The Hooten Hallers, Mucca Pazza

$12 no-fee advance tickets on sale now

The Hooten Hallers are a band that was founded by guitarist/lead vocalist John Randall and drummer/ falsetto vocalist Andy Rehm, who performed as a duo and were known for their raucous and often improvised live performances. Paul Weber briefly joined the band in 2013–14 on harmonica and tuba, and wrote several of the group’s songs, such as “She Used to Love My Music” and “Trouble Is”. Baritone and bass saxophonist Kellie Everett joined in 2014 and solidified the group’s line-up as a trio. The Hooten Hallers are a “high-energy blues, soul and rock and roll band known for their gritty Americana roots music”.

Mucca Pazza is an intrepid interdisciplinary instrumental music ensemble from Chicago, IL. Since 2004, they have made a name for themselves playing alarmingly danceable music composed and arranged especially for their implausible instrumentation by band members – original music which defies classification but has bloomed out of manifold influences, from surf to Stravinsky, from Bartok to Zappa, from Esquivel to Ellington. In addition to blaring trumpets, slithering saxophones, clarinets, trombones, and tubas, the band boasts a drumline that seems to share a single nervous system, an entire section of disparate instruments that don’t belong anywhere near a marching band (electric guitars, accordion, violin, and yes, a cello), and contains within its multitudes a cheer squad that performs absurdist cheers and asymmetrical, impressively low-to-the-ground pyramids. No-one has ever been completely certain of the exact number of people in Mucca Pazza. Everyone can be completely certain that this group of weirdos belongs together! Mucca Pazza: embracing the absurd! in solidarity with the improbable!