The HONK! FESTIVAL 19th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands

HONK! Festival announces this year’s roster, 29+ activist streets bands, in Davis & Harvard Squares

HONK! FESTIVAL 19th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands, this year totaling 29+, Oct. 4 thru 6, 2024 (rain or shine). A wide variety of musical/activist events planned in the vicinity of Davis Square, Somerville and Harvard Square, Cambridge

SOMERVILLE, Mass. – Sept. 11, 2024 – PRLog — (Somerville, MA) HONK! Festival 2024 has just revealed their participating bands roster for this year’s 19th annual gathering of activist street musicians. Current count is at 29+ unplugged mobile bands, several who will travel some distance… as far away as Brazil, as well as from NOLA, Minneapolis (MN), NYC & Brooklyn (NY), Pittsburgh (PA), Austin (TX), Olympia & Seattle (WA), Madison (WI). With much representation from New England-based groups, HONK! 2024 will swell to a capacity of at least 29 bands, with several of those bands being as large as 30 or more players, all performing unplugged right on the streets of Davis and Harvard Squares.

For those who are not familiar, HONK! is an annual uproariously jubilant purposeful gathering held every October since 2006. The entire Festival is inspired by a commitment to social change through music, embodied in the powerful upbeat sounds generated by activist street bands who have traveled from near and far to participate in this particular annual HONK! Because, after all, this is where the HONK! movement all started, spawning many a HONK! elsewhere since then. Hence, this world-wide HONK! phenomenon warrants its own wiki to boot: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HONK! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HONK)

HONK! is now short-hand for what is fully expressed at honkfest.org/about/: “At full power, these bands create an irresistible spectacle of creative movement and sonic self-expression directed at making the world a better place. This is the movement we call HONK!” Below follows the current list of HONK! participants for 2024:

aNova Brazil (https://www.instagram.com/marcussantospercussion/), Boston, MA; Artesian Rumble Arkestra (https://oly-wa.us/ArtesianRumble/), Olympia, WA; Babadan Banda de Rua (https://www.facebook.com/babadanbandaderua), Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Berkshire Resilience Brass Band (https://www.instagram.com/berkshirebusk/p/C8-ulXjJ-Jj/), Lenox, MA; Blowcomotion (https://blowcomotion.org/), Austin, TX; Brass Balagan (https://brassbalaganbtv.weebly.com/), Burlington, VT; Brass Solidarity (https://brasssolidarity.com/), Minneapolis, MN; Dirty Water Brass Band (https://dirtywaterbrassband.com/), Boston, MA; Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band (https://ensmb.com/), Somerville, MA; Extraordinary Rendition Band (https://www.extraordinaryrenditionband.com/), Providence, RI; Filthy FemCorps (https://www.filthyfemcorps.com/), Seattle, WA; Forward! Marching Band (https://www.forwardband.org/), Madison, WI; Funkrust Brass Band (https://funkrust.com/), Brooklyn, NY; Good Trouble Brass Band (https://www.goodtroublebrassband.org/), Somerville/Cambridge, MA; HONK Family Band (https://www.honknyc.com/), New York, NY; Hungry March Band (http://hungrymarchband.com/blog/) Brooklyn, NY; Leftist Marching Band (https://www.leftistmarchingband.org/home/), Portsmouth, NH; May Day Marching Band (https://maydaymarchingband.blogspot.com/), Pittsburgh, PA; New Orleans Musicians 4 Palestine (https://www.facebook.com/susan.e.beck/videos/1303957713655366), New Orleans, LA; Providence Drum Troupe (https://www.providencedrumtroupe.com/), Providence, RI; Rara Bel Poze (https://www.facebook.com/rara.belpoze.1), Boston, MA; Rude Mechanical Orchestra (https://rudemechanicalorchestra.org/), New York, NY; School of HONK (https://schoolofhonk.org/), Somerville, MA; The Bread & Puppet Circus Band (https://breadandpuppet.org/), Glover, VT; The Jamaica Plain Honk Band (https://jphonkband.wordpress.com/) (JP Honk), Jamaica Plain, MA; The Party Band (https://www.partybandlowell.com/), Lowell, MA; Undertow Brass Band (https://undertowbrassband.com/home), Providence, RI; Yes Ma’am Brass Band (https://www.facebook.com/yesmaambrassband). Austin, TX; Young Fellaz Brass Band (https://www.youngfellazbrassband.com/), New Orleans, LA

When announcing there’ll be a total of 29 bands with a plus sign, it definitely implies that between now and the first weekend in October, there will be opportunities that will surface for more musicians to gather and be involved.

HONK! 2024 will follow the familiar tried and true scheduling patterns, with outdoor street level band concerts held throughout Somerville’s Davis Square and the nearby neighborhoods on HONK! Friday and Saturday. Then on to the vast “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet” Parade, as it wends its way from Davis Square to Harvard Square in Cambridge, on HONK! Sunday, to participate in Harvard Square’s 45th annual Oktoberfest. But every year there are also the HONK! surprise(ing) elements, often reflecting the signs of our particular given times.

Basic listings information:
HONK! Festival
19th Annual Festival of Activist Street Bands.
October 4-6, 2024
Held throughout Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston neighborhoods.
Outdoors rain or shine.
Free and open to all; if interested in volunteering, contact [email protected].
For HONK! updates:
honkfest.org (http://www.honkfest.org/), twitter.com/honkfest, facebook.com/honkfestival (https://www.facebook.com/honkfestival).
Contact info: honkfest.org/contact/, [email protected], 781-285-8639.

The Somerville-based HONK! Committee — spurred on by members of HONK!’s host band and HONK! movement founder, the Good Trouble Brass Band (fka The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band) – would like to give special thanks to the City of Somerville, the Somerville Arts Council, the Harvard Square Business Association and the Davis Square and Harvard Square businesses for their continued support. Opportunities to volunteer and contribute to this year’s HONK! can be found at: honkfest.org/help/.

Photo Credit: Peter E. Lee

By: HONK! Festival