Ah....NOW I know who you are, heh. You're little Tony Lopez's brother!! hahaha.....cool beans! We just marched together again last August with the KAC at the Rose Bowl. I was one of the soloists in "Mambo",heh.
You sent me a file of that pic of Bob and it's hanging on the mirror in my studio. I will cherish it always. I was with Bob for 24 years before he died. I know that garage/studio well. I also have a ton of records and stuff from the estate. I now carry on his legacy in teaching private students working on their chops,etc.
Ah ha! Your Phil! I didn’t realize I was talking to you. Yes, my girlfriend and I watched you’all perform live on the live webcast thing. I also bought the DVD!
I’m glad you like the photo of Bob. He was really enthusiastic to help me with my photo class project and helped come up with ideas of where and how to shoot it - I took that during one of my lessons.
Bob seemed to also have a good number of students in Youth Bands. Two who left TAYB with me also took lessons from him. As well, some folks who were still in TAYB did as well. One thing I really remember about him is that when I was leaving, just about to grab the doorknob, he’d always say, “Keep on pluggin”.
I also watched his band perform, and one time sat in with them. It was nice of him to invite me.
CrystalMage wrote:
Yeah, Beer Barrel Polka gets almost as bad as “Missippi Mud” – spelling! LOL
And we were sitting down playing it and they wanted us to sway back and forth! hahaha.
Seems like some directors never considered how weird it looks when we were forced to do something we didn’t like. Doesn’t add anything if it looks labored.
However, speaking of polkas and Youth Bands, when I was still in TAYB, we a few members would perform as a small group in the band’s behalf. We were TAYB’s Polka band and we played at the “Olde Town Mall” and every year, for the folks working on the floats for the Rose bowl Parade. My brother actually started that group and owned the music, and the TAYB staff let him run with it insofar as picking the musicians from our ranks – maximum of two on each instrument.
When we left TAYB and went to Cabbies, the polka band left as well, by default, as we were basically one and the same. We did do one performance on the Cabbies behalf when something came up suddenly and Monte was in a pinch. I give him a lot of kudos that he agreed to have us perform, never having heard us until the actual performance. But he was very happy.
But, other than that, we actually did our own performances off and on, with no Youth Band affiliation. Das Pommen Fritzes we called ourselves. I don’t know if we’d have ever done that if it hadn’t been for TAYB’s tradition to entertain the Rose float folks.
CrystalMage wrote:
You were in AK? What year. My brother went on tour with them in 1978.
Yep....right next to him in the lead sop line. There's a funny story I witnessed in Whitewater with your brother. We were all in our horn arch and he was late getting there. He shows up with his lips all smothered with neosporin. Gary Kean stops the horns and says to Tony, "where the hell have YOU been". Tony with the neosporin all over his lips goes, "kissing a chickens ass?" hahahaha. Of course the whole horn line were rolling on the floor laughing including Kean,heh. Your brother I think has the record too of having the smallest AK uniform, LOL.
Ah, that sounds like Tony. Yeah? I did notice that it fit him well, so I guess that did have one the right size already or close!
Cool beans. There's going to be MORE Kingsmen influence shortly. There will be 3 corps with Jim Whobery at the head as executive director.
Great! I need to get a hold of someone from KAC soon, because I do have 3 bugles I want to donate, assuming they want them – I was trying my hand at brass playing and got curious about how various G bugles felt, so bought some on ebay a good while back. Now they are just sitting around. I understand they might accept valve/trigger ones as some alumni are most comfortable with that type.
Interesting interplay between Drum and Bugle Corps and Youth Bands, though. Drum and Bugle corps were the innovators and some Youth Bands learned from that, while in turn, fed experienced musicians to Drum and Bugle Corps.
One hope I and some others had for TAYB was for it to be much more like a Drum and Bugle Corp in regard to how a corp approaches building a field show each year. Not in terms, however, in touring like a corp, so less intense during the summer, but still, the idea of having well arranged songs that are challenging and a challenging field show to match, so that our rehearsals were focused on cleaning. Parades would still have been a big part, but in comparison, easy to what we were focusing on. We were having weekly sectionals for brass, woodwinds and drums, but I was seeing that there wasn’t a consensus within the woodwinds around rehearsing 3 times a week – twice with the full band and one time as a section only. We were doing that to clean the songs Gary Kean arranged for us and I really enjoyed that drive.
Also, Sid Viles had approached my father and maybe other board members of TAYB, inquiring about merging Whittier and TAYB into one band. In retrospect, that might have been interesting as Sid would have been much more aligned with focusing on field shows, than Alex DeLao ( the TAYB director at the time ). I think Sid one of the other band directors that referred to TAYB as a “sleeping giant” in regard to potentials for field competition.
But I think one of the issues with TAYB was that the drive would need to have come from the bulk of the band members. As a somewhat unfair comparison, the Blue Devils started as a drum and bell Corp. They were the top of their game in the arena, but they decided to change to a Drum and Bugle Corp – Jerry Seawright actually had bought a full compliment of bugles and stored them in his garage figuring the board would eventually agree to the change. But my point is moreso that the kids that joined the brassline, would, on their own, get together to practice and seek out more musicians, even if they were woodwind players, to learn to play a bugle. According to the roundtable discussion on their 70’s “through the years “, most of the kids went to the same High School in Concord and would recruit and practice. So, the drive to clean up the music and shows was driven hard by the members, making the staff’s job easier. So, there wasn’t the conflict that existed in TAYB. So, my view was that Blue Devils re-invented themselves, tapped into their strengths and expanded upon them, and Torrance had that potential, as most Youth Bands did. But as we saw when we wanted to convert from “whaling” drums to rudimental drums, change is a challenge and like in TAYB’s case ultimately, sometimes better to move on, no matter how strong the tie is.