The 1984 Thread

[84BDsop]

3 hours ago, troopers1 said:

I didn't realize Gary had passed.  I'm sad to hear it.  A bunch of us 1988 Troopers at UW knew him when he was on BK's staff.  We went to a halloween party at Lonnie Thompson's place in Greeley.  This dude walks in wearing a BD uniform, with the leather hat.  We chased him down in the kitchen and asked when he aged out.  He said "86".    We freaked (a number of us went back to '86) and we never left the kitchen.  We'd see him at BK camps in Laramie and on tour, and always had a great time talking to him.

Yeah....heart attack, i think....about 7 years ago, maybe.  Far far too young.

[Continental]

1984 Vanguard Finals Field Brass Judge Tape.

 

[Yorkvillain]

Thank you 84BDsop & TRacer. You two have made this 1984 thread the best of all the year threads because of your incredible insight.  

Edited July 19, 2020 by Yorkvillain

[vanguard87]

Hey TRacer, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I just want to correct the record a little bit.

Quote

As Sam knows I marched the Red Team in ‘84 that had our brass staff try something new and march only 4 lead baritones instead of the usual 6 to fatten up the bottom baritones. We went back to 6 in ‘85.

SCV marched 4/6/8 low brass UNTIL 85. That was the first year with six leads. The horn line went from 64 to 68 in 1985: two more lead sops, two more lead baris (a 64-person horn line is why box rotations worked prior to 84).

Quote

Notes from that summer:

— The white pants were debuted at DATR. We were already dressed “in the greens” and sequestered on the busses when GR’s voice came over the CB radio: “Change of plan— go with the white pants.”  After a few seconds of stunned silence pandemonium ensued as we struggled to change in those confined quarters, but the atmosphere was one of exuberance. Contra Bob Benson (80-81 27th & 82 MBBB alum, 83 SCV) really got our bus’s juices flowing by bellowing (he was good at that) how we weren’t just going to wipe the field with Phantom, *everyone* was going down that night. Remember, all of the horses/super vets were off at Olympic Band that year, so it was “supposed” to be a down year with all the rookies (the average of the corps was just below 17.) Putting those pants 👖 on was utterly transformative, and the staff sensed it in the warmup arc. Despite taking 3rd in GE (PR was 1st in GE, then BD) and 2nd in Perc behind BD, we took Brass & Visual and the contest by 0.2. We only wore white pants at “big” shows like Whitewater and greens the rest of the time.

The white pants debuted at Pacific Procession, SCV's home show (but it's true that we only wore the whites at "major" shows and only at finals of regionals and championship week; it's likely that DATR was the second time we wore them). And it wasn't a spur of the moment decision by GR. We warmed up at the hall (a 10-ish minute bus ride from the stadium at San Jose State) and not the stadium. I don't remember if we put on our uniforms at the hall or on the buses, but if we warmed up in our regular clothes that by itself would have been a sign that something was up. When we arrived at the stadium (just minutes before we were supposed to enter the field), the buses parked as close to the gate as possible, and in a triangle formation, with the bus doors facing in. Now something to remember here is that by and large, the horn line was lukewarm to downright hostile to the uniform change. In fact, being one of the few non-rookies in that horn line, I was one of the most vocal critics (and the day GR summoned me into his office and let me know what he thought of my opinion.... is a story for another day). Up to then, we had only seen one person model the white pants in full uniform, and to tell you the truth, to this day I think on individual people, the green pants look better. HOWEVER, once we got off the buses, inside that triangle, and saw the entire horn and drum line together, we collectively realized how awesome the white pants were on the entire ensemble, and we got super-pumped just as we were about to enter the field.

Quote

— our silver DEG horns sucked. I got the same horn the next year; it became a duct tape special. We had “horn envy” every time we saw BD’s horns up close. 

Don't blame the tool... I procured a DEG Dynasty II two-valve G baritone for the 2017 SCV Alumni Corps, so I have relatively recent experience playing it. Is it a good instrument? Of course not, but it's perfectly cromulent if you put in the work with a tuner and the first-valve slide and just accept the fact that every high-A is a roll of the dice. Here's the thing about that horn. Like any horn it gets louder the more quality air you put into it, but at the upper end of the volume range there's a point where if you give it just a bit more air, there's big jump in volume. It's like it has a turbocharger. HOWEVER, put just a tiny bit more air than that into it, it suddenly sounds like a chain saw hitting metal.

I'll add something about Whitewater finals: We won prelims, but we performed next to last at finals, with Garfield performing last as they had won Whitewater in 83. So after performing and trooping the stands we circled it up in the side 2 end zone instead of outside the stadium, because we immediately had to start retreat after Garfield finished. GR talked about how we did like always, and then we were dismissed. So we (SCV) were all in the end zone when the domino incident happened, and I was roughly in line with the front hash mark. Basically I had a head-on view of what happened, and from that vantage point it actually didn't register what was happening for a couple of seconds, just a bunch of arms and torsos where they shouldn't be. 

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by vanguard87

[84BDsop]

5 hours ago, Continental said:

1984 Vanguard Finals Field Brass Judge Tape.

 

I saw fellow Marching Aztec Jeff Graf in there a couple of times!

