‘The reaction from girls was amazing . . . . I would fall in love four times a week.’

Back in the late 1960s, when Joe Miazgowicz was a student at the University of Michigan, he learned that his best friend had been turned down by every campus band. So they created their own band: Leaves of Grass. Miazgowicz was the rhythm guitarist for the highly popular rock ‘n’ roll campus band, which played a wide range of music from Chuck Berry to Bob Dylan to Wilson Pickett. After graduation, members went their separate ways. They last played together in 1973. Miazgowicz moved from Ann Arbor to Encinitas, where he now runs a business, Juicer Plants, and referees professional ice hockey games. Last month Miazgowicz, 41, dusted off his guitar for an “amazing experience,” when his fellow band members flew in to play a reunion concert at MiraCosta College. Miazgowicz spoke with Times staff writer Terry Rather and was photographed by Barbara Martin Pinhero.

We all met in the dorms as freshmen. There were a couple of other guys who liked to play music, so it became a ritual every night after dinner. We played for an hour or so, old Beatles songs, jug band music, crazy stuff like that. Only I guess back then they weren’t old Beatles songs. Near the end of the school year, Rhone Bourdages, who was on the same floor as me, started auditioning for campus bands, but he couldn’t get in. At that point we decided that when we got back to school we would put together our own band.

Rhone came up with the name of the band right out of his English class. “Leaves of Grass” is Walt Whitman’s book. It certainly had other connotations, which fit right in for the times.

So we came back the fall of ’67 and it was real grim at first. We were not very good at all, but we had fun. We started getting some jobs later that fall. Our first was a fraternity mixer, that fall in ’67 during the football season. We also played T.G.I.F. afternoon mixers. That was our training ground there, just kick out the jams for two hours.

It was real exciting. The other guys had played in bands before and I hadn’t, so they taught me rock ‘n’ roll professionalism, you can’t let them know when you’re upset, keep playing, just muscle through even when you don’t know things. I was in awe. It was great having people dance to our music.

Having the reaction from girls was amazing. That was like a gift from heaven. I was only just into it for the fun, but what a bonus! I would fall in love four times a week. There were beautiful girls all over the place. Our popularity grew pretty slowly, but we were one of the best campus bands by the time we graduated. In our last couple of years, we traveled all over Michigan during the summers. Graduation was the thing that disbanded us.

We’ve all stayed in touch over the years. Rhone and I were probably the closest and I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years.

Our reunion was amazing. I was the only one who had a couple of tapes from way back when. We listened to a couple of them. We were like, oh man, do you remember this song? I think so, do you remember the words? I don’t think so. But when we started playing them and, like bicycle riding time, they were just there all of a sudden. As soon as we started, there it was. The harmonies were right there. We knew all the words. There were a few glitches and we worked them out.

People liked us a lot. We played for the students and they all liked it. We also played a party and there were a few people who were official Deadheads. They went nuts. They said, you guys are all right! We did a lot of different songs and we did quite a bit of our old original stuff.

I have a wife and two kids here, we all have families, jobs and commitments, so it would be hard to keep the band together. But something like this every once in awhile would be great. A month ago, I never thought something like this was possible, but now that we’ve done it, we can do it again in the future.