Banned Bands

The University of Iowa marching band will have to refrain from playing Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" and other songs with drug-related contents at future football games due to the songs' controversial natures.

But unlike a similar situation at Harvard, they are not being forced to do so.

Iowa band leader Morgan Jones, responding to what he calls "minor pressures," said he decided to remove "Cocaine" and Iowa standard "In Heaven There Is No Beer" from his band's repertoire because they aggravated the already prominent sports-related drug problems on campus.

Two years ago, Harvard implemented a policy which requires that Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III review all band material before it is performed. That policy came in response to a Harvard band halftime performance that some considered in questionable taste.

Despite the new restrictions at Harvard, band members are not as outraged as they were when the change was first made. Drillmaster Samuel O. Sheagren '86 said that "the majority would say that the change (to a policy of review) was for the best."

By no means are Harvard and Iowa the only schools with controversial marching bands.

Yale's Band follows a practice of "selfcensorship," according to announcer Charles L. Rosenblum." But at a recent Yale-Army football game, the Yale band was prohibited from taking the field when Army's Athletic Director disapproved of the script, which made references to communism.

After reviewing Yale's script, Army's athletic director Carl Ullrich "gave us a lot of verbal abuse," said Rosenblum. "He forbid us to go on the field in any way shape or form. We thought everything we planned to do was fine." Rosenblum, who termed such censorship "preposterous," said he has found that schools outside the Ivy League are not always as receptive to Ivy League humor as those within.

"It's reasonable not to make crude jokes," says Rosenblum. But he added: "we can do funny things without anyone wielding a whip of any sort over us."