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Abstract

and of Portsmouth, NH. HONK culture is as lefty as all get out. Image by the author.</figcaption></figure><p id="ea48">The <a href="https://honkfest.org/about/">original HONK festival</a> takes place each year in Somerville, Massachusetts. Since its inception in 2006, HONK has spawned many spin-off festivals around the country.</p><p id="00ee">My first HONK festival was Salt City Honk, 2019, in Syracuse, New York. It was new and rather small. Let’s call it my first kiss. Later that year at HONK in Somerville, I lost my virginity.</p><p id="e769">I was new to the band then. I had so much fun with my new friends I could scarcely believe it. I did not yet know the music so well, so I played what I could. When I wasn’t playing I “engaged the audience,” which is super fun to do — smiling and waving at the throngs of people who lined the streets.</p><p id="1442">The after-party took place in a monster tent near a railway freight yard. Scores of musicians crowded the large stage at one end and played <i>When the Saints</i> on endless loop. Others ate and drank.</p><p id="b8cd">The following year? Yes, the-year-that-must-not-be-named. We did our best online. 2021 saw a rather subdued and scattered HONK.</p><p id="d22e">This year, 2022, the festival returned to full strength. I can think of at least one doom prophetess who would be appalled, but it was outside, and COVID precautions, for participating bands at least, were as good as any I have seen. In the weeks leading up to it, I was Mr. COVID-safe, wearing my N95 everywhere and testing often. I did not want to miss this!</p><figure id="b011"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*96GIQqjQuBgx3LvOYqM8kw.jpeg"><figcaption>Me and the band killing it at HONK 2022. Image by <a href="">Andrew Rodwin</a></figcaption></figure><p id="e018">My precautions were not in vain. It was all so much fun it felt illegal. The crowds knew little of the after-party, which, as in 2019, took place Saturday night and so was not exactly <i>after.</i> We had another full day of music ahead of us. Unlike 2019 it took place in an armory, and was not as chaotic. ERB did not play, but I got up and shook my 72-year-old ass.</p><p id="4c59">By Sunday I was so in love with my band I could barely stand it, confirming my subtitle. Why do you think I stick with this sort of thing? Who does not love being in love?</p><p id="1934">Sunday culminated with something so exhilarating it defies description — something I never thought little me would get to do. A word of explanation is in order.</p><p id="f7f1">The past two years of practice worked me up to the courage to take solos. The way ERB works is, if you’ve got the guts, you can solo. At a performance, for every number we play, we plan who takes solos, in what order, and for how many bars. Otherwise there might be confusion, which would sound sloppy.</p><p id="d240">On Sunday at HONK each band gets a few minutes on the main stage. The audience is vast. Talk about a sea of faces, this is more like an ocean of faces.</p><p id="0314">Crowds no longer intimidate me. That’s not a boast. It’s just that I have been doing related things before crowds of various sizes for more than a decade. Even so, when I

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learned that I’d soon solo on the main stage, I wondered if I’d be intimidated when I found myself out in front of so vast a throng.</p><p id="1598"><b>Many die bravely on the battlefield — few stand fearless before an audience. </b>-The Kural: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural Trans. Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma</p><figure id="5856"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*b413LuMhywtPp2FKPicYog.jpeg"><figcaption>This is a view from one side of the main stage at HONK 2019. The 2022 crowds were similar in size. Image by the author.</figcaption></figure><p id="e611">But no. Entirely in the moment, I step out without fear and <i>shred it</i> before the adoring crowd. I go with the same general melodic shape I’d used before.</p><p id="45a5">Everyone is here to have a good time, and wild cheering is part of a good time. Even so I am barely aware of them. The band has my back. I have 16 bars — about 32 seconds — to tell my story. 32 seconds to contain my <i>life.</i></p><p id="c00b">There are no words for how much I love this band. As I write those words I realize how vulnerable I am. Frightening, how much this is like an adolescent crush.</p><p id="4ae9">Next year, God willing, I hope I have the presence of mind to do what I saw another performer do, that is, bring the bell of my horn close to one of the condenser mikes at the front edge of the stage. The greater the guts, the greater the glory!</p><p id="d2c9">Thank you <a href="undefined">Amy Sea</a> for helping me get this right.</p><p id="1f15">More of my articles about music:</p><div id="4f2e" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/funeral-music-6200ab34a85b"> <div> <div> <h2>Funeral Music</h2> <div><h3>Play the right notes</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*42LvSbER9iqDGjWHFBy48w.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="07a9" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/handeled-81270d5e35d8"> <div> <div> <h2>Handeled</h2> <div><h3>This year’s dyspeptic rant concerning Handel’s Messiah</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*0ACkArP2OFb_4gKniaeMwQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="04cb" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-uncle-ernie-of-composers-45ea0da6b182"> <div> <div> <h2>The Uncle Ernie of Composers</h2> <div><h3>Fuck Orff, Carl, you old pervert</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*nzo4epD9zOmXBih5NL75KA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

LOVE AND MUSIC

Few Stand Fearless Before an Audience

Make music with people and soon you love them

*Shaking five. Photo by Ellis Betensky. 2019 PRONK (Providence HONK) festival.*

“OK let’s shake five!”

We stand in a circle.

