HUGADA Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Yes and amen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LancerLegend Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 One of the best parts of SCV '80 is Stone Ground Seven. What an incredible drum solo! Regardless of scores, I thought it was some of Fred Sanford's (RIP) finest writing, and one of SCV's greatest performing lines. I thought the voicing thing with 2 sets of quads (a "high" tenor voice and a "low" tenor voice) was brillant, and I was certain EVERYONE was going to jump onto that percussion band wagon. But even SCV knew when to take a step back, and as we all know, they unleashed a monster in 1981. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kusankusho Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Thank you for the quote, Kev...very thorough. I loved the '80 State of the Art recording and was at first disappointed with the changes. However, the final show was awesome! One of my favorite shows to date! '80 SCV was by far one of the most innovative shows on the field. The judges didn't quite get it, though! For Devils, I go the other way. I much prefer the music on SOTA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Nevermann Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 One of the best parts of SCV '80 is Stone Ground Seven. What an incredible drum solo! Right: that was the other change. "SGS" originally started with the drums AND horns playing. The horn part was dropped and the resulting drum solo slightly shortened. But yes, what a superbly well written & performed solo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scv guy Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 (edited) Right: that was the other change. "SGS" originally started with the drums AND horns playing. The horn part was dropped and the resulting drum solo slightly shortened. But yes, what a superbly well written & performed solo. We had those swell chords on SGS in our original field show. I'm not sure how many times we played the SGS chords and "Caravan". To be honest, I only remember playing them at our evaluation show which I think was at San Jose City College. If there is someone out there that remembers this, I'd be interested in knowing. We all absolutely loved our original show. It was so tough, but we were psyched to put it out there. As I remember it, the judges had a fit when they saw SCV getting off in concert. IOW, we were "Blue Devlin'" it. We couldn't help it, we just did it. It is a great chart. Also, they didn't know what the hell was going on with the bizarro drill and weird time signatures in Jupiter. I believe they changed our show so drastically because of the strong reaction of the judges. It was heart breaking to change what would've been even more innovative and cleaner than was presented at DCI Finals. My feeling is that Gail should've stuck to his guns and stayed with our original show. I think he feared that we would be judged too unfairly. Hindsight is always 20-20, though. The rest of the story is told well by Jon, the lead bari from SCV '80. Edited March 7, 2008 by scv guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scv guy Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 I didn't get to see SCV 1980 until prelims. Groundbreaking show! Loved "Mars". Most corps were experimenting with off the 50 yard line stuff that year, but SCV definitely threw the whole symetry concept away. Seventh ain't that bad. Been there with a good show as well! Jupiter, not Mars. Right Composer, wrong planet! Although 7th doesn't sound so bad for any corps these days, even SCV. At the time, we were the first SCV corps in the organization's history to score below 3rd. That's a hard pill to swallow made especially worse when you feel you let the alumni down. Although it was a great show-ground breaking for it's era, even-Gail was never pleased with the final result. I do look on it much more fondly than my 3rd place finish in '79 though. We worked harder and we deserved better. But it was too little too late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichCranford82 Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Jupiter, not Mars. Right Composer, wrong planet! Although 7th doesn't sound so bad for any corps these days, even SCV. At the time, we were the first SCV corps in the organization's history to score below 3rd. That's a hard pill to swallow made especially worse when you feel you let the alumni down. Although it was a great show-ground breaking for it's era, even-Gail was never pleased with the final result. I do look on it much more fondly than my 3rd place finish in '79 though. We worked harder and we deserved better. But it was too little too late. You know I've never really given much consideration to scores and placements, as I look back I can thank the '80 Vanguard for showing me early on in my Drum Corps experience that I know what I liked, and it didn't matter what place you landed in, although first is always nice, I mean it is a competition after all As I think about it, I could probably say the same thing about the '80 Crossmen (8th), North Star (11th) or Guardsmen (12th) as far as not caring about how they placed, but I really can't say enough about the 1980 Santa Clara Vanguard, truly one of the Corps who made me fall in love with Drum Corps in the first place, and having the State of the Art recording is just icing on the cake. BTW, I forgot about the horn book in Stone Ground, just listened to it again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lincoln Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 (edited) We all absolutely loved our original show. It was so tough, but we were psyched to put it out there. As I remember it, the judges had a fit when they saw SCV getting off in concert. IOW, we were "Blue Devlin'" it. We couldn't help it, we just did it. It is a great chart. Also, they didn't know what the hell was going on with the bizarro drill and weird time signatures in Jupiter. I believe they changed our show so drastically because of the strong reaction of the judges. It was heart breaking to change what would've been even more innovative and cleaner than was presented at DCI Finals. My feeling is that Gail should've stuck to his guns and stayed with our original show. I think he feared that we would be judged too unfairly. Hindsight is always 20-20, though. The rest of the story is told well by Jon, the lead bari from SCV '80. I believe that had the '80 season not happened for Vanguard, then what we we saw post '80 would not have been as wonderful as it played out. As DCI was still relatively in its infancy in '80 and Vanguard had never placed below 3rd, the '80 season was viewed more critically than had it occurred further on in DCI's history. Placing at the level that Vanguard placed in '80 is no longer seen as a huge problem. I loved '80 Vanguard. It was my first exposure to them. I know it was considered to be a "down" year, but in retrospect, it was a fantastic year for them. The drum solo alone was worth the price of admission to any show. It was the show that sold me on the concept of "Vanguard." I had the opportunity to see them several times through Michigan, Ohio and Ontario in '81. It all started with the '81 Midwest PBS broadcast. The broadcast alone leaves a huge lump in my throat as IIRC, it was the moment when suddenly everone realized that Vanguard was again near the upper echelons of the activity. What a thing for those young adults to experience. I know its a small incident, but when i was watching them in Hamltion, Ontario, during the show the person who played the piccolo bugle had his instrument break from the tie on his waist. The audience gasped at what had transpirred as everyone was looking at this piccolo trumpet on the astroturf, but Mike Zapanta merely walked out on the field during a break between numbers and placed the bugle on the side. Small, but so paramount to the cool resolve of the Vanguard. I was and still am in awe of them. To me, the '81 show is one of the best things I have ever seen in DCI. It leaves me speechless. I look upon the '80 season fondly. What a corps! /edit: I had called the bugle a trumpet! Nooooooooooooooo! Edited March 7, 2008 by LincolnV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale Bari Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 I've owned SOTA CD for quite a while. (SOTA2 - 1987 - was my first CD ever.) And before I owned the CD, I had a tape copy of the original SOTA album. And even before that I had heard tracks from SOTA - without knowing that it was Blue Devils and SCV. (The guy I got the tape from thought they were marching bands.) I enjoy Devs there more than on DCI Finals recording. SG7 and Caravan are my SCV favorites. There is something I've always wanted to know about SOTA: I heard a story that SCV took 7 takes to get the show recorded satisfactorily, and BD came in blew their show once and got out. Is there any truth to that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomnoise Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 No. Not sure how many takes SCV used, but we did our tunes at least twice. We were BEAT by the time we got to the end of La Suerte. But we played well. Listen for the unison lip trills in the lead sops and the French Horns. Larrie Dastrup was awesome on his solo in the opener and in the duets with Pete Burneko in Pegasus and Dindi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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