Out of the ashes of The Reunion Show, Diffuser, and Count The Stars came a band out of Long Island, New York known as Action Action. Action Action was composed of Adam Manning, Dan Leo, Mark Thomas Kluepfel, and Clarke Foley. They saw moderate success via Victory Records from 2004 to 2010, which saw one of their songs appear on the video game NCAA Baseball 2006 and another song receive commercial placement in a Gillette advertisement.
In 2004, Action Action released their debut record entitled “Don’t Cut Your Fabric To This Year’s Fashion”. It was produced by William Wittman, who is known for his work with Cyndi Lauper. The album drew comparisons to The Psychedelic Furs and Echo & The Bunnymen. Because of MySpace, Action Action would see moderate success thanks to the success of the single “Don’t Cut Your Fabric”. Check out the video below!
In 2006, Action Action released their second album via Victory Records entitled “An Army Of Shapes Between Wars”. The album was arguably the peak of Action Action’s career as their song “Paper Cliche” was a MySpace hit and became well known to those that played the NCAA Baseball 2006 video game for the Sony Playstation 2. Action Action would also do extensive touring with the likes of Maxeen, Morningwood, The Sounds, Jonezetta, We Are The Fury, and Something Like Rockets. They would also share the stage with legendary classic rock band The Cult. “Paper Cliche” also boasts of over 40,000 hits on YouTube. Check out the song below.
In 2010, Action Action would release their final album entitled “The Ones Who Get It Are The Ones Who Need Not To Know”, and they would disband afterwards.
Madness To Creation’s Take: Action Action were considered to be a highly underrated band in the indie-rock world. However, I saw them as a band that struggled to find their identity and I think they were seen as a cheap imitation of The Killers. Their music was certainly an acquired taste as I could’ve seen them popular on club tours and underground shows. Their music didn’t really do anything for me, but at the same time, I get why they had a brief underground following especially during the MySpace era. Madness To Creation rates Action Action 5/10 stars.
