SCVAlumTofRGuy

(SIGH) Well, this was a fun thread... My wife (who marched French Horn in VK & has the Music Ed degree in our family) and I both came up with the same, non-technical explanation to your query: OUR EARS.

Nah, let's leave that one be. I like the retro concept-- my vote would be for things like: (a) tic system (b ) color presentation ( c) inspection, anyone? (d) 2-valve G's would be used to produce more volume (e) clean sidelines (f) piston/rotors optional for the truly hard core (g) drum majors would have to bark out commands like "Mark Time HUT!!" to start the show or at some point during the show. (h) there would be a retreat (i) VK's presence would be required! :P

Two that stand out to me are: (1) '82 SCV and Capriccio Espagnole by Rimsky-Korakov. How the sops nailed that opening lick out of nowhere still baffles me! (2) '79 Guardsmen and Fanfare for the New-- take a long listen and you'll hear all sorts of upper range work in the soprano line, and the tounging is incredible. Plus, this was in the era of "crappy" 2-valve horns and (GASP!) tic system (for our younger readers, this was back when corps had to hunt wild game for their tour food and cook it over open pits, using fires made by rubbing sticks together.) BD later did this tune in '87 but it was substantially watered down in comparion (IMO).

I'd have to give the nod to North Star in '81 where I * think * they took 2nd in drums in prelims. Man, I really wanted to see that drumline one more time in finals!

[And by the way, back in the dark ages we had to whittle our own sticks, and slaughter our own calfs for the heads. LOL!! Excellent! Did you chop down your own trees for the sticks? :P

I was a brass player, and even then I made a tape of "just" the drum solos from my albums. I wore that tape out, and the four solos I listened to the most were all the NS solos from the years that RAM marched. I remember watching NS in '81 prelims and thinking, "Egad, I think I picked the wrong instrument..." One of the snare players later marched with me in '84 in SCV. Very cool-- and yes, he had the accent! :P

Ok, I'll contribute: (1) What corps marched 8 bass drums, and what year was it? (2) In 1982, two Div I corps marched "clean sidelines" (i.e., no pit), including their tymps. Can you name them? (3) In 1984, GC incurred the infamous "domino effect" when one of their sops fell during the final Z-pull at Whitewater finals, taking a number of folks with him. What was their field visual score that night? (PS: no fair checking corpsreps.com!)

Hey Robert, Good to hear from you. Is that a pic of you at Crater Lake in Oregon in your avatar, or...? Regards, Morgan

Ditto here in '85. The hardest thing about that parade was knowing it would be the last time you'd ever get to wear the supersuit; I had a very difficult time taking it off. EDIT: Maureen, did you get yours prior to Nationals back in the day? I think you've answered this question before in another thread, so I apologize if this is a repeat....

Listen to North Star drum solos from '78-'82 and you'll hear some of the best ripples around. '81 was so clean it was scary, while their '82 drum line featured 8 bass drums (whole octave).

Two categories: Percussion groovy moments: '82 Avant Garde -- very unique keyboard arranging First minute or so of '83 Bridgeman's drum solo '04 SCV where the battery parked on the 35 or 40 (?) in their "mixed line" formation during their feature, and just let 'er rip. I am not a percussionist, but everyone could tell they were playing some really tough/technical licks. '81 27th's keyboards & tymps in New Country, the tymps' feature in Crown Imperial '78 SCV and the snare feature in drum solo (go Dennis/Mom!) '92 Crossmen and the "running mallets" in the background leading into the perc break (Note: this was Crossmen's "Classic Moment" during the Q-Finals telecast) ANY drum corps with the guts to do a snare ripple. Listen to some old North Star and you'll see what I mean. SCV's ability to put their signature drum tag at the coolest spot in the show Brass moments: '79 BD's opener and the brass "stack" at the end Strawberry Soup, any year '81 Lancers and Niner Two Harpo, the Colts, and Summertime '05 PR, and the tuba feature '91 Star and the contra feature in Pines of Rome

VK marched their butts off in '87 and I agree that the uniforms didn't exactly accentuate that. If they were here today I could see them doing a completely K.A. version of "The Incredibles" (drill forms in the shape of those hover things chasing Dash, Mr. "Way Out of Shape" Incredible trying to fit into his suit, a moment where the CG (with a soloist dressed as Edna Mode) all reach for their neck, undo a clasp and yell out in unison "NO CAPES!!" as they take them off and cast them aside all at once, trumpet screamers from Below He!! making dogs bark outside the stadium, a brass ballad where Bob/Mr. I & Helen/Elastigirl make up, etc.) As you can see, I've watched the movie more tha a few times, thanks to having a 5-year old! :P

'82 Phantom & the last push in Spartacus (Memo: needs a redo in the 21st Century!) '83 SCV and their reverent version of Appalachian Spring with the down-soft ending, a gutsy move for the time. '79 Troopers (I can hear everyone running for their Legacy CDs on this one-- the crowd response says it all) '85 Suncoast-- the girl with the red ball & the hornline on the 50 playing three HUGE dissonant bops (WHACK WHACK WHACK!) to Side 1. Left the crowd gasping! '00 SCV '75 Madison and of course, '80 Spirit.

