by Vanessa Arrington
They don't march in an orderly fashion, nor do they play traditional band music. They're the Stanford band, and they prefer to scatter on the field while playing music by the Rolling Stones or the Grateful Dead.
LSJUMB, the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, has a thousand parts and a mind of its own. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the band's director, Dr. Arthur P. Barnes, has not attempted to stifle the band's individuality in the past 33 years he has been at Stanford. In fact, Barnes has encouraged the band to be unconventional.
"The band really is Dr. Barnes in many ways," said Patrick Neschleba, drum major in 1994 and 1995. "He has been the enabling force in making the band what it is, by arranging rock 'n' roll music and being a champion of the band with the administration (at Stanford)."
This fall will be the beginning of Barnes' last year at Stanford as band director. He plans to retire from Stanford but will continue to conduct a community orchestra in Livermore.
Barnes said his replacement will have to be someone both with a strong musical background and someone on whom the band can agree, as some members of the band will be actively involved in the selection process. Barnes also said his successor will most likely be someone from the area.
As far as the job description goes, Barnes has a quick summary: "I write some of the music and try to keep the band out of jail."
The Stanford band is student-run, so a core group of band management keeps the band machine moving.
As professor of music and director of bands at Stanford, Barnes has seen the LSJUMB evolve from an all-male ensemble playing typical band music and marching in order to an organization almost 50 percent female playing rock 'n' roll and appearing, more often than not, in complete disorder.
In 1963, Barnes came to Stanford to get his doctorate of musical arts and joined the band as a part-time director, becoming the full-time director two years later. Prior to Stanford, Barnes had taught band and music theory at Fresno State University, South Illinois University and at a secondary school in Ohio. Out of high school, where he met his wife in 10th grade, Barnes spent a year at Swarthmore College and then got his bachelor's and master's degree at Wichita State University in Kansas.
When Barnes joined the Stanford band, he said, the members "already had blazers, the same uniforms they have now, and were just as crazy." What the band didn't have was a music style that set them apart from other marching bands.
"Rock and roll was not that big," Barnes said. "I decided to make it (the Stanford band) the world's largest rock and roll band, and wrote hundreds of arrangements."
The Stanford band has certainly come to be known for its unique renditions of rock classics. Yet, the band is even better known for its antics and controversial field shows.
Consider the time the band was in Los Angeles for a football game and "rallied" at the courthouse where the O.J. Simpson trial was being held. Not only did the band make the evening news around the country, but Robert Shapiro, Simpson's lawyer, was quoted in a number of papers saying the Stanford band had reached "a new low in tasteless behavior."
"I was a big fan of the O.J. thing," said the 1991 drum major Eric Selvik, who saw the band's escapades on television while in Memphis, Tenn., for the wedding of a former "tree," Stanford's mascot, which, in addition to the Dollies, is a part of the band.
"It called attention to the biggest judicial joke in the world," Selvik said. "When the band gets in trouble for something, there's a lot of discourse. It gets people talking about issues that need to be exposed and talked about."
Many people were offended by the band's actions in Los Angeles. Barnes, on the other hand, was only bothered by the fact that some band members had skipped a rehearsal to go to the courthouse and that they did not sound very good on TV.
Along with Shapiro, other adversaries of the Stanford band include the governor of Oregon and officials at Notre Dame University. The band is banned from both the state of Oregon and the South Bend, Ind., school.
The Oregon ban came after a 1990 field show at the University of Oregon when the band took on the spotted owl controversy. Some Oregonians were offended by the show, and the governor issued a letter telling the band it was not welcome to perform anywhere in Oregon again. Unfortunately, many of the band members who had written the show were natives of Oregon.
"Most of the shows the band gets in trouble for are sensationalized and taken out of the context of humor," Selvick said.
As a former drum major of the band, Selvick, now a mechanical engineer at Hine Design in Sunnyvale, dealt with plenty of controversy himself. Keeping in the tradition of being a drum major, Selvick dressed up in a different costume for every football game the band played. When playing against Notre Dame, Selvick dressed up as a nun for the half time show.
Halfway through the game, a woman in a Notre Dame sweatshirt attacked Selvick, tearing off his glasses along with his habit. "She damned me to hell," Selvick said. Within a few days, the incident was making news in the Bay Area and complaints were coming in to Stanford from campus groups as well as people from Notre Dame. Selvik met with the athletic director and then issued a statement in which he apologized for offending people.
"I didn't apologize for dressing as a nun," Selvik said. "Being Catholic myself, there was no malicious intent."
A positive outcome of the event in Selvik's eyes was that it got people in the Stanford community talking about topics such as religion and freedom of expression, as evidenced by the number of letters to the editor in the Stanford Daily after the incident.
"Despite any negative perceptions of the band and the Dollies, they are all serious musicians, as we considered ourselves serious dancers," said Yu-Jin Kim, a former Dollie from 1994-95.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find another organization where you can be so spontaneous but at the same time pursue something you're really passionate about and have a strong commitment to," Kim said.
People certainly seem to have strong images of the band, either as a group of fun and talented individuals or unruly and controversial troublemakers. Many people do agree, though, that the band is becoming a bit more toned down and definitely more serious.
"The band reflects the student body, which is more conservative now," said Barnes, who is also in charge of Stanford's symphonic band and teaches music classes. "There are a lot of people working hard and throwing off the curve (at Stanford). In earlier days, there was a little more time to be crazy, but . . . it's harder to be a student now."
Josh Schiller, current manager of the band, said he thinks the band has refocused and is concentrating more on its music now than in years past. He cites the example of the band's latest CD, produced last spring, which in its first three months sold 1,500 copies. "Musically, the band sounded as good as the band has sounded in the last 15 years (on the CD)," Schiller said.
Regardless of the "watered-down" image developing, the current Stanford band has no plans to change its unconventional style or avoid controversy. "We are less inclined to drink seven nights a week," Schiller said. "But we try to ride the edge, and we want to challenge the audience with what they think."
More in question is whether the band can find a replacement for Barnes, someone who will condone the current freedom and activities of the band as well as contribute musical arrangements that continue to define its sound.
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