Mucca Pazza

We offer stage and street performances and site specific performance. Mucca Pazza can shape-shift to meet the needs of your event. Here's a selection of press we have received on our live shows:

“Years ago, when I first learned about Chicago’s Mucca Pazza, I saw the circus punk marching band through the most superficial lens – a sign of hope for band geeks everywhere, for the quirky accordionist, for the lonely tuba player. I saw the 30-person group as some sort of refuge for those musicians who… well, didn’t quite fit in elsewhere, in an effort to come together and create an awesomely weird fanfare. It’s one part music and one part performance art – a carefully orchestrated combination of music, movement, and elation...” DO 312

"Mucca Pazza: Is it a New Orleans jazz ensemble, a gypsy street band, a P-Funk-style soul collective in disguise, or a little bit of all of the above? Don't let the marching-band pedigree and costumes fool you — John Philip Sousa would not be amused. But the dancefloor will be filled as Mucca Pazza thunders across stylistic boundaries." - Chicago Tribune

"Seeing this irresistible band of horns and violins, guitars and accordion all parade in and eventually take the stage is infectious, chaotic fun. But it’s also an incredibly coordinated and choreographed performance full of cheers and bursting with energy that is easy to get caught up in." - WNYC, NPR Music

MUCCA PAZZA was born in a steel mill parking lot along the Chicago river. Combining marching band traditions and street theater experience with rock band sensibilities, Mucca Pazza quickly found a home for its 30-odd members in the thriving Chicago underground music scene. Their eccentric, frenetic visual presence, and genre-bending original compositions earned them critical praise and a loyal local following. Before long, with their live show’s reputation preceding them, Mucca Pazza began to branch out nationally, appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, WFMU, and the Kentucky Derby, as well as supporting major national acts and performing at numerous national music festivals like Lollapalooza, Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors and the Montreal Jazz Fest. Having worked with choreographers, filmmakers and theatrical groups, as well as performing in art museums around the country, Mucca Pazza is as comfortable in the fine arts and performance art world as the local rock club, or parking lot.

“Ceci n’est pas une Marching Band”

Mucca Pazza is not a marching band, despite the drums and brass, cheerleaders and uniforms. They seldom march, musically or physically. Their uniforms do not match. The cheers are strange. There are no recognizable patterns, no discernible formations, no militant airs. However, the force and presence of a marching band remain – sonically, theatrically, odorously. There is the brass harmony, rich and powerful. The drum section, as tight and idiosyncratic as Machu Picchu’s masonry. The band might even move from point A to point B. This is where similarities to familiar marching traditions end. Mucca Pazza dances, flails, tumbles, and spins in circles. There are instruments borrowed from rock bands and orchestras. There are speaker helmets. The cheerleaders rouse, encourage and confound the audience with synchronized absurdity. The music moves from brass band groove to noise rock to avant-garde game show themes without blinking. Performances can induce geeky freak-outs and nerdy rapture, from either audience or band members, often both. The American tradition of the marching band, whether as presidential entourage, half-time show, or second line party favor, gets both fresh love and artful abuse from Mucca Pazza.

A partial list of the band's needs are detailed below.
- Two cases of bottled water
- Secure, private dressing room with AC/heating for at least 30 people w/instruments and uniforms
- Food and beverage hospitality
- Parking for band bus and up to 4 vehicles
- A thorough sound check prior to doors opening to the public at the venue. The band needs 1 hour for set up and at least 30 minutes of exclusive time on the house sound system with the aid of the sound technician working the venue the day of the performance.