Mucca Pazza - The Bovine Frenzy

The high school marching band can crush a teenager's spirit if he's not careful. It's the closest thing that a kid can find to military experience without combat fatigues or flak jackets. From their bawdy pulpits, high school music directors the nation over drill their uniformed legions in the summer heat, trying to mold a disparate collection of impressionable youths into a musical killing machine. Each minute movement and every note played must mesh with immaculate precision. Otherwise, well, it's not music, is it?

Mucca Pazza, a free-form implosion of sound effectively disguised as a thirty-something-piece marching band, seems hell-bent on counteracting the corrupting effect that such militaristic order can cause in music. Their uniforms don't match. Their stage formations barely hold together, crumbling at a drumbeat into a crush of bodies that resembles a rugby scrum with brass instruments thrown in. Trombonist and original member Elanor Leskiw calls the group a "democracy," but judging from its stage act alone, Mucca Pazza ("crazy cow" in Italian) operates only a few steps removed from total anarchy.

That theatrical chaos, of course, belies the intense planning and commitment that goes into keeping this collective running. Leskiw refers to herself as the "band mom," a position which requires her to help coordinate the sundry schedules of over two dozen musicians, publicity, getting the group booked for gigs, and all of the little details that keep this ramshackle tower of sound from collapsing. Assisting her in "herding the herd" is musical director Mark Messing and a newly hired tour manager.

Leskiw could certainly use a bit of help - not only is she trying to pay her bills with work as a waitress and freelance trombone playing, but now the "little marching band" she helped to establish a few years back has exploded within the Chicago music scene. Recent conquests include a slot at Lollapalooza, a show-smashing appearance on Conan O'Brien, and an improbable performance in canoes, as part of a Friends of the Chicago River benefit.

Leskiw says that the group owes much of its ascendance to the communal spirit in the Windy City's arts world.

"We formed around fun and beauty of making music. Everything we're doing now is merely a result of what we would be doing anyway."

That collaborative spirit helped to quadruple the group's membership - it started as a relatively puny seven-piece in the summer of 2004. The original members practiced in an industrial parking lot, and occasionally landed gigs at Chicago club The Hideout - on nights when it was closed, unfortunately. But eventually they found audiences, and in taking crowd participation to a new level, began to recruit friends and admirers to swell their ranks. By the time membership hit the mid-20s, it seemed like a good time to slow down with recruiting. By then, the band had its own cadre of cheerleaders, now a staple of its raucous live act.

"We love the crazy notion that a marching band should have its own cheerleaders," says Leskiw. "It's from the idea of the music nerds versus the football team. So we thought we'd have our own nerdy cheerleaders."

With Chicago well-trampled beneath their hooves, the crazy cows are now beginning to scrape enough dough together to make brief jaunts outside of their home base - to Minneapolis, Madison, and now Columbia for the True/False Film Festival. The group has hatched designs for a full-length album (for now, there's only a self-released EP), as well as an even more audacious performance stunt: performing on bicycles during Chicago's Critical Mass, a monthly event that promotes alternative (non-car) transportation in the city.

Until then, Columbia ought to brace itself for the Mucca Pazza stampede. Be warned, folks: it ain't choreographed.

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Mucca Pazza takes the Blue Note stage on Saturday, March 3 at 9:30. Also on the bill are the Apples in Stereo, Scream Club, and Casper & The Cookies. For ticket information, visit the venue's website.

To learn more about Mucca Pazza, the "astounding circus punk marching band," visit the group's website.

Check out clips of the group on YouTube!