Some What Cheer? members attribute the inspiration for the street band movement to Crash Worship, a California percussive-performance group, and the subsequent formation of such efforts as the Extra Action Marching Band on the West Coast, and the Hungry Marching Band on the East Coast.
What Cheer?, which formed in 2005, describes itself on its Web site (whatcheer brigade.com) thusly: “It’s a mobile party with a taste of Bollywood, the Balkans, New Orleans, Samba, and Hip Hop. With no singer and zero amplification, some call the band’s sound Luddite Hardcore — proof that loud music doesn’t need electricity. The Brigade defies categorization, appealing equally to punks and farmers, old and young. The group is a raucous live experience, not easily captured on recording.” (That said, the group does have a newish CD, titled, with characteristic snark, We Blow You Suck.)
Trying to plumb the details of the band’s origin and its identity proved daunting during a recent group interview at AS220.
The band’s central cut-up, who goes by the moniker Chop Chop and who showed up wearing a cloth fright mask decorated with flowers and darkened eyes, was more interested in exhibiting the group’s natural impetuousness and cracking wise. (Although known for wearing a monkey mask while performing, Chop Chop calls the monkey an “annoying little fuck,” adding, “The monkey is dead.”)
In explaining its name, the What Cheer? Web site notes how, according to legend, Narragansett Indians greeted Roger Williams here in the 17th-century, saying, “What Cheer, Netop?” (Netop was a Narragansett word for friend, and What Cheer was an English greeting brought to New England by English settlers.)”
So what’s the relation between all that and the band’s Rhody-centric name? “The music owes its history to the spread of brass throughout the World through military conflict and colonialism. Brass sounds got mashed up with local rhythms and traditions and there was a world brass explosion; we’re part of the
fallout.”
Bringing it all back home
What Cheer? tries to organize in a democratic way — not necessarily an easy thing with almost 20 members — and it displays its values by playing for causes in which it believes (like Alexandra Svoboda, who was seriously injured during a clash last year with North Providence police, and by doing a “recess tour” of eight different elementary schools).
Some other brass bands ex-hibit a similar kind of approach — a mix of left-leaning politics and community-building.
The Leftist Marching Band, for example, an explicitly political outfit from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, doesn’t even take money for its performances. According to the group’s Web site (leftist marchingband.org), it “supports political issues that some folks would call liberal. We prefer to call them good causes . . . . Even though we can get darn fed up with fascist, patriarchal, capitalistic jerks — we are all about peaceful expression and support for tolerance.”
What really sets What Cheer? apart, says Stein, is how its members practice really hard. And the best way to appreciate the band — regardless of your politics — is by hearing and seeing one of its live performances.
In a subsequent interview, trombonist Sakash, an older member of the group at 30, says she thinks the Brigade will be content to continue its current approach.