I THINK I used to have BD's finals brass tape....don't remember,

[TRacer]

On 7/19/2020 at 10:06 AM, vanguard87 said:

Hey TRacer, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I just want to correct the record a little bit.

SCV marched 4/6/8 low brass UNTIL 85. That was the first year with six leads. The horn line went from 64 to 68 in 1985: two more lead sops, two more lead baris (a 64-person horn line is why box rotations worked prior to 84).

The white pants debuted at Pacific Procession, SCV's home show (but it's true that we only wore the whites at "major" shows and only at finals of regionals and championship week; it's likely that DATR was the second time we wore them). And it wasn't a spur of the moment decision by GR. We warmed up at the hall (a 10-ish minute bus ride from the stadium at San Jose State) and not the stadium. I don't remember if we put on our uniforms at the hall or on the buses, but if we warmed up in our regular clothes that by itself would have been a sign that something was up. When we arrived at the stadium (just minutes before we were supposed to enter the field), the buses parked as close to the gate as possible, and in a triangle formation, with the bus doors facing in. Now something to remember here is that by and large, the horn line was lukewarm to downright hostile to the uniform change. In fact, being one of the few non-rookies in that horn line, I was one of the most vocal critics (and the day GR summoned me into his office and let me know what he thought of my opinion.... is a story for another day). Up to then, we had only seen one person model the white pants in full uniform, and to tell you the truth, to this day I think on individual people, the green pants look better. HOWEVER, once we got off the buses, inside that triangle, and saw the entire horn and drum line together, we collectively realized how awesome the white pants were on the entire ensemble, and we got super-pumped just as we were about to enter the field.

Don't blame the tool... I procured a DEG Dynasty II two-valve G baritone for the 2017 SCV Alumni Corps, so I have relatively recent experience playing it. Is it a good instrument? Of course not, but it's perfectly cromulent if you put in the work with a tuner and the first-valve slide and just accept the fact that every high-A is a roll of the dice. Here's the thing about that horn. Like any horn it gets louder the more quality air you put into it, but at the upper end of the volume range there's a point where if you give it just a bit more air, there's big jump in volume. It's like it has a turbocharger. HOWEVER, put just a tiny bit more air than that into it, it suddenly sounds like a chain saw hitting metal.

I'll add something about Whitewater finals: We won prelims, but we performed next to last at finals, with Garfield performing last as they had won Whitewater in 83. So after performing and trooping the stands we circled it up in the side 2 end zone instead of outside the stadium, because we immediately had to start retreat after Garfield finished. GR talked about how we did like always, and then we were dismissed. So we (SCV) were all in the end zone when the domino incident happened, and I was roughly in line with the front hash mark. Basically I had a head-on view of what happened, and from that vantage point it actually didn't register what was happening for a couple of seconds, just a bunch of arms and torsos where they shouldn't be. 

 

Wow, I don’t recall the Pacific Procession pants reveal. I thought they made us look visually cleaner which was borne out in the visual numbers at DATR.

i need to check with JB; I thought he mentioned they had 6 in ‘82 and how they got stuck on the ends of the front in opener. This was during a break during RP rehearsal a million years ago. 

I had to play chrome DEGs in VF and they sucked from a balance perspective and in my view the silvers weren’t much better as I was battling shoulder issues since ‘82 (I had to take prescription anti inflammatories from 82-85 and hold my horn slightly clocked to keep my shoulder tendons from pinching under my collarbone.) I longed for the Ultratone I had at West Coast Express and the King I auditioned on with BD in Dec 1980 was a far superior instrument (too bad I lost my ride and didn’t have a car for monthly camps; it was a blast to play.) When I did the ‘07 Alumni gig I used my K80 euph. 

[84BDsop]

20 minutes ago, TRacer said:

Wow, I don’t recall the Pacific Procession pants reveal. I thought they made us look visually cleaner which was borne out in the visual numbers at DATR.

i need to check with JB; I thought he mentioned they had 6 in ‘82 and how they got stuck on the ends of the front in opener. This was during a break during RP rehearsal a million years ago. 

I had to play chrome DEGs in VF and they sucked from a balance perspective and in my view the silvers weren’t much better as I was battling shoulder issues since ‘82 (I had to take prescription anti inflammatories from 82-85 and hold my horn slightly clocked to keep my shoulder tendons from pinching under my collarbone.) I longed for the Ultratone I had at West Coast Express and the King I auditioned on with BD in Dec 1980 was a far superior instrument (too bad I lost my ride and didn’t have a car for monthly camps; it was a blast to play.) When I did the ‘07 Alumni gig I used my K80 euph. 

Pity the poor ######## in Garfield who had baris with the valve cluster #### near at arm's length.   Whoever designed THAT horn should be shot.

[jwillis35]

Nice interview with one of the lead baritones from Garfield Cadets 1984. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILNLDCBGIY

[jwillis35]

Here is another interview with Barbara Maroney of Garfield Cadets 1984. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEfhjJfknv8

[Continental]

20 hours ago, jwillis35 said:

Here is another interview with Barbara Maroney of Garfield Cadets 1984. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEfhjJfknv8

One of the best mello soloists in the activity - if not the best.