Pahk the cah at Hahvahd squay-ah

"You want us to play at your wedding? We play at weddings, where is it? Martha's Vineyard? Oh wow, that's kind of far away... you'll cover the entire travel expense? Wait, really? That's airfare for about 30 peo...oh, you're an investment banker. Ok."

I assume that one side of a conversation sounded something like this when our manager first got a call about this rally. If not, then it at least played through all of our internal dialogs for an entire weekend, when band traveled to MARTHA'S FREAKIN' VINEYARD to play at a wedding. Wait, did I say wedding? I meant wedding party. Oops, I meant REHEARSAL DINNER. That's right, somebody shelled out the big bucks to transport 30 people from San Francisco to Boston to Martha's Vineyard, and house us for two nights. A few stragglers like me flew in separately (I was home in Iowa), and we picked up a few locals along the way, but still. It was ridiculous.

We were so hyped up on the absurdity of the situation that even the rain couldn't dampen our spirits. And it rained a lot on the island. Even the awkward bus stop in the middle of a pitch-black field at night couldn't bring us down, although some began to suspect that this trip was an elaborate plot by a very wealthy enemy to assassinate the band. Thankfully the ninjas only managed to take out a few drums before band subdued them. We eventually made it to the rehearsal dinner, where we proceeded to rock the fancy pants off every member of the audience. Afterwards, the hosts treated us to some of their fine beverages while we socialized with the German dancers (Sie tragen Lederhosen). Eventually we made it back to our house(s) for the night, ate lobster, hung out with our awesome groundskeeper Spike, smoked cigars, and passed out.

We found our way back to the mainland the next day. We figured those poor bastards up at Hahvahd could use some funk, so we rallied around Cambridge and on their campus. They, of course, loved us. Punks chant : "It's not too late / To transfer schools!" Then we flew home. The end.

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Hey y'all, this is gonna be quick and painless because me, as well as about half of the Band, are seeing Earth, Wind, & Fire with Chicago in HP Pavilion in less than three hours. Fuckin' psyched.

Anyway, on Sunday, the Band sauntered on up to the City to play for/entertain/provide a distraction to/clog up the AIDS Walk in Golden Gate Park. It was super serious but also super awesome.

Highlights included:

• Serenading passersby with a rendition of "The HIV song" by Ween
• Seeing all the different ways event organizers can give us coconut-related foods
• Playing too loud to hear boorish Kal fans' grunts
• Causing the AIDS Walk to dysfunction with all the people stopping to watch us instead of walking, cloggin' up the street and making us take breaks
• Coming dangerously close to running out of songs to play, 4 hours is alot, especially when your songs average 2:00 in length.

It was largely a blast though.

About a month ago, but only about week ago was it telecast on ESPNU, the Band was called on to serve its country in the highest honor possible. We played at two USA Men's Volleyball team's games vs. China in San Jose. We're not gonna lie, it got tough out there on the front lines. Just exactly how were we going to adapt all our volleyball cheers/heckles for America? We found a way, yelling "One! Two! Three! Point Freedom!" whenever the Stars and Stripes scored, and doing a "United States of America, Organized 1776" spellout right before All Right Now. For the toobz, the games provided the perfect opportunity to resurrect the toob painted with the portrait of Mao Tse Tung. There was free candy, cool looking press passes, and confusing amounts of Chinese dancers. A truly serendipitous venture. And of course, to honor the recently passed King of Pop, our drum major Byron, that old scallawag, conducted in a red leather jacket, a black wig, and one white glove. What's that you say? Pix or it didn't happen? Well alright, some Bandies brought their cameras to the game. I'll scour through them, and maybe you'll see some on the Facebook page.

But now I really have to go. "Kalimba Story" is callin'. The time is nigh.

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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