History of the Committee

The history as described by James V. Cech:

In 1972 I came to Purdue as student under the Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP). I was an active duty second class petty officer in the Navy and had just returned from a ship station in Nam. Before I went into the Navy I was a disc jockey in the Detroit area. Besides my air time and DJing many events I produced many concerts in the Michigan, Ohio and Illinois areas. At one time I ran a club call the Dancing Domes where Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels, Tower of Power and Terry Knight and the Pack (early Grand Funk Railroad) got their start.

When I arrived at Purdue the student entertainment was absolutely horrific. The top act was Deion Warrick while Led Zeppelin was at Indy. I was asked by Ben Slone and several brothers at Sigma Nu to help break the Purdue monopoly on entertainment. Much like the high school prom in the movie Footloose we set out to find a facility outside Purdue control and began to plan in earnest for a real rock concert. I contacted high school friends from Grand Funk Railroad about a date, located a stage and light show that would come down from Chicago and a sound system that was available in Indy. The facility, an abandoned cement structure used for making cement barriers, needed a lot of clean up, but lots of students showed up to pitch in.

Word of this activity reached the dean of students and one day I found myself ?invited? to come visit the dean and Purdue President Dr. Hansen. Dr. Hansen was both engaging and frank. He admitted the grumblings of the student population had reached his ears, that the mounting debt from student ?events? was unacceptable and that an alternative student entertainment effort was ?a troublesome worry?. The Dean expressed concern that students were talking long road trips, many during the school week, as far away as Chicago to hear contemporary entertainment. I was asked that instead of setting up an alternative to Purdue if I would, as an experience professional, step in and help fix the problem. They acknowledged the foundations of the problem started with the administrative team that longed for the days of the Dave Clark Five and visits by Bob Hope.

This is the true origins of the Student Concert Committee. For the first year I reported directly back to Dr. Hansen and the Dean (Huber?). What I found initially had nothing to do with too many people trying to make decisions. It had to do with Purdue policies that doomed contemporary concerts to fail from the start.

1. Only fixed fee acts could be contracted. Purdue would NOT accept a situation where the majority of the gate left the university. Top name acts had stopped working for a fixed fee in 1970. Fee + 40% above the B&E was common.

2. All advertisement was on the traditional AM station associated with Purdue. NOTHING was placed on the emerging FM stations that the students were actually listening too.

3. All student ?rock events? had to be in Mackey Arena (which had lousy acoustic) to ?protect the concert hall from student damage. Cabaret style duo Sadler & Young, the last of the music hall entertainment committee acts, was allowed in the concert hall and six seats had been damaged with fewer than 600 tickets being sold. The potential damage, extrapolated from that one event, had caused an entrenchment against student activities in the hall.

4. The dates for a show had to be on a weekend on a not to interfere with sports events and were picked BEFORE talking to an act. Instead of working acts appearance at Purdue in on a Wed. in between tour dates of Chicago and Illinois, they would be asked to perform at Purdue on a Friday night the day after a show as far away as New York. The extra transportation cost made the cost prohibitive.

5. Purdue security had an attitude that if the campus police was not highly visible and VAST in numbers a riot would eventually begin due to the ?highly volatile nature of rock music?.

6. The meager budget of $30 was generating loss after loss after loss featuring has ben acts that would meet all the concert hall committee conditions.

With Dr. Hansen?s personal support we embarked on recruiting a student & facility advisor team that would learn the reality of the concert business and turn things around. I assumed the role as the behind the scenes lead so that the progress would not end with my graduation. I still remember the awe I felt when I first walked into the concert hall and saw that magnificent facility. Six installed super troopers, four banks of overhead colored lights, 24 programmable soft spotlights (with selectable gles), three apron tree?s, a stage that could hold the entire set of West Side Story and a echo box built to support Bob Hope so his jokes would reach the entire hall at the same rate. The installed sound system rivaled the state of the art which at that time was touring with Jethro Tull.

For the first season we concentrated on who was touring where, NOT on selecting an act and having to get them to divert to Purdue. Working with an old friend Irv Azoff who was then managing REP Speedwagon (also the cousin of one of our initial members, Ron Azoff), and a former associate Johnny Irons from WCFL Chicago we booked Mahogany Rush, Heart, Fleetwood Mac and Starship with the remnants of the Grass Roots opening. What was so exciting was that during that initial season Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Starships Miracles and Heart?s Heart to Heart were all emerging as monster hits. Needless to say our first season was a complete sell out and we retired, in one year, the entire debt left behind by the musical hall entertainment committee.

The crown jewel of our second season, included Crosby & Nash (featuring their just released Wind on the Water Album) and an appearance by Jethro Tull, with Kansas opening. Kansas, which had been touring as an opening act had Song for America hit the top ten just weeks before their Purdue performance. So in reality we had two top acts for the price of one. This one I take personal pride in because I had made a special trip to Chicago to see Ian Anderson to entice him to come see the Purdue concert hall for some re-recording of the Minstrel album. By the way that show booked ten days before their appearance was sold out in ONE HOUR with students camped out over night to get in line.

When I graduated in Dec 1975 Dr. Hansen attended my commissioning ceremony. During his remarks he thanked the NESEP?s for our contributions to Purdue and specifically commended me for becoming a part of the SCC and for leaving behind a legacy that would not be forgotten.