So What's Up?

A Message from Your Friendly Neighborhood Manager
Six months ago, I told you that we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, we're out of the tunnel and we want to keep on driving. In the last three months, the Stanford Band has scored some major victories in battle to retain its identity and traditions.

-- After extensive discussion, the important place that the Band occupies in the Stanford universe was reaffirmed by the Band Reinstatement Committee. Indefinite/infinite provisional status was lifted, and the committee made a point to endorse irreverence and student-run-ness
-- After even more extensive discussion, the indefinite/infinite alcohol suspension that was placed on us my freshman year seems to be on its way out. More details will follow when they become known
-- The new Athletic Director, Bob Bowlsby, recently came on board to the idea of alumni participation, which means that right now, every Stanford alum is allowed to participate with the Band at every Band event, provided they sign a quick and painless form promising to not burn down the Shak or kill any puppies or anything like that

With all that in the bag, it's time to show the world that we're just as good at kickin ass and takin names as we always have been. And you can help. Come to reunion. Come by and see the new Band Shak. Maybe get out the rust-away and clean off that old Tenor Sax and join us at a football game this fall. I want us to be the baddest, loudest, hugest band to ever grace the field of a 1-11 football team. If we can do that, then we've really won.

Adam “Slater” Cohen
Band Manager

What We've Been Up to Since You Were Away
Most of the news you’ve heard about the LSJUMB since the past reunion has probably been that of drunken trees, polygamists, sledge hammers, and suspensions. However, the past four years of band have also included some highlights that didn’t necessarily make the front page of the L.A. Times.

Post-season basketball play has brought the Stanford Band to such exotic locales as Charlotte, Fresno (Fres-YES!), Seattle, Denver, San Antonio, Kansas City, Norman (it’s in Oklahoma), and Tucson. RedVest Band sure has grown to love America’s Heartland, and America’s Heartland still hasn’t adapted to mobs of 30 kids dressed in thrift-store clothes running and screaming into their metropolitan areas to provide unexpected musical entertainment.

Despite our football team’s recent misfortunes, we’ve still made the trip down to L.A for our annual Football Road Trip. In 2005, a group of die-hard bandies journeyed via plane, train, and automobile to the Navy football game in Annapolis, Maryland. While the band was in the area, we stopped by Washington D.C. for a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol and a special playing of the National Anthem on the front steps of the Supreme Court Building in honor of Chief Justice Rehnquist, a Stanford alumnus, who had recently kicked the bucket.

In the Bay Area, we continue to show up to the Marin County Special Olympics about an hour late each year, but they love us anyways, and we also appear at a number of other fundraising events to keep our consciences clean. We’ve had a few memorable rallies in San Francisco, one which involved male bandies getting free drinks from flamboyant party-goers at an AIDS benefit, one where we surprised and subsequently won over the American Red Cross Conference and another that had the band running amok at the Gay Pride Parade.

We’re still doing the same old same old as well: Dollie Splash, All-Campus, Pier 39 Rally, Library Rally and making the UC Davis Band stay up until the wee hours of the morning at Davis Day. We’re still the one, the only, the truly incomparable, and we still know how to have a good time.

Liz Schackmann
AssMan