Repentance for our June abandonment

Hey there blog faithful, if there are any of you left. It's ok if there isn't, we understand. This blog has treated you readers about as well as the Los Angeles Clippers treats its fan base, but we're promising to make it up to you. That's right, we're rollin out a brand new feature called "Approximately June: The Recap" where I, Shotgun, will be recapping all of the Band's goings on in the past month and a half. We'll be working backwards, starting with the Redwood City 4th of July Parade/Battle of the Bands where we put those Davis fools in their place.

The sun crept upwards on the horizon in a beautifully clear day. Bandies all over campus and other whereabouts rose from their bed, excited for the day to come. Some were commemorating the occasion with a ritualistic eating of a bacon cheeseburger and 40 oz of ancient hopgrain juice. But soon the ATS approached and the masters of enthusiasm started making their way toward the Shak, the air crisp and clean. They approached the door, and OH DEAR MOTHER OF GOD MAKE IT STOP! WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE THERE'S A CORPSE IN THE SHAK? ON AMERICA'S BIRTHDAY OF ALL TIMES. QUICK EVERYONE, WE'LL BARRICADE OURSELVES IN MICH TERRACE.

Indeed the Band kicked off Independence Day by being punched in the nostrils with a brass-knuckles wearing odor. We searched everywhere trying to find a reason for this senseless crime. The answer came in the form of Joe Lewis, rib-maker and drinker extraordinaire. You see, a week ago the Drum Corps Invitational came to town and while normally fine to peace and let them use the house, Joe, one of our more senior Bandmembers with lots o' gonnengtions, wanted us to play for some of his DCI friends and as payment cooked us a great lot of delicious ribs before we headed off to a volleyball game, but I'm getting ahead (behind?) of myself. Long story short, he left some of the leftovers in a cooler outside the Shak and they marinated with the sun's rays and an odious blend of bacteria to deliver us that olfactory grenade on Saturday morning.

After we recovered and made it to Redwood City, the parade started, and we employed our typical parade-flummoxing play and rock out parked, run to catch up, then park and play, then run, repeat ad nauseum (literally) for a mile and a half. Those with weaker constitutions cried aloud to the heavens what they had done to deserve this feeling afterwards, while the stronger among us just sat in fear afterwards, waiting for their lungs to exact revenge. But we were rewarded, with Food Tickets! And waiting!

But then, it was time for the battle to begin. We heard Davis pretending to cadence into the spot and we knew our moment of combat was nigh. When Drum Major General Byron blew his attack whistle, we all rushed the spot and threw down a killer rendition of "Welcome to Paradise." And by killer we meant literally. By the end, three Davis trombone players were on the ground with their entrails splayed out in front of them. The whole thing was somewhat reminiscent of the Charge of the Light Brigade except we were the side that wasn't the Light Brigade. There was a Christmas-in-the-trenches type truce as we joined hands for "Beginnings" but we then returned to trading musical blows. By the end, it was obvious who had won, but Davis wasn't letting us take our prisoners back to the Shak to get the meat smell out, so we just declared victory and left.

After that we carried out the rest of our 4ourth like the rest of you schlubs with OMGWTFBBQs and fireworks aplenty. And we all rode into the sunset.

Epilogue: Dateline July 6, 2009. The Shak appeared to be safe. The smell demons were exorcised and everything seemed back to normal. Jill arrived. She walked to the room formerly known as Teamball, now recently colonized by the Tenrz. She opened the freezer portion of Shak fridge to put in her ice pack, and NO. WE GOT RID OF YOU. HOW COULD YOU BE BACK? WHY GOD?
But it wasn't back, Smelly McRotten had been chased out of the Shak, but it's little brother, Smelly McMolden had taken over the Shak fridge by way of making it not work. It claimed the remaining ribs and a bottle of apple juice as its casualties. No burial was held. Let us not forget the lesson these ribs sacrificed to teach us. The Tenrz take over the teamball room. The fridge dies. The moral is clear. The Tenrz lose at everything. And so the call goes out. Anyone got a fridge? Preferably one with a Capri Sun pouch painted on the friont?

