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The Crossmen Silver horns with brass bells.


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I went through high school playing an old, ancient t-bone that came from the want ads.....it was matte silver outside and a brass bell, I figure the thing was pretty old, like the 30s or 40s, I guess, can't remember the brand, the case was leather with a faded mortuary-purple velvet lining that smelled pretty funky, oh, and no slide lock nor would the slide section lock to the bell section.

Xmen horns looked cool....mine looked, well, old.

RON HOUSLEY

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Barry, Charlie & Jeff....Randy here and what a trip down memory lane this is!!!! Only a few more to go and you are right we will have the whole house!!!

Still remember the day we got those new bari's and euph's and Jeff's reaction after he picked up the big boy. Seems to me like all he kept saying was...these *&^*&(*# things are heavy!!!!

Guess that's why I stuck with the bari!!!

Great to see you all here.

Randy

Barry great to see you here-----

He told me I could never over blow

I heard different Jeff....

Jeff

ahhhh... Jeff, Barry... all we need now is the rest of the original housemates... Mark, Jim, John The the crew from Washington... good to see you guys here as well...

Charlie Brown...

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I went through high school playing an old, ancient t-bone that came from the want ads.....it was matte silver outside and a brass bell, I figure the thing was pretty old, like the 30s or 40s, I guess, can't remember the brand, the case was leather with a faded mortuary-purple velvet lining that smelled pretty funky, oh, and no slide lock nor would the slide section lock to the bell section.

Xmen horns looked cool....mine looked, well, old.

RON HOUSLEY

I play a Buescher dual-bore like the one you describe. No slide lock, no screw locking the slide to the bell, satin silver with beautiful engraving on the outside, GOLD PLATING on the inside of the bell. It was a popular "deluxe" finish for horns between appx. 1880 and 1930. Does kinda remind me of the Crossmen horns...

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  • 10 years later...

I just stumbled upon this old thread, and wanted to contribute my own $.02...

I joined the Crossmen brass staff in the fall of '88, and our brass equipment inventory at the time could be best described as a "bugle smorgasbord ". We had a little bit of everything: the silver & brass DEGs, silver horns, chrome horns, you name it, we were playing on it. From a visual standpoint, the look was rather unsightly, as you'd see about 10 different colors of bell finish when the horns were up.

Mike Dennis, the mastermind behind the Yamaha Tuba /Contra conversion horns that the Crossmen introduced in '88, got a really good deal on white lacquer (I believe it cost the corps none dollars), and decided that, for the sake of uniformity, he would use this white lacquer to make the horns create some semblance of visual uniformity. The horns definitely looked strange, but we were able to field 54 horns that looked equally strange (the mellophones always reminded me of a dentist's spittoon: wide, white porcelain bowl that tapered down to a narrow drain).

Best judge's reaction to the white bells: Don Hill judging GE Brass, seeing the corps for the first time. If you remember the '89 show, it started with a short drum feature, so the horns were down for the first 15-20 seconds. Horns snap up for the opening brass statement, and Don says, "Cool! Sousaphones!!" One of the funnier moments!

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Something I unfortunately never got to do with the Kilties:

I always wanted to spraypaint the bells blue after prelims.

So when the horns came up at finals, there would be the Blue Bells of Scotland.

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Yes, Kelsey and I are still "around", so to speak, and Jeff's story is pretty accurate, although I'm sure Robbie knew exactly what we were up to.

Those horns did look pretty unique, and produced a distinctive sound when the entire line had them. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

One more spin-off:

In 1985, I still had one of the sops and when I was asked to help out with the California Dons, Stan Mark (from Maynard's band) was also on staff, albeit briefly. He flipped over the horn and asked to "borrow" it. 30 years later, it's still "borrowed".

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