Onetwothreefourfive! onetwothreefourfive! onetwothreefourfive! onetwothreefourfive!

Onetwothreefour! onetwothreefour! onetwothreefour! onetwothreefour!

Onetwothree! onetwothree! onetwothree! onetwothree!

Onetwo! onetwo! onetwo! onetwo!

One!one!one!one!wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-one…

As we chant, we shake our right hands in the air five times, then our lefts five times, then lift our right feet and shake them five times, then the same with our left feet, then repeat this thrice more with one less shake each time. On the elongated “one” at the end, we bring one hand each into the center for a hand pile. Then whoever is willing to bellow shouts

ONE BAND!

Band response: ONE SOUND!

Bellower: ONE BAND!

Band: ONE SOUND!

Bellower: WHO ARE WE?!

Band: E! R! BEEEE!

Then we re-expand the circle ready to crank it, having re-affirmed our oneness of spirit. The audience or crowd may or may not see this. We do it for each other, to declare to each other that we are in this together, that we have each other’s backs.

I played the baritone horn through elementary and high school. We rented it so long the music store gave it to us. When I graduated high school, if you had told me I would ever play that thing again I would have told you that you were nuts. I lent it to my sister, an elementary school music teacher.

Fifty years later, a friend and member of the Extraordinary Rendition Band (ERB), an activist street band in Providence Rhode Island, began telling me how much fun it was. When she learned I possessed a baritone horn I might be able to retrieve from my now-retired sister, she began pressing me to join. “It’s so much fun, Paul! Don’t worry about how well you do or do not play. I could barely play when I joined! You just have to be willing to practice.”

In the late summer of 2019, I joined ERB. Everyone was so welcoming I was almost overwhelmed. I found myself with new friends.

ERB provides music for a variety of community, business related, civic, and political events in the Providence area. My friend was right! So much fun!

Activist street bands come with their own subculture, the high points of which are HONK festivals.

Lest there be any doubt. This is not ERB, it’s the Leftist Marching Band of Portsmouth, NH. HONK culture is as lefty as all get out. Image by the author.

The original HONK festival takes place each year in Somerville, Massachusetts. Since its inception in 2006, HONK has spawned many spin-off festivals around the country.

My first HONK festival was Salt City Honk, 2019, in Syracuse, New York. It was new and rather small. Let’s call it my first kiss. Later that year at HONK in Somerville, I lost my virginity.

I was new to the band then. I had so much fun with my new friends I could scarcely believe it. I did not yet know the music so well, so I played what I could. When I wasn’t playing I “engaged the audience,” which is super fun to do — smiling and waving at the throngs of people who lined the streets.

The after-party took place in a monster tent near a railway freight yard. Scores of musicians crowded the large stage at one end and played When the Saints on endless loop. Others ate and drank.

The following year? Yes, the-year-that-must-not-be-named. We did our best online. 2021 saw a rather subdued and scattered HONK.

This year, 2022, the festival returned to full strength. I can think of at least one doom prophetess who would be appalled, but it was outside, and COVID precautions, for participating bands at least, were as good as any I have seen. In the weeks leading up to it, I was Mr. COVID-safe, wearing my N95 everywhere and testing often. I did not want to miss this!

Me and the band killing it at HONK 2022. Image by Andrew Rodwin

My precautions were not in vain. It was all so much fun it felt illegal. The crowds knew little of the after-party, which, as in 2019, took place Saturday night and so was not exactly after. We had another full day of music ahead of us. Unlike 2019 it took place in an armory, and was not as chaotic. ERB did not play, but I got up and shook my 72-year-old ass.

By Sunday I was so in love with my band I could barely stand it, confirming my subtitle. Why do you think I stick with this sort of thing? Who does not love being in love?

Sunday culminated with something so exhilarating it defies description — something I never thought little me would get to do. A word of explanation is in order.

The past two years of practice worked me up to the courage to take solos. The way ERB works is, if you’ve got the guts, you can solo. At a performance, for every number we play, we plan who takes solos, in what order, and for how many bars. Otherwise there might be confusion, which would sound sloppy.

On Sunday at HONK each band gets a few minutes on the main stage. The audience is vast. Talk about a sea of faces, this is more like an ocean of faces.

Crowds no longer intimidate me. That’s not a boast. It’s just that I have been doing related things before crowds of various sizes for more than a decade. Even so, when I learned that I’d soon solo on the main stage, I wondered if I’d be intimidated when I found myself out in front of so vast a throng.

Many die bravely on the battlefield — few stand fearless before an audience. -The Kural: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural Trans. Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma

This is a view from one side of the main stage at HONK 2019. The 2022 crowds were similar in size. Image by the author.

But no. Entirely in the moment, I step out without fear and shred it before the adoring crowd. I go with the same general melodic shape I’d used before.

Everyone is here to have a good time, and wild cheering is part of a good time. Even so I am barely aware of them. The band has my back. I have 16 bars — about 32 seconds — to tell my story. 32 seconds to contain my life.

There are no words for how much I love this band. As I write those words I realize how vulnerable I am. Frightening, how much this is like an adolescent crush.

Next year, God willing, I hope I have the presence of mind to do what I saw another performer do, that is, bring the bell of my horn close to one of the condenser mikes at the front edge of the stage. The greater the guts, the greater the glory!