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK or day or so, when we recount how the Band single-handedly defended freedom against an imminent scourge, ON THE VBALL COURT.

Some springtime distraction

Hey there blog-sketeers, it's your old pal Shotgun again with probably some much needed blog supplements to your daily Internet diets. And as such, here is a quick update of what the Band has been doing in the month of May.

After the aforementioned Dollie Splash, Band in May is a loose collection of assorted rallies and rehearsals outside as we become more accustomed to our new monkey with a stick, Byron Vosburg. A differenter time than the other quarters, but here are the highlights.

• We provided the entertainment at not one but TWO Special Olympics in the Bay Area, San Jose and Marin County, and even got Panda Express out of one of them. Fun stuff.
• Our appeal is not only limited to the mentally handicapped, but also children. The Bing Children's Center had its spring fair or something or other and wanted us to serenade the children. We'd like to thank those folks for such a fun time, and for the approximately 350,000 extra pizzas they sent us back with, which proceeded to find a home in the Shak fridge. Needless to say, they were gone within a day.
• Sometimes, though we don't really need an invite in order to provide people with our trademark symphonic cacophony. We reflected this on Friday, when we showered the Stanford campus with an impromptu celebration of fountains, playing in or around just about every one.
  
• But other times, the Band just wants to relax, and exercised that desire with that old Stanford tradition, BEACH TRIP. A great time for listening to the ocean, bottles filled with sand, burying the drum major, and contemplating the nature of reality.
• Also, the bass sax player from the Davis Band has provided us with the pleasure of his company at some of our rehearsals, which has been awesome, though we'll know something's up when at the next 4th of July Parade, we hear an eerily similar version of "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." Just kiddin' Shaggy, you're welcome anytime.

Well, that about covers it. What does the future hold? Well, June tends to be alot like May in Band terms, but kind of less so, whatever that means. See you in two and two.

Waffles is blowin up like nitro

The saga of our intrepid Waffles taking on Condi just grows more and more epic. Here he is being interviewed for channel 5 news http://cbs5.com/video/?id=49621@kpix.dayport.com

And this even ended up as the lead article on the Chronicle website for a little while. Fancy that.

Just like velociraptors and Pepperidge Farm, we remember

Hey there residents of Blogfrica, it's Shotgun again with some very much needed blog updated content. We hope that this information reaches you before the swine flu does (side note: I must say, though, that I find this whole swine flu mess very upsetting. As an avid bacon-o-phile, it's been very rough coming to terms with the idea that something so beautiful could also be so deadly. Pigs are the new Elektra)

We'll be delivering these updates with the most efficient form of information dissemination ever invented, the bullet point. Forward, ho!

• Last weekend was Admit Weekend and, as it has been for many years running, Stanford decided that the best way to introduce people to Stanford was through a throughly distilled shot of rock n' roll, administered by yours truly. Many admits, including myself back in my halcyon days when I was a ruddy ProFro, found our gleeful combination of Green Day, flaming helmets, exploding guitars, and rubber penis suits to be the perfect fanfare to their weekend, and indeed Admit Weekend is designed to be the time when Band sings its siren song, luring the unsuspecting ProFros into our web come fall (except for the SLE kids, who had the foresight to tie themselves to ship masts). Also known as the number one reason to skip IHUM section, Admit Weekend is one of the Band's high points of Spring Quarter and this year was no exception.
• With a quicker turnaround than a V-IV blues progression, the Band almost immediately started gearing up for the next high point of Spring Quarter, Dollie Splash. Known as the time of the year when the incoming Dollies finally break their cocoon of dance and emerge as white-dressed butterflies, Dollie Splash fills everyone with warm and fuzzy feelings (in the HEART, let's be clear). You can see more about this in that fantabulous story by the Daily located directly below this post.
• In other news, the band continues to chug along in its support of non-revenue sports. We were scheduled to play for the synchronized swimming national championships, but the coach reneged because he felt our "debauchery" would be too much for the yung'uns in the audience. We honestly have no idea what he meant, but whatever it was, it's not too much for the women's rugby team, because the Band WILL be playing at that national championship on Saturday (oo oo!!!!).
• Also, as it is assuredly spring quarter, that means SPRING FOLDERS! Twice a year we gots to reprint our music, and we usually take that chance to trim some of the dead branches (see: "Crazy Train" and "Dies Irae") and also plant a few new saplings. Our new songs this quarter are "Woman" by Wolfmother, which you may have heard if you've played Guitar Hero II, and "Brooklyn" by the Youngblood Brass Band, which you may have heard if you're a fan of brass bands from Wisconsin. The next time you hear our notes wafting through your ears, take a close listen, for it may very well be one of those two songs.
  
