"Pachanga Society will make you move"

Excerpt from Karl Leslie's music column in the St. Cloud Times published Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003

Attending a meeting of the Stearns County Pachanga Society is nothing like most meetings I go to in the course of a week.

That’s to say that when I showed up for the 57th meeting of the Pachanga Society on July 31 at the Rox, it was informal, fun, had great participation, and people wanted to be there – and nobody wanted it to end.

I suppose, technically, you could call the Stearns County Pachanga Society a band. But "society" does seem a better description, because it seems to be more of an affiliation of musicians playing ethnic and roots-styled music.

Brothers Mark and Mike Hasbrouck front the group, with Mark’s lead guitar creating a kind of common thread that holds it all together. The group has been playing weekly in town for pretty much the past year. And, after making several attempts to get out and hear the Pachanga Society, I was finally able to catch a set of their music.

Uniquely, scattered throughout the bar there were people joining in, playing anything from bongos to maracas. In fact, I even brought my Santana egg shakers along to participate. If you haven’t Pachanga’d yet, I suggest you find a noisemaker, a free Thursday night and partake.

If you don’t find yourself tapping your foot, adding to the rhythm section or hitting the dance floor, I’ll be surprised.