year1buick

Holy hell, I don’t know what’s going on here but I love it. I worked on the Barney crew for three years back in the late 90’s and I’m pretty sure I had a few fever dreams like this.

Sadly, just on the first two pages I noticed a couple that have since passed away- Ggarrett and Michael Boo.

One of my favorite bands. To this day, Rusty Cage makes me think of driving back and forth to rehearsals at Bayer field in Rockford back in 92, before start of first tour. (That album was in frequent rotation that summer, along with Ten from Pearl Jam and and Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers.) Funny how memory works…

Let’s hope so! I’m pretty rusty at reading music now too. It’s been a long time, LOL.

The more seriously corps seem to take themselves (or their shows), the less seriously I seem to be able to take them. VK is certainly missed.

I’m also excited about the 2026 Alumni Corps announcement. Just enough time for me to figure out how to play again. (The last notes I played were the parking lot run through in Foxboro stadium after 94 Finsls.)

The person responsible for that atrocity has moved on, thank God. Zeke too. (And not soon enough.) Now, if only we could get rid of Jerry.

Same here. I was told, flat out, by a college director that he didn’t much care for drum corps marchers. (This was told to me before I went on tour, when I went to his office as a soon-to-be freshman, and asked if it would help if I practiced the Fall show music before I left.) This was back in the early 90’s, in East Texas. (This person is very highly regarded in the Texas music education scene and eventually moved on to teach in Houston. I believe he has since retired.) It was definitely disappointing to hear as, up until that point, I’d held him in very high regard. But it’s ancient history now.

This blows my mind. What a colossal CF. It’s one thing to wonder at how on earth they became so upside down, so quickly. But then to keep going through the motions this fall like it was business as usual? On nothing more than a wing and a prayer? (Am I wrong about that? Admittedly, I’ve not delved too deeply into it.) Kinda makes you wonder if it went beyond mere ineptitude and possibly something much worse. I just don’t understand what could’ve caused such a rapid exsanguination of cash.

Unfortunately, I only got to know Terry through Facebook but he seemed like a really great guy and boy did he love Regiment. My sincerest condolences to his wife, family and friends. RIP. SUTA

Me in my corps jacket.

Hopefully they can right the ship and come pack as planned in 2024. I’d be heartbroken if not.

So, the elephant in the room— who else is in similar shape? I can’t imagine SCV is the only one.

Hopefully it’s just a hiatus and not a folding. As to your first question, I loved touring along side them in ‘91 when I was a rookie in Sky Ryders. That was a seriously cool show.

I’ve mentioned it on here before (and my screen name alludes to it) but the “Buick” nickname for Phantom Regiment’s bari/euph section started in 94, NOT 89. It wss during a mid week pre-show warmup, when (then) caption head Bill Peterson was working with the line. He had us playing a three note sequence from the beginning of White Witch Doctor and, apparently, we were being a little too dainty with it. So he explained that if you imagined all of the brass sections having a different car personality— say the sopranos being Porches— then we had to be Buicks. The next show, he called us Buicks again and we eventually started calling those three notes the Buick mating call. Somehow, over the years, the real story was forgotten and morphed into the 89 line supposedly sounding like Buicks, but that was never the case. (For example, not once in all of 92, or 94 up to that point, did anyone ever refer to the section by that name.)

Red McCombs REALLY wanted to get the Raiders in San Antonio. It’s a bigger market than Vegas (more than twice the population) but there’s no way Jerry would allow anyone to cannibalize his fan base. (Which is big in San Antonio as well.)

I gush- thanks!

From what I remember, I think we practiced in the stadium. I miss Denton too! Feels like a lifetime ago… I actually had two rounds there- once as an R/TV/F major and later for pre-dental. But never for music! (I was one of the few non music major Buicks when I marched. Heck, I wasn’t even in the marching band.)

Later on, I spent quite a bit of time there rehearsing with Sky Ryders. (Frank Troyka was our tour manager.) Regiment also housed there and held a clinic in 92. It also just dawned on me that I took several biology classes at UNT back in 2004-2006ish with someone who must’ve been one of your section mates at SCV back in the day. (Drum corps is a small world...)

My first drum corps show to attend was at Lake Highlands in Dallas in 90. Star was a near religious experience for me that night.

I noticed that Regiment has made an interesting update to their FB banner: I wonder if that background choice is offering us some kind of hint?

Sorry, only in the 90’s. (Couldn’t find one from Finals.)

The Byron nuclear power plant cooling towers saved my ### back in 94. Regiment was rehearsing in Byron and, one night, I borrowed a friend’s car to take a girl into Rockford to see a movie. (The Crow. Ugh.) I thought I had a handle on how to find my way back but … I didn’t. In short order, I became utterly, hopelessly lost. After midnight, with no phone, in the middle of nowhere. I began to panic, thinking I’d have to sleep in the car on the side of the road, knock on someone’s door to use a phone, and show up God only knows how late to rehearsal the next morning. Panic. But then, in the darkest moment of my despair, I found a glimmer of hope. Literally: the faint light of those Byron cooling towers. I pointed the car towards the twin glow of those beautiful, atomic powered lighthouses, floating across an endless sea of corn. (At least, that’s what it felt like.) The going was still rough. Those country highways tend to meander, and I was led astray more than once along a false path. But, I had faith. (Or, at least, hope.) It took a few u-turns here and there, but I eventually found my way “home.”

Robots. Lots of robots.