Really loud rock-n-roll.

They call themselves Faculty Lounge, and the play on words is no accident. Members of this self-defined “garage pop” band are vocalist David Imhoof, assistant professor of history; lead guitarist Laurence Roth, associate professor of English and Jewish studies; bass player Terry Winegar, professor of psychology and dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences; and drummer Patrick Long, assistant professor of music.

This mélange of Susquehanna University professors formed Faculty Lounge in August 2002 as a simple pastime, a way of shedding their professional skins and rekindling their youthful love of rock-n-roll. But before long the band was playing live and garnering a lot of attention from the campus community.

In February, Faculty Lounge performed their largest show to date. They even found a professional band to open for them. Raining Jane, a popular band from the West Coast, was on a college tour at the time and agreed to be the warm-up band for these intellectual headliners. “It’s kind of like Spinal Tap opening for Puppet Master,” said Imhoof, laughing.

Students didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, the concert was sponsored by the Student Activities Committee. But while the show, complete with video imagery, marked a new high for the band, their perspective hasn’t changed much. Playing rock-n-roll remains one of their main means of letting loose.

As Long put it, “Academia is so Appolonian and this is pure Dionysian.” (Now how many rock drummers do you know that can reference Nietzsche in a conversation?)

More on par with his counterparts in the world of rock-n-roll, Long explained that, “Getting together and playing really loud music is good for your mental health.”

Roth, who performed in Los Angeles as part of the post-punk wave of the mid- to late 1980s, agreed. “It is cathartic. For me, playing music is a whole body experience, a sort of emotional and creative instant gratification that helps me to keep in touch with an important part of who I am and what I love,” Roth said.

Now, with a Ph.D. and tenure under his belt, Roth doesn’t mind trading the clubs on Sunset Boulevard for a sports bar on Market Street in Selinsgrove, Pa. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing songs and learning my instrument – and now I can buy the expensive guitars,” he quipped.

Faculty Lounge has gained quite a following among the student body. At the end of each semester, students pack a local college hangout to hear the band play their purposefully unsophisticated versions of artists such as The Ramones, REM, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Prince and Psychedelic Furs. They’ve even made it “down the shore,” having headlined an SU alumni event in August 2004 at Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, N.J.

And besides their propensity for creating spreadsheets chronicling all the songs they’ve played in different venues, the band members have loosened their collars and relaxed into their new roles in the life of the university. They even graduated to writing and recording original music. Their first CD, recorded at a nearby studio, is simply called Faculty Lounge. “We decided to avoid the pretension of a title all together,” Imhoof joked. “Yeah,” said Long, “as long as there is no bar code, we didn’t see the need for a title.”

While they may not be getting rich off royalties, they are finding a fortune in the way students relate to them. “They see us as people,” said Winegar. “We’re more than just those one-dimensional people talking at the front of the classroom.”

-- Victoria Kidd,
News & Editorial Manager