The What Cheer? Brigade is a "renegade marching band" from the Providence, RI area.

From their website (http://www.whatcheerbrigade.com/):

"Providence RI’s WHAT CHEER? BRIGADE is an 18-piece roving brass band that has played in trees, ferris wheels, zoos, grocery stores, bus stops, parties, farms, bars, libraries, soccer fields, cemetaries, and elementary school playgrounds since early 2005. We’ve played with Extra Action Marching Band, Lightning Bolt, Bindlestiff Family Circus, Wolf Parade, DJ Scratch, Tiny Hawks, Stick and Rag Village Orchestra, Mahi Mahi, and Hungry March Band, to name a few. Loud music doesn’t need electricity.

Do you have an idea or event in mind that involves a weird brass band? Contact us at WhatCheerBrigade@gmail.com.

In 1636, Roger Williams left Salem, Massachusetts to seek religious independence and landed at what’s now Providence. According to legend, members of the Narragansett Nation greeted him with “What Cheer, Netop?” (Netop was a Narragansett word for friend, and What Cheer was an English greeting brought to New England by English settlers.) It’s like saying” ¿Que tal, man?”

The music owes its history to the spread of brass throughout the World through military conflict and colonialism. Brass sounds got mashed up with local rhythms and traditions and there was a world brass explosion; we’re part of the fallout.

We started playing together in May 2005, and we won’t stop until they pry the instruments out of our cold dead hands."

Artist William Schaff is a member of the band, using the alias "Chop Chop the Chimp."
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