Posted by Craig on August 29, 2003 at 12:37:34:
In Reply to: Re: Kings new BBb Contra posted by Wade on August 28, 2003 at 18:57:01:
Man, you sure have stirred up a lot of old memories for me! I marched in the Sky Ryders '82-'84 and fondly remember hauling those puppies around. Weighed as much as a '57 Chevy, but what a great sound. The build quality wasn't real great, along with the lack of uniformity. Remember how those things would pop braces, especially when it got really hot? They should have been beefed up a lot more due to their size and weight. When I first started, the horns were in pretty good condition, even after their first year of use, but after my last year marching, they were showing a lot of battle scars. Nonetheless, nothing else was even in the same league with them. During my first year in 1982, the only other contra section that could match us was BD (and I thought we were better), when the hornline was under John Simpson's direction (if I remember correctly, he was the one that made things happen with first K90's). To his credit, our hornline was even occasionally outscoring the likes of SCV that year, during a California tour. Too bad our marching sucked. I learned more from him that year about music and brass playing than I did my entire time in college. Being able to do all that on the K90 made the experience that much better.
It's been so long ago, those 3 years are pretty much a blur now. I can just barely remember who was in our contra section and what year they marched, let alone all the how's and why's of the horns we used. Somewhere I've got a picture of our contra line from 1984. If I can dig it up, I just may have to post it!
Craig Heinrich