• Finally, you politicoes may have been frequenting that other blogosphere and saw a video of Condi-dondi Rice talking to some Stanford students who approached her with a Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washingtonesque zeal. (If you haven't it's right here). We would just like to point out, with a tear in our eye and a chest puffed out more than Pidgeot's, that the first young man taking it to C.Rice like Clinton Snyder is our very own Altoz sexion leader, Waffles, and we applaud Waffles for taking that Band tenacity and iconoclasm right to 'Leezza's doorstep.

Well that's all the news from Lake Woe-be-blog. Tune in next week when give updates on our Capri Sun Car project, it's kinda like the Solar Car project but with one major difference...

All Dollie-d Up and Ready to Go

All Dollie-d Up and Ready to Go

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Man, am I tired.

But for good reason. Band spent all of yesterday at the UC Davis Picnic Day Battle Of the Bands (commonly referred to as Davis Day, or even Mothafuckin' Davis Day).

This year saw 6 marching bands from various schools in the area join in for the fun. If my hazy memory serves me correctly, the roster was this:

UC Davis
UC Berkeley
UC Irvine
UC Santa Claus (or something like that, feel free to correct me)
Humboldt State
Yours Truly

Some of the bands can be kinda lame (Davis frequently steals our songs), but all in all, the day is pretty laid back and lots of fun. Humboldt is pretty sweet, with their anyone-can-have-a-solo rendition of Louie Louie, and some awesome fire-jugglers. Of course, none of them have as much energy and enthusiasm as we do, but you knew that already.

The general idea behind the day is that bands will trade off songs, playing until they either run out of music or get bored, at which point they leave and everyone remaining waves them farewell. Cal was the first school to leave this year (also the last school to show up). The past couple of years have seen Davis arbitrarily ending the event after only some 10 hours of continuous play, just so they can go party or something like that. Man, if this is a battle, I want to battle to the bitter end. Whatever. It's still fun.

Some other highlights:

-Beginnings, extra-long version: All of the bands join with us for our version of Chicago's Beginnings. There is an infinite loop drum solo break at the end that anyone can solo on, and with 6 marching bands and lots of drummers, it can last a while. Usually 40-some minutes. In the meantime, the other sections (from all of the bands) are off doing fun things like exposing themselves in public, and slapping each other.

-Watching stupid people swim in Lake Spafford. I hear you can practically get syphillis by just looking at the water.

-Every song Humboldt played. Seriously, it's like a classic rock radio station over there. FREEBIRD!!

-Having random strangers ask for pictures with you just because you're wearing a sexy nightie and pants that look like they were made from the upholstery of a couch out of the 60's

-Being carefree. Most people agree that Davis Day is one day in the year that you don't really have to do anything. Just chill.

Man, Davis Day is sweet.

aw shit, get ya towels ready

Hey there folks, Shotgun here with an early morning bloggasm. Life/laziness has prevented me from doing a full recap of Honkfest, though if it's any consolation I've been feeling really bad about it. I just chimed in right now to say it's MOTHERFUCKING DAVIS DAY (this is the correct spelling), which for the wedged, is when the Band travels to UC Davis to be a part of it's Battle Exhibition of the Bands with all sorts o' bands from all over the West Coast. Highlights include hour long renditions of "Beginnigs" by Chicago and Line, an old drum, building stuff that everyone thinks is cool. All in all it's a wondrous day. I'll see you there, and if I won't, WHY AREN'T YOU GOING?