brentwood

I have one aisle seat - fairly certain it's high up and in the middle. Row SS seat 25. Free to a good home.

I have 1. Blue Devils, 2. Crown, 3. SCV, 4. Bloo, 5. BAC, 6. Blue Stars

So far are SCV and Blue Stars the only corps without narration?

Ok SCV where have you been hiding that show?

What a great post! Thanks for putting it together. I've been following posts on DCP for years but until now haven't posted. In 1987 I was on the visual, and color guard staff for the Velvet Knights. I worked closely with Bobby Hoffman on the visual staff and Roxanne Narachi on the color guard staff. I designed and constructed all the silks, designed/built all the props (the California license plate at the end of the show was a major undertaking!) and made most of the costumes that were used throughout the show. (Interesting coincidence - the two corps that tied, VK and Star, probably had more stuff on the field than all the other finalists combined. 1987 is the most important year in the history of the Velvet Knights IMO. To understand it's helpful to have some background information. The Velvet Knights as most of you know them were originally a product of the early 80's Velvet Knights Winter Guard design team - Gregg Clarke, Mike McCool, Roxanne Narachi, and Sandi Turner - Mercadante. After a 33rd place finish at DCI in 81, this team was hired to take over the drum corps proper. They decided to throw away the book and go a new route, loosely based on the comedic style of the Bridgemen but with a Southern California beach vibe (Gregg Clarke marched Bayonne a couple of years before.) The cadet style uniforms were replaced with Hawaiian print shirts, khaki pants, straw hats and of course the now famous red Vans. This was 1982, quite a radical move for the time. On a side note, I feel like the 1981 VK Winter Guard season was the impetus for this new design team's approach to the drum corps proper for the 82 season. In 1981 the Velvet Knights Winter Guard caused quite a stir with their innovation and quirkiness. A lot of those ideas and concepts were used throughout the next few years in the Drum Corps programming. Along with the drum corps, the VK Winter Guard rose through the WGI rankings from 1982 to 1984, with a high of 7th place at WGI 1984. After the new corps concept was adopted in 1981 the VK drum corps began its own quick rise over the next 3 years. In 1981 the corps had finished in 33rd place. The 1982 season saw the highest placement in the corps history, 21st place. The staff knew they had a great idea and doubled down for 1983 and again reached a new high, this time 17th place. By 1984 the concept was refined to such a point the corps made finals for the first time in its history - 12th place. And then almost all of the design staff was let go... There is a bit of Downton Abbey backstory here. What I do remember is surely biased as I was a marching member at the time and emotionally tied to the staff that had taken us this far. Whatever the details, the new staff was headed by Dave and Dean Elder with Ron Dettman, Dale Stephens, and Meg Elder heading the color guard caption. 1985 saw another milestone reaching 11th place with a continuation of the NBC Chimes/Shark/Feel good beach vibe. 1986 was a big departure for the VK, going all female color guard (I couldn't march my age out year), and a darker more serious James Bond theme. The corps fell to 12th place in 1986. And then the entire design staff changed...again. Now on to 1987. In the winter of 1986 Roxanne Narachi and I were sitting in the apartment we shared in Long Beach, CA brainstorming show ideas for the 1987 season. We had just been hired for the next summer and the first staff meeting was coming up. After many hours and lots of laughs we ended up with the "Magical Mystery Tour." The Velvet Knights would take a tour around the world and bring the audience along for all the fun and drama. We had detailed drawings of costumes, every country the guard would change to represent the new location. We had silk designs and even the musical selections that ending up in the show. Beatles fanfare, Chinatown, Brazil, African drum solo, and ending up back in Southern California for the Beach Boys medley. We presented our plan and the staff liked the idea, we moved forward with the planning stages. By Memorial Day camp 1987 we had most of the show on the field. Then, design staff changes...again! Long story short - show designer leaves and enter Bobby Hoffman to save the day. What at the time seemed like a disaster, losing a top staff person at this stage of the game turned out to be a blessing. After 5 years of building the new corps persona, by 1987 we were in a perfect position to allow Bobby to take us to the next level. Bobby is deservedly given lots of credit for his design talent but he was also the heartbeat of our corps that year and in my opinion the main reason we able to go so far with the concept and the execution of Magical Mystery Tour. He was very inspirational, setting high goals and helping the corps achieve them. Roxanne's vision was also key to the overall impact of the show as we used the color guard to a great extent in the story telling. Bobby's experience with The Bridgemen was obviously a perfect fit for where we were at the time with the identity of the Velvet Knights. He was instrumental in keeping the energy high, constantly motivating us, and providing the talent and hard work to take VK to its highest point in the history of the corps. Once Bobby arrived he re-wrote most, if not all of the drill in the beginning of June and then we headed to our first show in Riverside, CA later that month. Riverside is traditionally the first show of the year for Southern California so there was a lot of excitement as we took the field that night. The show was a huge success. She wasn't pretty LOL (the video of that show is on YouTube) but is was obvious we had an amazing program to develop. As we were putting our show on the field for the first time Star was already in the high 70's and had a few shows under their belt. We barely managed a 70 in Riverside and proceeded to loose points the next two shows scoring in the high 60's. But after a few weeks we never looked back. We traded places a few times with Suncoast throughout the season, never beating or even tying Star. By finals we were tied for 7th with Star at 90.0 with Madison in 6th at 90.4. Our total GE placement was 5th, over Phantom in 6th and Star in 7th. Percussion was 3rd in GE. And it was all at Camp Randall, one of the best venues in drum corps history. Getting to that moment at finals when our name was called in 7th place with Star of Indiana involved a lot of difficulty, hard work and patience. Anyone involved with drum corps would not be surprised. However, 1987 is one of the most cherished times of my life because of the accomplishments we achieved over those summer months. Cheers! Brent

Hey Ryan, I am just trying to follow in your footsteps, you always say just the right thing in your posts. Hope everything is well for you.

I have a friend that I have known for many years. A while back the topic of Drum Corps came up. She said, "I went to a drum corps show one time, back in 1985." Long story short, she remembered only one corps, Velvet Knights. She remembered lots of things about the show actually. The name of the corps, a shark, a beach ball, red sneakers, and fun. I just happened to be marching Velvet Knights that year, pretty cool that she saw me perform and now we are best friends. But I digress. My point (there is one here, I promise) is that discussion of placements, execution, etc. is almost moot when discussing VK. The Velvet Knights were cool for over a decade, but highly competitive for only a few years. Which is more valuable? To me, and probably most other VK vets it's just that we had a great time, gave a lot a people some entertainment, and worked real hard at being as good as we could be, every year. Why did VK place 10th in 92? I don't know. However, I was on VK staff in 87, argueably one of the best few years in VK history, and I can say that even with the high placements of 87-88 we spent more time figuring out how to make em laugh than anything else. I hope this offers some insight into the world of the Velvet Knights. I'm sure this posting is highly influenced by the time I just spent reading the breaking news about VKYAO, good luck to them btw. Sounds like a good idea, long overdue. Brent