mosthumbleone

Spirit of Atlanta 1980

What a fun thread. I just have to laugh now when I hear complaints from the kids these days about tour food with all those big semi food trucks out in the parking lot. The only real food truck I ever remember seeing was SCVs, while the rest of us were being fed out of the back of a U-Haul. I can remember it like it was yesterday; standing in the parking lot at Stillwater as SCV came rolling in with those 4 new Silver Eagle busses and an honest-to-God food truck. We were a relatively new corps without any history of regional or common rival corps. Quite to the contrary, most of us had grown up in the 70's traveling great distances to see and admiring all the corps with whom we now found ourselves surrounded in competitive company. That being said, it was always easy to be jealous of SCV and all their evident luxuries: new uniforms, horns, busses and that ###### food truck. Ms. Margaret Collins and her crew did feed us very well with the U-Haul, hot plates and plenty of canned goods. Somewhere along the line she also managed to convince some governmental agency that with our non-profit youth organization status we were eligible for government rations. I don’t think she managed to get food stamps, but we did have plenty of ‘gubment cheese and peanut butter. Our standard after the show snack was a cheese ‘sammich (dry, no mayo); big hunk of cheese between two slices of white bread, choked down with water (or, if lucky, watered down Tang) in dixie cups from the igloo cooler kept on the bus. I had more cheese that summer than a Frenchman working in a government ammunition factory. Seems to me we also had a lot of some sort of beef stew, usually followed with fruit cocktail. She was also conscientious enough to make sure we had a banana every couple of days to keep our potassium levels up. The thing I was most grateful of, even though we were a bunch of kids she still made a big pot of coffee every morning for those of us that were old enough to NEED it. Miss Margaret fed the corps on into the 80’s, even after her daughter aged out, and earned the designation “Loaves-and-Fishes” for her ability to feed the corps well with limited resources.

Crass is in the ear of the beholder and held in the pants of the bold who disallow narrow expectations.

I think Mike Johnson might still be the principal trumpet teacher at the University of Alabama. You could always call him and see if he's available or find out who would be a really good teacher in the area.

I would have taken more pictures.

Steve, I want to say we did but I honestly don't recall. I do remember that there were 16 raw-meat-eating-baritone-honkin guys on the other side of the horn arc that are probably responsible for some of the high frequency hearing loss I have today.

That would be 60. 18sop, 8flu, 4mel, 6frh, 16bari, 8con. Sops and Baris on double piston Ultratone IIs, Flugels on brand new double piston Kings, everybody else on p/r Ultratones.

I saw Clark Terry this past December in Pitt. He's half-blind, in a wheel chair most of the time and he still played his ### off. He was a guest artist performing with Monte Alexander's trio. After the concert he signed autographs from his wheelchair until the last person had gone. Truly a great American artist and human being.

Night in Tunisia (Dizzy) has been done some through the years has it not? Didn't BD do it in 97?

Spirit then and now, you march a year you're alumni status is set... lucky for me. The only distinction made is years since ageout. The kids (current marching members) call us Geezers, but we have Uber-Geezers (reserved for a couple of folks that marched Spirit's inaugural rear, 77, as rookouts), Geezers, and Punk-### Geezers (for the recent ageouts). On the other hand, if we let everyone in that claimed they marched Spirit 80, we'd have to have our alumni gatherings at Turner Field.

You could alway do the brasso and brillo pad trick.

Scar tissue.....wear it proudly!

When did they unload them? Before then critique must have been fun!

Just make sure Bonnie Ott is on it!

More left arm!

They all play better in tune than a Bach Pic. ;) You might try some Blackburn pipes in that Bach to open it up a little and help with the intonation. http://www.blackburntrumpets.com/

To quote an old trumpet teacher,"...you guys think too much, just play the #### thing!"

I have both a brass bell and a beryllium bell schilke Bb. I use each for different things. If they didn't exist, I would probably have either a Wayne Bergeron Kanstul or a Calicchio Studio 2 for lead and a big bore heavy wall/heavy bell Yamaha. However, none are low cost alternatives.

Well I still listen to them often....certainly one for all time.

Some of the most memorable moments of the summer of 1980 were during the playing of Salvation is Created as our on field warm up. We were still the new kids on the block. Many were wondering if ‘79 was a fluke and would come to check us out. We always seemed to have other corps members, people from corps with legendary names like Madison, 27, Santa Clara, Phantom, Cavies, Cadets, Crossmen, Blue Devils, Bridgemen, sitting in the backfield stands for Salvation. Night after night it happened. Eyes began to widen with the crescendo in bar 8 going into the big hit leaving their faces in a speechless expression of HOLY ####. It was a fun eliciting that sort of response from fellow drumcorps brethren, really more so than watching the expressions from the crowd on the opening hit of the show. It was a wonderful feeling. And well, after July 8 everything, including Salvation is Created, held much more meaning than any of us had bargained for that summer.

What Danielle said. I alternate the Stamp and Gordon stuff to force myself to think thru whatever one I'm doing that day instead of hurrying through it sloppily...which can cause problems. If you are having a hard time with some partials, get them on the mouthpiece and then slide the horn on and work at keeping that pitch.

Living in the Mid-Atlantic, I met a fellow 80 alum from Maryland and we took the Spirit souvie rig to Allentown for DCI East. The most fun part of working souvies was meeting FMM’s from days past. We met a couple of gentlemen that marched Bridgemen back in my day. After making the connection that we were all on the field that night in Birmingham, one of them said, ”We were talking about 80 on the way up here, we still don’t see how we beat you guys that night, what an awesome hornline.” Well, not in my wildest dreams do I imagine that is how everyone from Bayonne feels, but it certainly was a nice sentiment from some men that also marched one of the greatest drum corps shows of all time.

I can't believe nobody ever played Hey Jude!

I bought, tried and promptly gave away every kind of practice mute I could find over the years. I would have never spent the money because I thought it would play like everything I had tried before and was way too expensive. However my wife surprised me with one a couple of Christmas' ago and I love it (I think she does too). I really like the line in. I feed those hard-bop solos I'm working on in from my minidisc because it has tempo control. Way cool!

Q: What's the difference between a 3/4 G contra and a 5/4 Bb contra? A: About 5 yards.