Jaminbenb Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Sun, and then later Bush were the masters of the late season surge. It got real fun in 88 and 89 when they were head to head at the top of the standings Ya know, I always forget about Bush! They had some nice corps through the years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaminbenb Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 funny you mention 84 Bucs. I just saw video of that show on Facebook. Jesus, what a drumline You're telling me! I had to stand in front of them and usually facing them when we were rehearsing, and they used to distract me they were so #### good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 But it was a good enough core of players to be able to add in around it! That's what made it work for you guys! The 20-30 at the beginning of the season, were probably eons better at the END of the season when it counted, and the rest that filled in were good enough to not screw things up. Ben, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. By the first show in Clifton we had picked up enough folks to flesh out the horn line... we ended up with something like 40-42 horns that summer. And our brass guy Dennis Dewey could make 40 horns sound like 60 horns, in a good way. Honest to God, though... we were just happy to be there at Clifton after the winter we had. In the late winter/early spring, we rehearsed several times at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn... it was right next to the water... the wind was always blowing and it was always cool to downright cold, even on a mild spring day. We were having a rough go of it at one rehearsal, one with maybe 20-25 horns....wind blowing, we were all tired, progress was slow... it was a day a prospective new horn player came down to check us out. I remember we were apologizing to her.... "look, we normally don't suck like this... please give us another chance next weekend"... LOL. She did stick around and joined the corps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaminbenb Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Ben, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. By the first show in Clifton we had picked up enough folks to flesh out the horn line... we ended up with something like 40-42 horns that summer. And our brass guy Dennis Dewey could make 40 horns sound like 60 horns, in a good way. Honest to God, though... we were just happy to be there at Clifton after the winter we had. In the late winter/early spring, we rehearsed several times at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn... it was right next to the water... the wind was always blowing and it was always cool to downright cold, even on a mild spring day. We were having a rough go of it at one rehearsal, one with maybe 20-25 horns....wind blowing, we were all tired, progress was slow... it was a day a prospective new horn player came down to check us out. I remember we were apologizing to her.... "look, we normally don't suck like this... please give us another chance next weekend"... LOL. She did stick around and joined the corps. That's crazy....on the other side of the coin, Westshore always seemed to have way more people than they needed the first few rehearsals back when I was marching. I think it was 1981 when we had 18 snares, 10-12 tom players, 10 or so bass drummers, and a whole lot of cymbal players at the first few months of rehearsal, and we had to borrow drums from the high school we were practicing at...thankfully their drum instructor was in the line, and has keys. (we also had a band room full of horn players, in fact IIRC, they were telling people to bring their own instruments just to be able to play because all horns were in use.) I think we even did a parade or two with a good amount of people. Then the normal attrition worked us down to "legal" numbers, and we went on with life (yet didn't seem to do much that year) But other years we always seemed to have that sort of HUGE membership day. I was talking to a few friends from when I marched Reading, and they were talking about having 15 horns for the first rehearsal in 1983...granted, they didn't have a GREAT year that year, but they weren't TOO shabby. That's just amazing that you guys started that small and worked it in..but I always thought that you guys did more with less...even 80 you guys were really good! (with your cute little flag uniforms ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 That's just amazing that you guys started that small and worked it in..but I always thought that you guys did more with less...even 80 you guys were really good! (with your cute little flag uniforms ) Sun never had a mega-sized horn line... largest horn line my six years there was in 1979, with 56. And to be honest, a few of them were "ring-chasers" who joined the corps simply because we had won two straight DCA titles. 53 horns in 1977... 51 in 1978.... low-to-mid-40s or so in 1980 through 1982. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaminbenb Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) Sun never had a mega-sized horn line... largest horn line my six years there was in 1979, with 56. And to be honest, a few of them were "ring-chasers" who joined the corps simply because we had won two straight DCA titles. 