In the fall of 2008, inspired directly by the then young Honk Festival, the Extraordinary Rendition Band was the brain-and-loin-child of five educator-activist-artists in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Extraordinary Rendition Band “Yearbook” of Photos
Band Portraits — Current Members 2022
Band Portraits — 2014
How it all began . . .
We aim to demonstrate that any note is better than no note.
In the fall of 2008, inspired directly by the, then young, Honk Festival, The Extraordinary Rendition Band was the brain-and-loin-child of five educator-activist-artists that bubbled up, in spite of any traditional logic, in the artistically fertile and ecologically toxic brown-site of the Monohasset Mills/Steel Yard/Wooly Fair community of Olneyville, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Our original aim and the foundational mission were to:
use music to support causes in unique ways that traditional activism and protest often could not;
build a network of activist musicians capable of coming together to play in support of such causes, community organizations, and events
maintain an open band for people of any level of musical experience without the gate-keeping mechanisms of auditions, instrument quotas, or the control of band-leaders;
disrupt the rarely questioned functioning of daily life in this military-industrial capitalist world power we live in.
We quickly realized that we lacked the network of skilled, mission-aligned musicians, as well as the skill, experience, and repertoire ourselves as musicians, arrangers, and performers necessary to meet those objectives without things like rehearsals, recruitment, band meetings, and what have you. We tried hard, sucked often, received support, learned a lot, performed enthusiastically, and never gave up. Over time people stopped walking away from our performances and began dancing and chanting with us.
Each of the 100+ members who have joined over the years, and the 40+ active and occasional members currently, contributed something magical and lasting to the "Extraordinary Sustainability" of this creative community we cherish and share.
From playing the old Black Rep "Sound Session" parade and the Steel Yard's "Wooly Fair", to the RI PRIDE Parade and PVD Fest; from protesting LNG pipelines and illegal detentions at the Wyatt Detention Center to rallying for Womens' Rights and standing against the election of a misogynist president simultaneously on the RI Statehouse steps and the Whitehouse lawn; from running years of free youth educational music, community, and activism programming in Providence schools and helping manage and re-envision the PRONK Festival to raging all nighter performances in the parades of Mardi Gras and music bombs in the dive bars and alleys of Providence, the magic of the ERB continues to grow and thrive in the ethereal, boundary-blurring space where our members and audiences become one.
Amid all the lives born, lost, and celebrated, the milestones of love and hate in this crazy world, we continue to use our music, our performance, and our selves to find, create, and share joy and hope when it feels most abundant, most absent and most needed.
