The Gang of Action (album)

The Gang of Action is a studio album by the American pop and rock band The Rock-afire Explosion. Released on Christmas Eve 1999 on Polymer Records, the album was produced by Ivan Ivan. It was recorded from December 1998 to February 1999, at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas.

The album saw the band moving in more of an overt Eurodance direction, even though guitars and acoustic drums still played a prominent role.

Production problems
The Gang of Action was recorded on custom-made 2" tape at the Sonic Ranch recording studio complex. Unfortunately, when the band began recording the vocals for the album, the edges of the tape had begun to disintegrate. When band member Beach Bear asked Sir Denis Eton-Hogg about re-doing the work they did, he told them to "piss off", leading to them transferring all the work they had done to WAV files and finished the album using digital recording on a custom Windows NT computer in the Polymer Mobile Machine mobile recording studio at Sir Denis Eton-Hogg's Hoggwood summer camp.

With the Mobile Machine parked in the underground parking garage, they set up in a reserved peoples' cabin. An assortment of equipment and sound-insulating mattresses meant that to get to the recording camper the band were forced to drive a rented golf cart to the garage to get to the camper for a playback.

Tour
The Gang of Action tour was a large undertaking. Key elements were an Star of David-shaped ramp with treadmills for a surface on the floor connected to the stage, with some fans inside it and some outside it.

During shows, a set of seven retractable, see-through LED-based lighted bead curtains hung behind and to the side of the stage, showing elaborate lighting effects, abstract patterns, maps, moving figures, and synchronized video. The video for the curtains was played on D-VHS cassette tapes using a JVC HM-DH30000 D-VHS VCR.