The World/Inferno Friendship Society

Rather than a conventional band, The World/Inferno Friendship Society operates more like a gang. This Brooklyn, NY, collective formed in the late '90s as a fluid punk/ska/gospel cabaret that incorporates horns, piano, punk rock guitar, several percussionists, and a mayhem-inducing live presence. Over thirty musicians have cycled through its ranks, although nine or ten typically appear onstage during performances.

The group issued its debut CD, The True Story of the Bridgewater Astral League, through the New Jersey-based indie Gern Blandsten in 1997. Subsequent releases comprised The East Coast Super Sound Punk of Today!, which contained the characteristically arch track "All of California and Everyone Who Lives There Stinks," and April 2002's Just the Best Party, spotlighting the WIFS staple "I Wouldn't Want to Live in a World Without Grudges." The live album Hallowmas Live at Northsix surfaced in August 2003. Three years afterward the EP Speak of Brave Men arrived in January, followed that July by the full-length Red-Eyed Soul, the latter marking the band's first outing on Chunksaah.