On Sun, 26 Feb 1995, Archangel wrote:
 
> As conductor of the Brown Band, I had the misfortune of attending Saturday
> night's Big Red Freakout at RPI. I say this not merely because my team
> got unfortunately trounced, which I've seen happen a few times in my
> three years at Brown, but because Saturday night I witnessed perhaps the
> most    despicable behavior by an opposing band during my "career". Although
> yelling and cheering and taunting are things that all bands do in good
> fun, there are two things that the Brown Band does not do and as conductor
> I work very hard to enforce us not doing: We do not begin playing
> once the other band has begun playing a song (with the sole
> possible exceptions of our team scoring a goal or the opposing
> penalty dragnet sting), and we do not play while the puck is in motion,
> silencing as soon as possible once the puck has been dropped. Over the
> last several games I have been trying as hard as possible to squelch
> ALL random band noise during play even including the percussion
> keeping tempo along with shouted cheers.
> At the Freakout, myself and the president of the band went to talk
> with the RPI conductor, as we usually do both home and away, to establish
> an agreement for play for the game. The RPI conductor wanted to do two songs
> for our every one during the period breaks, since this was the freakout and
> RPI alumns had travelled hundred of miles to be there (as though ours
> hadn't). I didn't really like that, and the matter wasn't settled very clearly
> but the general upshot was that we'd play whenever we could come in after they
> were done during these breaks. The other end of this "agreement" was that
> the RPI and Brown Bands would alternate whistles fairly during the periods
> of play.
> With that in mind I now set forth that the RPI band was nothing but
> malicious. They began playing songs once we had clearly begun them on
> our alteration of the whistles, including playing over our hockey fight
> song which we played upon scoring our lone goal. Our president returned to
> chat with them and was treated solely with hostility. The rest of the game,
> we were lucky to play anything at all without the RPI band interrupting us,
> or if the entire band couldn't muster for a tune, they're percussion section
> attempting to drown us out.
> When it comes to professionalism, I find the RPI band to be the worst sort
> of repugnant institution which gives the rest of the collegiate bands a
> bad name.
> To make matters worse, the RPI band continually played during game play.
> Most notably, on RPI's first break-away, they made a number of loud noises,
> both percussive and horn, while immediately behind our goalie, Mike
> Parsons. Whether this was truly a distraction which led to the goal I don't
> know, but it is none-the-less inappropriate, out of line, and should have
> resulted IMHO in a disallowment of the goal and a penalty against RPI.
> That sort of behavior continued throughout the game. I believe that the
> NCAA does have sanctions against this. I don;'t know why they weren;'t
> invoked, and the RPI band should damn well know better anyway. Although
> apparently they don't  as evidenced by a previous post in which an RPI fan
> (band member?) blatantly claimed that he would continue to do this.
> All I can say is that the RPI team is going to be the organization that suffers
> when a penalty is at long last rightfully assessed.
> As far as our course of action:
> Among the Ivies, there is something known as the Ivy League Band Agreement,
> which is basically a statement of common courtesy among the Ivy bands.
> And, as far as I know, is basically approved of (at least unofficially)
> by the Ivy athletic directors. Of course this agreement doesn;t
> include non-ivy ECAC teams, but if they keep it up, RPI may soon
> find its band unwelcome in any of the Ivy arenas. I intend to write a
> letter to my athletic director encouraging that the RPI band never be allowed
> back at Brown. And I certinly hope that if they do come back they don;t think
> that they can get away with this at Meehan.
 
Escuse me?? There is an Ivy League band Agreement???  Why are there
bands at hockey games anyway?  No one cares about the bands.
Why don't you guys form your own league?  The ECAC would do better
without all the whining.
 
Yours truly
Jonathon Appleton
class of '98