53 horns in 1977... 51 in 1978.... low-to-mid-40s or so in 1980 through 1982. Yeah, you guys were kind of big in 79 comparatively. Well that was our problem in 83...too many "ring chasers" joined... A whole bunch of people that saw us 'improving' the next year came on board, and I think that was the downfall of that year (and I know "W" has some hate for a few of them) I have some of that on tap for the next installment of "As the bus wheels turn" Edited February 21, 2012 by Jaminbenb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Yeah, you guys were kind of big in 79 comparatively. Well that was our problem in 83...too many "ring chasers" joined... A whole bunch of people that saw us 'improving' the next year came on board, and I think that was the downfall of that year (and I know "W" has some hate for a few of them) I have some of that on tap for the next installment of "As the bus wheels turn" Ben, I am GLAD you said this. I thought I was being harsh when I thought about that issue. I've been thinking about what to say here about it for over a year, and I WILL get to it. I would like to say MOST of the people who came on board- the guys from Erie, Chip, Silent Sam, MOST of them were good people who I am still happy to tell people "I marched with those people and am proud to say it and I deeply respect them as former corpsmates". I want to say THAT to clear the air. However-- there were three of them that did real damage to the zen of the corps. I still remember Mike and I all over one of them on the bus because of their mouthy crap. I'll get to THAT later. I remember nearly being told I tried to choke that same person on the bus in my sleep. One of them managed to generate serious drama where there wasn't any previously and damage personal relationships that were pretty strong. The third was a real ring-chaser and pretty much made this season hell for me. Nearly caused a fight to break out because of their BS in visual rehearsals and their stinking awful attitude and NOT understanding at ALL and REFUSING to understand the concept of "Form Awareness", which was taking hold BIG TIME because of the changes in the visual end of things. This individual obviously came to WIN, WIN, and WIN SOME MORE, and didn't understand that their stubborness and know it all attitude because they came from a top end ToB unit really hurt the corps, esp on the visual end. They also managed to connive staff when I was out for a month or 2 with serious viral pneumonia in the winter and pretty much as a result made every field visual practice a BS mound of living hell for me. If what went on them would have went on now with me, I would have told them-- "you move my spot in the drill NOW, AWAY from this individual-- or I WALK, championship shot or not because I do NOT want to be next to this (&*@^*&@^%^ individual". I don't think Ochran really understoofd what a problem this was gonna be, and I "Took it for the team/tried to be a team player" and dealt with it as best I could. there was only one real outburst as a result, but it did us no good as a corps, and you can see the results of this person's stupidity on the 83 Prelims video, not hard to point out. Yeah, I remember '83 all right. Without these people, I'm certain we'd have been MUCH better, and maybe we do better than 4th. At least I'd have better memories of that season! The one thing that WAS good were the arrangements and the sound of the hornline. Those are the good memories I have of '83, that and being with a wonderful young lady who I was too young and flat out stupid to have known and realized what I had at the time. '83 was a season that should have been MUCH better in SO many ways for the corps. To be blunt, I have MUCH, MUCH more fondness for the 1984 corps that finished 15th because everyone pulled together, everyone worked together, and I was with people I knew were REAL FRIENDS marching next to me. I'm sure Fawber, Frank Magel, and Fisher, and Rick Adams wouldn't want me stumbling around next to them if they could avoid it in the heat of battle if they had a choice- but I'll GLADLY march next to THEM ANY DAY. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 Yeah, you guys were kind of big in 79 comparatively. Well that was our problem in 83...too many "ring chasers" joined... A whole bunch of people that saw us 'improving' the next year came on board, and I think that was the downfall of that year (and I know "W" has some hate for a few of them) I have some of that on tap for the next installment of "As the bus wheels turn" I think the only real ring chasers we had in 96 were alumni who came back for one more run after the sucess of 95...going from legally deadin October to 2nd at DCA. Corps wide, the majority of new faces were kids, and when I look at the photo from 95 to 96, there aren't that many new faces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaminbenb Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) Ben, I am GLAD you said this. I thought I was being harsh when I thought about that issue. I've been thinking about what to say here about it for over a year, and I WILL get to