UC Davis California Aggie Marching Band-uh!
The California Aggie Marching Band-uh! is the official University of California, Davis marching band. The band, which has roughly 250 members, plays at both home and away games to cheer on the UC Davis Aggies sports teams, as well as participating in parades.
The original UC Davis marching band dates back to 1922, when E. H. Barger of the school's veterinary science department formed an 18-member group. That band disbanded after interest waned.
The current incarnation of the band was formed in 1929, when the university was approximately 20 years old, as a pep band for the home football games. There were 15 original members, all male. The first female members joined within two years. In the 1960s, the student body voted to exclude women from the Band-uh! after no women showed up for a game, although also allegedly to give the band a rowdier, more masculine spirit. During the women's rights movement in the early 1970s, pressure mounted to reopen the band to women, in part to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By 1973, the Band-uh! once again had female members.
The Band-uh! has been occasionally associated with controversial and obscene antics. It was reprimanded several times in the 1970s. In 1992 the band was put on probation after a sexual harassment charge was made against the student director. In 2008, the staff director of the band, who is not a student, filed a sexual harassment complaint to the university after several incidents involving the removal of shirts, offensive language and gestures, and lewd behavior.[1] In October, 2008, he left temporarily on a "leave of absence because of all the band stress."[2]
The Band-uh! is mostly student-run and managed, and participation in the band is open to any student of UC Davis, even if they don't know how to play an instrument. Band members are not compensated by units or scholarship money of any kind. The band members show up for their engagements in either their formal, blue and gold, "full dress" marching uniforms, or their more casual white collared shirt, blue jeans, and button-laden floppy hat outfits, known as the Mav'rik Band uniform. In 2009, the band received new, custom-made full dress uniforms.
The Band-uh! has released two compact discs of its music, Barn Party in 1998 and Noise Violation in 2002. The band's catalog is composed of its marching songs, such as the Aggie Fight song, as well as renditions of popular rock songs such as Green Day's "Welcome to Paradise", Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein", and Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit", among many others.
The announcement used to present the Band-uh! at every Aggie home game is usually as follows, with occasional minor variations:
Fast, furious, and foaming at the mouth,
Bold, blue, and bitchin',
It's the pride of the Regents of the University of California,
The spirit of the Davis Campus,
The California Aggie Marching Band-uh!
References
- ↑ Williams, L. Director files complaint about UC Davis band. San Francisco Chronicle. October 6, 2008.
- ↑ Gianulius, K. UC Davis Marching Band Accused of Harrassment. CBS13.com October 6, 2008. Archived December 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