While I was also there in '82 and agree it was a strong year, I'm with jwillis and cast my vote for '84. The top three were separated by 0.6, it was anyone's ballgame with the various ties for High This or That, VK blew into Finals real strong (I love NBC!), 27th's ungodly good drumline, the Top 7 scoring 92 or higher (go Suncoast!), SCV jumping 4 points in Finals and nearly pulling it out, Madison's Cats, BD's La Fiesta, the Top 5 being separated by 3.5 points or so....whew! I appreciate that not everyone likes ties, but '84 is one year I would've liked to have seen a 2-way tie between any of the Top 3 or even a 3-way to really create some buzz for the following year.

* DING-DONG * << Vicious (amped) killer guard dog starts barking behind the door, making the girl really flinch>> OR prior to the doorbell "Ruuuuun! It's too late, save yourself!!!" OR "Geooooorge...come out to play-ee-ayyy...." (reference for our younger readers: from the movie "The Warriors")

Prior to SCV's show the field cam had a great closeup of one of the drummers with the perfect expression. I turned to my wife and said, "He's got his mojo, let's see what they do." I love their show and have seen it live numerous times (including DATR), but I found myself once again wishing for more VOLUME and MOJO.

CSI: Drum Corps CAUSE OF DEATH: Bb Horns

First, Blah blah blah the usual disclaimer blah that my opinions aren't those of the various corps I marched with blah, blah blah blah. That said, for all the years I've been going to corps shows after aging out, I've always been able to hear the pit just fine without amps, thanks. But then, I'm an active listener. Ever see someone cup their hands around there ears to "funnel" the sound from the field a little better? Maybe the judges could try that, and wear an extension mic on their collars to keep their hands free...? Or, have the judges sit a bit closer at the big venues...? With regard to the comment about marching aux percussion again....as someone who marched in one of the two Div 1 corps I know of that marched their tymps & keyboards in '82 (the other was 27th), I recommend we do it. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming....

In retrospect, even though '85 was my age out year I've often felt I shouldn't have marched, for a number of reasons: it conflicted with school big time. There was none of the "joy" from '84, and I didn't particularly care for our reinterpreted version of Tenderland that didn't recapture the magic of the prior year. Expectations ran high, especially after DCI East finals on Aug 3rd, where we took first by over 2 points. As other folks can attest, one of our marching staff had a particularly, shall we say, "acerbic" & "innovative" way of getting us to execute. On the day of prelims during marching rehearsal in our aussies & bucs, he took it one step too far and made it personal, and I in particular was on the receiving end during one of his tirades that went way over the line, and everyone knew it. I not only lost all respect for the man in that instant, but I became so angry I broke a couple of welds in my horn while standing at attention (remedy: duct tape-- 1001 uses). I got another surprise: unbeknownst to me, my parents, who had only seen only a handful of shows during my entire DC career, had driven out to Madison from Oregon, and had tickets for the following night. Between that, the outcome the next night, and the added fiasco of "may we have your attention please, there has been a tabulation error" booming from the PA system which resulted in our color guard having to endure even greater heartbreak and relinquish the High CG trophy to Spirit after the placings were announced, '85 was the year I think least about, followed by '83. The upside is reading cool stories like Robert's! B)

Ah yes, "the wall incident" of '85. GR was pretty steamed, and even though the incident was unintentional some of our guard ladies were pretty shaken. The hornline heard about it during our warmup and after some initial shock & disbelief (remember, we hadn't heard the whole story, just bits 'n pieces in the chaos before going on) the brassline was "extra" inspired and we couldn't wait to get on the field. We took brass & GE that night, lost visual by 0.1 and perc by 0.4 (BD's drumline was smokin', as usual); I think the final spread was 0.7 or so.

Hey Sam-- You'll find those same two on the '84 video as well-- both were long-time guard vets. The 2nd girl was a good friend of mine; in speaking with her at finals in Denver she mentioned how cramped it was in that thing!