it. I would like to say MOST of the people who came on board- the guys from Erie, Chip, Silent Sam, MOST of them were good people who I am still happy to tell people "I marched with those people and am proud to say it and I deeply respect them as former corpsmates". I want to say THAT to clear the air. However-- there were three of them that did real damage to the zen of the corps. I still remember Mike and I all over one of them on the bus because of their mouthy crap. I'll get to THAT later. I remember nearly being told I tried to choke that same person on the bus in my sleep. One of them managed to generate serious drama where there wasn't any previously and damage personal relationships that were pretty strong. The third was a real ring-chaser and pretty much made this season hell for me. Nearly caused a fight to break out because of their BS in visual rehearsals and their stinking awful attitude and NOT understanding at ALL and REFUSING to understand the concept of "Form Awareness", which was taking hold BIG TIME because of the changes in the visual end of things. This individual obviously came to WIN, WIN, and WIN SOME MORE, and didn't understand that their stubborness and know it all attitude because they came from a top end ToB unit really hurt the corps, esp on the visual end. They also managed to connive staff when I was out for a month or 2 with serious viral pneumonia in the winter and pretty much as a result made every field visual practice a BS mound of living hell for me. If what went on them would have went on now with me, I would have told them-- "you move my spot in the drill NOW, AWAY from this individual-- or I WALK, championship shot or not because I do NOT want to be next to this (&*@^*&@^%^ individual". I don't think Ochran really understoofd what a problem this was gonna be, and I "Took it for the team/tried to be a team player" and dealt with it as best I could. there was only one real outburst as a result, but it did us no good as a corps, and you can see the results of this person's stupidity on the 83 Prelims video, not hard to point out. Yeah, I remember '83 all right. Without these people, I'm certain we'd have been MUCH better, and maybe we do better than 4th. At least I'd have better memories of that season! The one thing that WAS good were the arrangements and the sound of the hornline. Those are the good memories I have of '83, that and being with a wonderful young lady who I was too young and flat out stupid to have known and realized what I had at the time. '83 was a season that should have been MUCH better in SO many ways for the corps. To be blunt, I have MUCH, MUCH more fondness for the 1984 corps that finished 15th because everyone pulled together, everyone worked together, and I was with people I knew were REAL FRIENDS marching next to me. I'm sure Fawber, Frank Magel, and Fisher, and Rick Adams wouldn't want me stumbling around next to them if they could avoid it in the heat of battle if they had a choice- but I'll GLADLY march next to THEM ANY DAY. Harsh? not at all! I think several people felt the same way about some of them. There were people from different corps that worked their way through, and they deserved the respect they received because they EARNED it, and contributed! Don't forget the Rochester crew as well! Besides other corps, there were people that picked up from different parts of the state and came in remember the whole DuBois crew!? Talk about a serious contribution! But yeah...I remember when a few others showed up at the first few rehearsals there was some apprehension on the "veterans" minds because they never really showed much interest previously. The beginning of 83, I thought was great, some of the young talent that came in was just crazy and had a lot of learning potential, but I was surprised at the amount of people that left...burn out? maybe... I know I felt that going into 84, but we'll get to that eventually. But the turnover really surprised me. There was a point early on where I wanted to bag it just from a "can I keep this and a job going" attitude. I got a job at a bank, and it encompassed working a "Shatner" load of hours, so I was having a tough time keeping my head on straight, but I pushed on because I figured that maybe "this was the year" (and at that point, I was "hanging" in the snare line) The percussion staff issues early on were also a bone of contention, and IMHO, put the drum line at least a month behind the rest of the corps. I'll just repost my previous thoughts if you think we've put 1982 to bed....not sure what else we need to cover wit that one. Edited February 21, 2012 by Jaminbenb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaminbenb Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I think the only real ring chasers we had in 96 were alumni who came back for one more run after the sucess of 95...going from legally deadin October to 2nd at DCA. Corps wide, the majority of new faces were kids, and when I look at the photo from 95 to 96, there aren't that many new faces You guys had a pretty solid staff in those years, too....we had some oddities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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