The
Infernal Noise Band, or INB, is a great example of what music can do
for a crowd of people. Music has always been a way to reach crowds
of people but INB took it a step further than performing on a
football field or in a parade, like most marching bands do. The INB
decided to lend their music toward a cause they believed in. The
article by Jennifer Whitney didn't describe the cause that they were
protesting for but instead focused on the means that the INB tried to
contribute to the protests in Seattle but in a way I'm not sure that
the specificity of the cause is very important to the story of the
INB. The cause that INB may have fallen by the wayside in the
information we were offered but the effects and ideas behind using a
marching band to draw in a large audience can still be considered in
their approach to the realm of public performance art.
While
I've always heard of protests involving music, I had never heard of
the use of marching bands integrated into them. Most of my
knowledge about how music has been used for talking about a cause has
come from things much more commonly seen, such as charity concerts.
The Topp Twins, a New Zealand pair of lesbian twins who have used
their music, songs about causes they support, to make a difference in
the world, also comes to mind. But marching bands come with a
completely different aspect. The mobility of them creates a wider
possibility. Their mobility allows them to enter and exit both
private and public spaces while performing help keep them from being
stopped and banned. The more area that they can cover, the more new
listeners and potential followers they can pick up on their route.
In
their preparation the INB went to the lengths similar to other
marching bands. They struggled to learn steps and music, to find the
ideal drum major and to keep a practice space that doesn't cause too
many problems. Where the INB differ is their choice of venue and how
they are perceived by their audiences. While most marching bands
that we are used to are affiliated with a sporting event, helping
keep up the spirits of a crowd and adding to the atmosphere of an
event that everyone has made the conscious decision to attend. The
INB, and other radical marching bands, set themselves apart by,
instead of rallying up crowds that are there to support the same
thing (although that does happen), they are there to help draw
attention to their cause, to draw people into it. Marching bands are
usually reserved for school campuses, sporting events and parades,
while INB tried to spread out to more unconventional venues such as
the streets of Seattle where the police are gassing protesting
crowds, or inside of an unsuspecting Starbucks. As Jennifer Whitney
points out about the INB's Starbucks performance, the message they
were sending out was one that said, ““Hey, normal life ends here
folks, there is a marching band in your Starbucks, you’re not going
to work today!”. The INB were trying to shake up the average and
bring more attention than would have otherwise been directed to the
protests they were serving. The INB were giving these unsuspecting
observers a chance to witness something that they would have never
expected and would give them something to talk about for an
unspecified amount of time. In this way the INB were not only
reaching an audience of those who were in their location, but also
creating a word of mouth about this spectacular event that they were
unexpectedly a part of.
Although,
I doubt that most protestors would not have lasted long if they had
tried to use the interior of a Starbucks, a privately owned space,
for voicing their causes, the INB got away with it. Perhaps it was
because they were presenting themselves in a way that caught everyone
off guard by their unusual approach to it. Or perhaps they were just
too quick to perform and then exit the Starbucks before anything
could be done to stop their impromptu performance. Either way their
tactics seemed to be perfect for their desired effects.
The
choice to use music in their protesting may have been one to change
up the normal routine of chanting and yelling but music reaches
crowds in ways that other displays do not. Music is so far reaching
that anyone who could hear the INB would most likely be brought to
wonder about the source of it and to perhaps go to explore the
reasoning behind it. Since music is usually an experience that is
crowd oriented protests seems to be a natural home for a marching
band. Music invites the listener to dance, to sing, to contribute
and join in. Chanting and yelling at a protest may have some of the
same invitation, music is much more welcoming to new comers. The
excitement and mood that music invokes is much stronger. Observers
of a protest may not be as likely to participate but to hurry past
without learning about the cause which is being protested. Music
creates a sort of bridge to draw people in from the side of observer
to the side of participant.
Although,
while reading the article by Jennifer Whitney I was a little
concerned with the idea that the band would create more chaos in the
crowd than there already would be. The idea of raising the volume of
the protest, of invading private spaces such as Starbucks, and of
marching along police lines with the expectation of getting gassed or
maced seemed to me to have the power to be very disruptive. After
reviewing all the material thoughtfully I decided that this initial
evaluation was unfounded and that perhaps the organized procession of
the band lent something to the chaos in a way. However, with most
performance arts, it is hard for me to judge without actually having
experienced it myself.
