Band stories

[TubaDole2620]

So i was marching the yearly parade our high school does in San Antonio called the Fiesta Night Parade. So i'm marching with my lit up sousa (we had glowing lights all over them) and during one of the drum cadences about half way through the parade and i hear a loud BANG!! on my bell. so i'm thinkin "damn people throwing crap at the sousas" so i look back and see some guy with this look on his face..... . so i was wondering "hmmm what was it?" so we continue marching and i'm all tired and stuff (i'm a big guy) and i hear a rattling in my sousa. so the whole parade gets backed up and we have to stop (messed up float) so while were waiting i decide to see what was in my sousa. so i flip it all crazy like and nothing comes out. while bringing it back up a little kid runs in front of the sousa line and i almost crush the little thing with my sousa. anyway we continue on our route and eventually finish. back at the trailer our cases our sitting outside waiting for us to put them up when this huge charter bus rolls up and nearly runs over me and my sousa compadres. so i take off my bell and flip the sousa and out drop like 3 silver bead necklaces. i think out loud "why the hell would someone do that?" to top it off the directors are yelling at us to hurry up but we were being held up by some band booster taking waters out of the cooler in the trailer. so we wait annoyed and finally we put up our sousas. then we start like the five block trek back to the buses because they had to park seperately.


anyone else have any parade, or just stories for that matter?

[sloan]

So i was marching the yearly parade our high school does in San Antonio called the Fiesta Night Parade. So i'm marching with my lit up sousa (we had glowing lights all over them) and during one of the drum cadences about half way through the parade and i hear a loud BANG!! on my bell. so i'm thinkin "damn people throwing crap at the sousas" so i look back and see some guy with this look on his face..... . so i was wondering "hmmm what was it?" so we continue marching and i'm all tired and stuff (i'm a big guy) and i hear a rattling in my sousa. so the whole parade gets backed up and we have to stop (messed up float) so while were waiting i decide to see what was in my sousa. so i flip it all crazy like and nothing comes out. while bringing it back up a little kid runs in front of the sousa line and i almost crush the little thing with my sousa. anyway we continue on our route and eventually finish. back at the trailer our cases our sitting outside waiting for us to put them up when this huge charter bus rolls up and nearly runs over me and my sousa compadres. so i take off my bell and flip the sousa and out drop like 3 silver bead necklaces. i think out loud "why the hell would someone do that?" to top it off the directors are yelling at us to hurry up but we were being held up by some band booster taking waters out of the cooler in the trailer. so we wait annoyed and finally we put up our sousas. then we start like the five block trek back to the buses because they had to park seperately.


anyone else have any parade, or just stories for that matter?

None quite as spellbinding as this one.

[Tuba-G Bass]

From my High School band days,
At the Bath, PA Halloween parade back in 1982, I accidentally dropped a donut down the bell of my
new King 1140 Convertible tuba, later at the year end Band Banquet, the band director presented to me, in front of everyone, a custom donut remover. [a piece of rope with a hook]
I actually have had nothing ever thrown down my Sousaphone bell during parades, and I still march
with the local silly and fun as sh*t Hobo band. [Not the real name! Although . . .]
My Harv Hartman Keefer FrankenSousa has never tasted that half empty plastic cup of beer,
or other hurled projectile.
Just lucky I guess!

[David Richoux]

,

I actually have had nothing ever thrown down my Sousaphone bell during parades, and I still march
with the local silly and fun as sh*t Hobo band. [Not the real name! Although . . .]

This one?
http://www.hoboband.com/index.html

I am in a West Coast equivalent: http://www.ltwcmb.com/html/band_photo.html

[Tuba-G Bass]

Hi David,
Yep, that's us! We play fun tunes, bug the HS Bando's at parades, generally get to act
our shoe size, not our age! [10 1/2 instead of 43 for me] after years of not finding my
Hobo self, I bought a scarlet band jacket and hat off eBay,
formally from the Sam Houston HS TEXAN band.
People think I look like a toy solder, People in the area love us!
We're goofy, we're loud, we won't leave your porch!
And we might just play the Mickey Mouse theme for your kids!
Or the stripper song for your wife [69 in the blue book!]
We do a few charity events a year, like provide music during running/walking events, [we let them run around us]
We got to play for the big crowds opening day at the new AAA minor league baseball park,
the Lehigh Valley "Ironpigs" are the AAA farm team for the Phillies. Too bad I'm a RED SOX fan
Ah good times!
David, I checked out the link, damn that's a big band!
20 members for us is the Whole Schlabang

[Rick Denney]

...out drop like 3 silver bead necklaces. i think out loud "why the hell would someone do that?"

