The Faculty Band

I went to The Bitter End, the legendary music joint, to have a beer and check out who was performing. It turned out that Saturday night belonged to the "Circuit Riders." Now neither myself or my friends had heard of this band, but we decided to go in and have a listen. It turns out that the "Circuit Riders" consist of a bunch of middle or late middle-aged men who seemed to be weekend musicians, fronted by a nice-looking 30 ish blonde woman. The men seemed to be the kind who do a regular 9 to 5 job during the week and then dust off the Fender on the weekend in order to relive their favorite memories from their high school garage band. The seat I was sitting in allowed me a coveted view of the completely unnecessary conga player (the unneccessary conga player is a phenomonen that can be found in many amateur rock bands. The unneccessary conga player is onstage to add the appearance of the bands ability to play in various musical styles, which it can't actually do and the conga player is inevitably not very good and can't be heard anyway). As I lost interest in the music I found myself looking at what the conga player was wearing. He had on a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and Birkenstocks with sandals. Then it hit me. This had to be a "Faculty Band." A facutly band consists of teachers from, say Parkside Middle School, somewhere in the suburbs, who think they are still cool and want to show others (especially young people and students) that they still have what it takes to "rock." I kept expecting someone to introduce the band like this, "You know him as your favorite science teacher, we know him as Rockin' D-man, on lead guitar - David McGee. And on drums, he can solve a math equation while laying down a groovy beat - Jim Thompson. And finally, the gym teacher all the boys want for sex-ed - Barbara Green!" It reminded me of the faculty band that played at my school's graduation party. This party was designed to keep all of the kids from going out and getting wasted the night of graduation. Of course, most people just waited until after the school-sanctioned party was done and then went out and got wasted. The party started with a performance by my school's "faculty band," including the band teacher on electric guitar, the choir teacher on keyboards and, on hammer dulcimer, the English teacher Mrs. Wright. Faced with the uneviable task of occupying a group of graduates that you no longer have authority over and are only interested in leaving to get drunk, the faculty band decided to feature Mrs. Merlo singing "House of the Rising Sun," while accompanying herself on the dulcimer. We students were not appreciative. What is the idea behind the faculty band? Do teachers think that they will endear themselves to their students by coming across as fun-loving and "hip?" In sixth grade I had a substitute teacher who promised us that if we behaved at the end of the day we would be allowed to sing "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. Did we want to sing "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel? No we did not. W e had never even heard of the song. The sub was just looking for an excuse to sing the song. Just like the faculty band, he was performing for himself. After all, no one really wants to her "House of the Rising Sun" on the hammer dulcimer.