11.17.2005
Starting Salary: $22,275.00
Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band
Starting Salary: $22,275.00 LP (Embo, 1980)
I hold in my hands a record that is so 1979 college campus, I'm getting a contact high. The cover shows a sloppily dressed marching band. People are shirtless, wearing a variety of hats, and giant neck ties. They also stand with their instruments. In the front line are the drummers. In front of them are empty beer kegs. In the back are sousaphones, their bells painted with messages, swirls, and a giant eyeball. Inside the gatefold, the band members pose how they please. There are people dressed as devils and pharoahs, a lot of guys are missing pants, some one is grabbing a woman's tit, more kegs are present as well as copies of porno mags - the picture is certainly inthe spirit of the movie Animal House. The back cover has a partially beer stained photo from the 1930s or so of the Stanford University Military Band. The inner sleeve contains a gonzo style story about breaking into another university's trophy case by smashing the glass and then taking a trophy home as a souvenir. The special thanks list contains the recently deceased Keith Moon, the recently disgraced Hamilton Jordon, Jack Daniels, and Hunter S. Thompson. The first side of the record are mostly marching band songs, though modified to suit the band. The second side contains covers of songs by The Who, The Kinks, The Zombies, Edgar Winter Group, David Bowie, and the Tubes.
The LSJUMB started in 1963 after the bands members went on strike. They got a new director who pledged to let them do whatever they wanted to, got rid of traditional marching band costumes and songs, and dressed however they wanted and played a lot of rock and roll songs. They also became a scatter band and started getting into trouble.
A scatter band is different from a marching band in that it spells out words or makes shapes, instead of marching in formation. In the Stanford Band's case, that meant doing a tribute to the recently kidnapped, Cal student Patty Hearst at the Big Game against Cal (UC Berkeley) by making a formation of a hamburger bun which was missing a patty. During the 1971 Rose Bowl game half time show, the band first spelled out OHIO STATE and than quickly rearranged themselves to spell OH SHIT. This was broadcast on NBC to a national audience. They were banned from the next year's bowl game. In another spelling fiasco, the band first formed HI FOLKS and then shifted the top of the O to the top of the L to spell HI FUCKS. This, too, made it on TV and got them banned.
Here, the band performs after a 1979 game with UCLA in Stanford Stadium. I've picked two songs for you because, well, when was the last time you heard a marching band do Suffragette City or White Punks on Dope? While you are listening to this, imagine a stadium full of excited students and puzzled alumni hearing the band chant WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE!
The liner notes end with "It frightens me even more to think that the Stanford Band album of 1979 may be an artifact someday: uncovered, perhaps with other mementos of the Class of 1980...If those who find it want to play it, they will probably have to borrow a fragile antique turntable from a local museum of ancient technology...I hope that when they hear the music play, they will realize that the spirit it was first performed was part of a great tradition." Here! Here! Bottoms up!
# posted by Scott Soriano : 09:01
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White Punks sure translates to marchcore a lot better than I was hearing in my head. This really SOUNDS like 1979.
I was a member of that rag tag group back in '79. All of the music the band played then ... and now consists of rock and roll tunes arranged by band members or the director at the time. The goal was always to stay as true to the original tune as possible. Interesting fact...the LSJUMB once had the honor of playing WPOD with the TUBES at a New Year's eve concert.
# posted by 
: 00:47
: 00:47
I was a member of the LSJUMB (Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band being too long to write on the trumpet case) that backed up the Tubes playing WPOD that cold New Year's Eve. Great fun. I'd created a pair of 6 inch high platform sneakers out of cork that just barely lasted the performance. I didn't play on the above mentioned album, but I know half the people in the photograph.
EMBO
EMBO
# posted by : 15:23
: 15:23
As someone who had to play the Kenny Rogers Dolly Parton hit "Islands in the Stream" (making little wavy lines on the football field, with islands) in high school, I'm so fucking jealous.
eek, that's even worse than the "eye of the tiger" my high school band played. But then I went to college and joined the LSJUMB, so I got better. < /Monty Python >
# posted by : 14:27
: 14:27
PLEEEEASE post all the cover songs from this album. Marching band covers are awesome! Thanks!
# posted by : 14:58
: 14:58
I am (was) the bitch in the cowboy hat. Lower left corner onthe front cover. You missed listing some of the best half-time shows: The Tribute to the Death of Chairman Mao (the same week he died--major formation re-write mid-week); the Sack of Troy (with exploding battering ram); Carter's Problems (The exloding "SALT" shaker--and the Playboy bunny with fangs);- the list goes on. I believe the Band covered every Steely Dan song ever recorded (never know when (Never Going Back To)My Old School will come in handy--like when students take over an embassy in Iran on a Tuesday and you have to write a new show for Saturday......), a lot of Grateful Dead ("Truckin'" was played every pre-game as the Band marched off), and Never, Ever resorted to playing the re-treads, a la 'SC (play one lousy background to a Fleetwood Mack song and believe people will listen to it every week....) Even the old cadence was written in every time pattern know to exist --and even had a solo for cowbell and high hat--but in beat patterns that required an "altered state" to get right. Nicknamed "the Incomperables"--they were a wonderful part of my life.
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# posted by : 16:02
: 16:02<< Home
