When I first watched the video for the Infernal Noise Brigade (INB) I was waiting to see the outcome of the hard work that was put into the process of practicing drills, marches, songs and the like. After much talk of organization and the stressors that were unavoidable to create a mass of people into a solid marching band that acts as agitprop, there was the final moment that I was waiting for. Marching down the street with beats that would not stand to be ignored, the INB was at last bound together by the moment and the place it was in, and the work had paid off, no doubt. The idea that, separate from an individual attempting to create something that would change public opinion, a large group of people threatening the cause with noise could sway matters is not surprising. Yet how they did it, why they did it, and the time in which they did it makes the matter at hand stronger. It is agitprop, and considered protest. Because of the way in which they approached the matter against the World Trade Organization (WTO) by creating a threat via noise as a war machine would, this became an act of war between two very different sides.
I see the INB being something that anyone could do, and I say this in a good way. It lays out some guidelines that give way to hope that anyone can start change… if they want it. Involving all people in the group is an excellent idea, as the article by Whitney stated “no one on a bullhorn is paid much attention anymore, and it demeans the people being directed.” Getting rid of a “leader” and activating everyone as a crucial part to the message that is being made (I.e., everyone as leaders), there is a stronger means for the cause. Because they are all involved in important ways, it is personally important to them.
When I read that the INB would play in the trains or on buses just as they were going from here to there with the instruments and would start playing for the sake of it, it made me think about how the bus is almost a personal space. No one looks at each other, if only glances, and often people are plugged in to walkmen or reading a book to keep themselves in their bubble. When a marching band begins to play on your way from school to work to home or wherever you may be going, it shakes you out of your day, out of your constant routine. Although the marching band isn’t doing it as agitprop, it is a form of protest that individuals may change the way their lives are. Where is one to go on the bus? They have to hear you, it is an audience that cannot get up and leave… that is, until the next stop.
Just by watching the video, I felt moved by the music that was being created. It felt spontaneous, maybe it was, maybe it had been practiced time and time again. Either way, the music was strong and made me feel strong for listening to it. As the origins of marching bands were from war, the audio is most definitely a means of inspiration, linked together with it’s meaning to stir up something they are against makes me not think of war or fighting, but of something that influences others to strive for change in a lively fashion. After all, they will not take anything lying down, but upright, en masse, and making lots of noise.
Tags: inb, infernal noise brigade, marching band, noise