Female or male - it does not matter. The over the top bando cheese baton twirler was too much (and yes, I thought the baton twirler in SCV in '85 was a bit cheesy as well - though used to distract the viewer from the tunnel where the sopranos were changing pants, which is better than just displaying that cheese front and center for no reason). Sometimes we had to do what we had to do....

BK's guard costume designer, every year from 1984-present. My wife is a BK alum, and she is astounded that BK is able to top the "ugliness factor" year after year after year....

Go to bed, Jeff! Only one night owl allowed...

Ok, it looks like I'll be the first from the group in question to chime in here. At the time, the '84 contingent was the youngest corps SCV had fielded since its inception. It was also the first year that ladies were allowed in the brass line. Yes, some of the heavies left to do the '84 Olympic band gig. But, keep in mind that SCV was slated earlier that year to do the closing ceremonies of the LA Games; however, when the Soviet bloc boycotted the Games in the "t!t-for-tat" reponse to the US's 1980 Summer Games boycott, all the scheduling got completely FUBAR'd. Several of the closing ceremony acts got axed, including us. We learned this after first tour. We were crushed, as Gail & Dave Owens had been hyping on this all during our camps and so on. Gail even kept a little scale model of a 737 jet painted in SCV colors on his desk, as the Olympic committee had initially planned to charter a plane from Atlanta to take us to the Games, do the gig, then fly us back in time for Finals. Part of the plan was that they would have all new Premier percussion equipment waiting for the drummers & pit guys when we arrived so that they wouldn't have to pack it all on the plane. Secondly, having a number of the heavies take that season off in no way "affected" our ability to take pressure; if anything, it helped. There were no "winners expectations" to contend with. Our backgrounds were very diverse: one of our contras marched '80-'82 27th, one of the snares had just put in several years with Nauth Stah, our one female baritone player (she was a lead, as I was) came from Memphis Blues Brass Band (remember them?), one of our French horn goddesses (her name was Kristen) had marched '79-'83 Guardsmen, our DM that year had done the same (he's the really loud DM on the '82 Guardsmen recording)-- the list goes on & on. Tim Salzman from Guardsmen fame was on our brass staff, and his unique style really whipped us into shape. Because of him, Sandra Opie (THE '72 Argonne Rebels brass god) made appearances at rehearsals while on tour and gave us clinics. '84 was the first year we prevented BD from winning Pacific Procession (SCV's home show), which in some alumnaes' mind is even more important than Finals. We streaked out of CA on second tour and headed into Denver. In the meantime, the East Coast guys in our group were getting us all fired up about seeing PR for the first time. At Denver, GR held us on the busses until the last possible moment, then the call went out: "White pants!" We killed everyone at DATR finals and took 3 (?) of 4 captions. PR was shocked, and BD was left shaking their heads. Whitewater: at this point the M.O. became that we'd perform in green-striped tunic over green pants (the "usual" look) most of the time. At Whitewater finals, GR called for the slammin' pants, and they did their magic. We cleaned up that field too; I still have chunks of grass in a plastic bag from that one. To answer a previous poster's question, yes, that was the show where the poor Garfield sop fell, taking a bunch of his comrades with him. I watched that horror unfold from the sideline fence as he headed straight toward us. I've only heard one crowd gasp louder than that (the infamous "blown" BD solo from a few years later.) And yes, they did score a 10 in field visual-- GR made a point of telling us this when he read the recaps to us later. We were riding high, winning all the way to Prelims. What happened, you ask? Quite simply, it rained. A lot. Our warmup had gone really well, as usual. As you see on the prelims tape, we were wearing green over green. So, there we were, trapped under the trees and the rain coming down in buckets, when one of the walkie-talkies the brass staff carried with them suddenly got very active. GR was on the other end, and he was angry...very angry. In addition to the rain, he had learned another horrifying fact: someone, somewhere had misread something, and suddenly we had a MAJOR problem on our hands: WE WERE LATE. Horribly, horribly, late. For any of you that witnessed SCV's performance at '82 Prelims as I did, you might recall SCV having to "really haul" down the entry ramp to McGill University Stadium's field because they were late. The performance that followed was average. Fast forward to 2 years later, and, like that memorable scene from the movie "Ghost" where the really nasty bad demons come out of the ground to take away the spirit of the bad guy responsible for killing Patrick Swayze's character, those demons came out of the ground and gripped the '82 guys who had had the misfortune of having been there. One of them near me said weakly, "Oh sh--, not now...not again..." I got nervous, because (1) I'd witnessed it, and (2) I was now about to live it. It took a few seconds for the full magnitude of our miscue to set in. The stadium was a long ways off, and we had no choice. We hustled our butts to the entrance gate, picking up the running drumline and a completely flummoxed (shellshocked?) guard along the way. In