Go-Go circles as credits and gunshots whiz across the room. Horns pop people like kernels from the floor up out of sizzled silence. At least 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 snare drums, 2 saxophones, a guitar and a cymbal play to the pulse of a spinning top shilling out fireworks, while a troupe of Charlie Chaplins on mind-altering drugs interpret the onslaught with satirical, saucy wit.
  
  These costumed performers dance on stilts. They fly and unfold one another like Russian blocks on ropes, bars and rings. They dance around poles, in hoops and with umbrellas. All to music whirling a psychotic tempo around the acts that seems to toss them like rag dolls hitched on a fishing line, dunked into their circus games by the taunting music master. Or is it the other way around? The music swirling to keep up with the performers: laying a brick walk for their flailing interpretations bursting forth to prance upon seconds before their limbs land? It’s hard to know who’s driving this menagerie of devils play collaborating to the beat of a full marching band momentum. I just hope to leave with my clothes on my back and my head full of Monet swirls, wondering what kind of roots could possibly hold music tossed about by a marching band with style, and human puppeteers, dressed in burlesque, spinning a web through the room fueled by its sound.
  
  March 4th Marching Band, Ashland Armory, Ashland, OR - 5/22
  by Reanna Feinberg
  
  http://www.jambands.com/ShowReviews/content_2009_06_07.00.phtml

• Concert Preview [+ Show ]
  

  In what sounds like the offspring of a circus and a marching band who had a tryst with a gypsy Balka...In what sounds like the offspring of a circus and a marching band who had a tryst with a gypsy Balkan dancer, MarchFourth Marching Band picks up where the Village People and the marching band left off.
  
  This 25 piece band, which includes trumpets, drummers and stilt dancers are dressed like their going to the circus, but they play like their going to New Orleans’ French Quarter.
  
  A parading celebration of good jamming music and whimsical characters make this ensemble a unique act to see. Originally from Portland, MarchFourth Marching Band started to gain momentum as a novelty act and has quickly filled their calendar with dates around the country.
  
  MarchFourth Marching Band will make their Houston debut at the Market Square Park on October 17 –Rafael Rivas
  10/15/09

• Blazing, kickass funk [+ Show ]
  

  Comfort Music, Concert Review >> I got a chance to see MarchFourth Marching Band over the weekend...Comfort Music, Concert Review >>
  
  I got a chance to see MarchFourth Marching Band over the weekend, and was completely enamored of their blazing, kickass funk. It was the kind of funk that you could only really get by deploying five drummers (including a dedicated cymbal player), six horn players, and a powerfully grooving bass player who got the opportunity to strut around the center of the stage like a lead geetar player given that everyone else in the band was trapped behind their instrument mics. Admittedly this new studio album, Rise Up, fails to transmit some of the other essential glories of the band - the alluring majorette squad, the death-defying stilt-walkers, the five-foot tall cowbell(!) - but this music remains an obvious force for Good Times all the same. ("Nightmarika" is presented in anticipation of Halloween, natch.) 10/19/09

Setlist

Set lists vary according to the setting and type of show. MarchFourth is accustomed to performing in a variety of locations such as festival main stages, marching parades, parks, theaters, bars, schools, wedding receptions, and rooftops.

We play over 60 songs and most are originals. Our cover songs are fairly obscure, ranging from Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Raymond Scott, Fanfare Ciocurla, Led Zeppelin, Jaco Pastorius, Los Caddilacs Fabuloso, and occasionally the theme from "Rocky."

Song lengths range from 3 to 7 minutes. Set lengths range from 45 minutes to 2+ hours (with a break).

SET EXAMPLES:
When the audience is seated, MarchFourth tends to start the show with a short set (3-6 songs) of the dancers' and stiltwalkers' routines. This gives the audience a chance to get to know the band. Then the rest of the songs are high-energy danceable numbers that get everybody movin'. The set is different every time.

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