365 DAYS PROJECT

2003   FEBRUARY 10   #041

The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band - Roundabout

Picked this up at the WFMU record fair in 2001 for a dollar bill. It's insane and it rocks! Go marching band... GO!

- Otis Fodder

TT-1:59 / 2.73MB / 192kbps 44.1khz
from the LP, "The Incomparables" 1977

Ned writes:
Leland high school is right down the street from me, in San Jose CA. Its the "artsy" high school around here and all the drama students and 'band camp' kids go there. Infact my bassist is from there... I personally went to Pioneer High School, where Nikki Sixx went to for a year before getting kicked out for dealing... and Kevin Pollack (was in The Usual Suspects amongst other things) went there too. I think they (Leland) had a partnership with Stanford band that stopped in the mid 80's, although I could be wrong. The Stanford marching bands rocks and does a wicked cover of 'Touched' by VAST and 'November Rain' by Guns N Roses.

Phil writes:
Much as I enjoy the thrashing madness of the version of "Roundabout" on the site, I wanted to mention that I think the track may be going at the wrong speed. The recording as performed is in a _really_ weird key for a marching band (F-sharp minor). The original Yes version is in E minor; I tried telling my MP3 player to pitch it down 10% (which is approximately the difference) and the results sounded pretty plausible to me, though much less exciting! (One could split the difference and say they played it in F minor, which is a fairly natural choice of key for a band with brass in it.)

Phillip Jackson writes:
I discovered recently that it is a version of Don Ellis's arrangement from the "Connections" lp. which also rocks but not like the school kids can.