fact, we pretty much ran non-stop all the way to the starting line. I still remember running to the back sideline and continuing down the 50 (the sops got to stop and form their off-the-line arc in the back) with the PA announcer going "SCV...you may begin your 1 minute warmup." (Warmup? Is he trying to humor us??) By this time the crowd had already sensed that something was wrong. We had just enough time to set the form, which I think is evident on the Prelims tape if you're unlucky enough like I am to have one. As Andy (the DM) called us to a ready front, the "you may enter the field in competition" call rang out, and Andy had no choice but to kick off the show. It had been some time since we had blown any air through our horns, and they were dead cold when they came up. That's why we sound like crap for the first few minutes of the show. I've watched the tape only a handful of times, and I cringe every time. We essentially lost Natl's right then and there, as we knew it was ours for the taking (sorry Sam & Robert B) AFTERMATH: As you might imagine, it was a long quiet bus ride back to the school. Lights out, dead quiet gym. This is going to sound funny, but what took place next ranks as my all-time best moment in my DC career, more so than anything: the gym was one of the arena type, with the stands elevated above the playing floor "pit". It was pitch black, and then "SQUEEEAAAAK!", one of the exit doors up in the stands on the end opened up. Bright light streamed in. A figure stood in the doorway, towering over us. We couldn't see his face or who it was, because of the backlighting. The figure began to speak. The voice began, "Ladies and gentlemen...of the Santa Clara Vanguard...." The voice went on that, on behalf of all the staff, he wanted to apologize to us. He apologized for what took place that afternoon. He apologized that they weren't more on the ball. Then he apologized for the unthinkable: "We want to apologize to you, because we underestimated what this group, SCV's youngest, was capable of. We deliberately 'under' wrote this year's show, because so many of you were new. It was our hope that we could just get you into you daipers, send you out, and that maybe, just maybe, you'd make 5th. By the time Whitewater rolled around, we knew we had committed a huge mistake. Had we known what you were capable of, we would have written a much more demanding show worthy of your talents. For that we are very, truly sorry. One other thing, ladies and gentlemen: no corps...has ever...jumped from fourth in prelims to first in Finals. As I stand here, I am gazing upon the first corps in DCI history...that...will. Goodnight." He stepped back and the door clicked shut, and it was dark again. Several seconds of silence passed, then we erupted into a chorus of "YYYYYEAAAAHS!!!" The voice in question wasn't GR-- it was Tim's. In my mind there are only a handful of corps you really don't want to get angry at you....Madison, PR, Boston, Bridgemen....and the group that woke up the following morning. We went to breakfast-- forget the cereal, gimme some gravel. We had silent rehearsal from ####. We had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. We were going to make history, or die trying. For every mistake, no matter how small, we began to do more and more pushups. We were so nutsoid, we did other people's pushups. It all culminated in a final run-through performance that, had we teleported it to the stadium, would have had Sam asking his buddy Dave (French horn Dave?) for his ring instead of the guy on the train I read about in one of his earlier posts. B) As it was, everyone's performances (GC, BD, SCV, PR) were magnificent, and the crowd ate it up. We made BD and GC work for it, and I'd wager that there were more than a few "puckers" when we not only tied with Sam/Robert's group & GC for high brass, but tied GC for high visual as well. If you look at a recap, we "high scored" 9.9s in field brass and field visual, falling a little short on the ensemble side. Where we got killed was in field percussion (usually one of our strengths) and GE (can't argue with that one). Both BD and 27th both had very strong drumlines that year, and that was going to come down to a two horse race. If I could have that night back, I wish our battery had been awarded a few more tenths in FP to get us into the 97.8 range and really give the crowd something to talk about for years to come ("remember that one year when...?") The ex-marching instructor in me also wants another tenth on the EV side, just so that we could have that one to ourselves (GC took GE outright.) I think if there were ever a year where there could have been a been a three-way tie, '84 would have to qualify. Man, that would have been a party! As for the politicking that someone mentioned...well, that was the following (my age out) year, and that's all I'm going to say about that. One last thing for Sam & Robert: Back in December '80 I rode up from Southern Cal with two friends of mine and auditioned for BD and did pretty well, considering my age at the time. Had I been able to talk (actually, they were more like "spirited conversations") my dad into letting me use his truck to drive up to monthly camps as WD hoped instead of being restricted to a Honda 125 trail bike ("You're not gonna total my truck and kill yourself on I-5!"), my DC path would likely have gone a totally different direction and I'd have fought in the trenches alongside you two. As it was, the kid I got into DC eventually spent his last two years with the Blue Team, aging out in '88. :) Sorry for the length, everybody!