I know what it means when they throw beads in a Mardis Gras parade.

Rick "who would not have been complimented" Denney

[David Richoux]

David, I checked out the link, damn that's a big band!
20 members for us is the Whole Schlabang

That picture was taken after a 4th of July parade in Redwood City, CA - it is usually our biggest turnout. Most other parades we usually get 25 to 45 people (and of that, maybe 75% instrumentalists.) The band has been around since 1960 and does about 10 to 15 performances a year - big and small parades, private parties, some special events and our Xmas Show (playing from elementary school band charts.)

I could probably tell hundreds of "band stories" from my years playing in that group alone, but I won't

[Kevin Hendrick]

Those kids will never forget it and neither will I !

God bless good people one and all!

They're all around us! Love it when things like that happen.

[rocksanddirt]

TubaDole 2620,
'snip'
#2 I was riding one of my recumbent bicycles in the picnic day parade at UC Davis and not playing. However the Stanford band or half of them (about 75 pieces) were, and they lined up next to a junior high school band. The junior high band played some warn up piece and then the Stanford band cranked up and played some awesome Beatles or something current - a rocker! All the while they were dancing in their spot and facing the crowd and smiling and such, and they were playing only their parts, no goofing around because in the late 70s they had some great arrangers. They sounded totally professional.
They ended to a huge ovation.

Then the Jr. high band director who should have bin shot, lynched, castrated, AND burned at the stake, decided that his kids should immediately follow that with they're big number “Sounds of Philadelphia”. It had bin on the radio five years before, but not a big hit and even played by professional musicians wasn’t very good and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be when played by a junior high school !
You could see the kids were embarrassed to try, but they were in for a surprise, the Stanford bandsmen did smoothing that still puts a lump in my throat even now and at the time made me cry.
They stood perfectly still and listened intently for the entire introduction and then without any discussion or visible cue, they jumped up as one, on the first verse, to surround the little band and dance wildly to the rest of the song. They danced like they couldn’t stand still. They danced like they were in a dance contest. They danced like they were listening to great music. THEY DANCED LIKE THEY WERE GLAD TO BE ENTERTAINED BY THESE LITTLE KIDS. It was contagious; by the end of the pitiful, shitty number, the entire block was a sea of dancing civilians and bandsmen alike. Those kids will never forget it and neither will I !

God bless good people one and all!

Yes, they used to a great band of their style. Unfortunately they lost that somewhere in the last 30 years or so.

[Brucom]

None quite as spellbinding as this one.

Sloan: Best comment ever.

[cambrook]

None quite as spellbinding as this one.

Sloan: Best comment ever.

Yep, perfect

[TubaRay]

Or the stripper song for your wife [69 in the blue book!]

Interesting coincidence.

Too bad I'm a RED SOX fan

Agreed!

[cambrook]

Yet more confirmation of the legendary status of the pachyderm

[TUBAD83]

Here's one I recovered from the archives. I believe it was the inspration for SOUSAPHONE HERO.
"Elephant" wrote:
Mardi Gras, 1991 (marching in the Comus parade, which was one of the old line Krews who refused to integrate and closed up shop a year or two later): I have put together a great little band of about 22 females (mostly undergrad jazzers) from UNT and we are hired to follow the AFROTC drill team from our university in four of these six mile parades (Comus, Proteus, Momus and Rex - the biggies). These parades never really parade - they wander and stop for long periods and drift down the street a few more blocks, etc.

And yes, I have a scar above my hair line from the bottle.

Great story--and further proof my mom was right in forbidding us to go on band trips to N.O. during Mardi Gras or any major event there--"too many idiots mixed with too much alcohol"

JJ

[Teubonium]

Loved those high school band trips. Coming home at night in a dark bus, getting to know the flute players better!