Memories of being in the USC Band

 

It is officially known as "The Spirit of Troy," and unofficially referred to as TGMBITHOTU, or "The Greatest Marching Band In The History Of The Universe" (possibly an overstatement, I realize). We pretty much define Trojan swagger!

However, when I joined the band as a freshman, in the fall of 1979, the tuba section was characterized by what could rightly be called debauchery (seriously - they would have reveled in that label!). Here is the majority of our section, probably on our annual trip to the bay area to play either Cal or Stanford (it was Cal that year, and I'm the blond guy on the far right, refusing to show my tall finger):

While there was much I had to endure that fall, esp. the hazing at band camp that I resisted, but it almost broke me, I did eventually find a safe crowd with which to hang - and a different bus to ride in for all future trips. But the things we got to do that year - my goodness! Here are a few of them.

First off, we had just recorded the song "Tusk" with Fleetwood Mac, for their album by that name, and they invited us to perform with them in their five Los Angeles concerts at the Fabulous Forum that kicked off their "Tusk" tour. We were, quite literally, rock stars, which fueled our swagger even more!

The following February (1980), because of our participation in this hit song, we were featured on the 2-hour music special, "Solid Gold '79" (see the last paragraph in the listing below):

Then, that fall (1980), Fleetwood Mac joined us on our turf where we celebrated our success together - including receiving our copy of the platinum record!

Back to the fall of 1979, we took a trip to Pismo Beach for a couple of days, to shoot a scene for the happily forgotten flick, The Gong Show Movie. The storyline that involved us was that Chuck Barris had retreated to the desert, leaving his famous TV show, and we marched out to him, over the dunes, to persuade him to return to civilization. Our scene can be viewed here - a scene which lasted less than a minute, but took two days to film! Here we are being directed for our big moment:

And here I am (or perhaps it's a fellow-section member - I don't remember), making good use of our lengthy downtime between takes (a helicopter was used, after each take, to blow the sand smooth again!):

Naturally, we were invited to be part of the "ridiculous event" that was the movie's world premiere, which occurred the following May:

One of my most vivid memories from the fall of 1979 was the way we were treated by the Cal fans when we travelled to their stadium to perform at the game. Here's what I'm talking about, as reported in a local Berkeley paper later that week:

When we returned to Cal two years later, we were prepared. Dave Hayami, a former tuba player in the band and Teaching Assistant at that time, arranged for all of the Sousaphone players to have special mirrored facemasks attached to our Trojan helmets. That was because we knew we would be targeted, given our huge brass bells, and the fact that we were in the front row, spread across the field for our Tribute to Troy pregame formation, marching straight at the Cal student section. The fruit did indeed start to fly almost immediately - it was like a war zone!

Back to 1979, that fall was also my first trip to Notre Dame, where we stayed in downtown Chicago at the Executive House hotel, ate at some great restaurants, such as The Berghoff, practiced at Soldier Field (not sure how we pulled that off!), and gave a pep rally in the middle of Daley Plaza. I apparently didn't take any photos on that trip, but I still have the button we made:

Our football team started the 1979 season ranked number 1, and we proceeded to win all but one of our games - we tied Stanford, dropping us to number 3. We then faced current number 1 Ohio State in the 1980 Rose Bowl, with our Heisman trophy winning running back, Charles White.

Here we are marching in the Rose Parade prior to the game, which we won, by the way, 17-16, but ended up number 2 in the country for some reason:

One of our band photographers caught a glimpse of me as we marched along the parade route, which is quite long, and requires lining up at the crack of dawn, and then playing and marching in the bowl game well into the evening - a wonderfully tiring day!:

I finished the year winning a couple of freshman band awards, and the most disruptive members of the tuba section were booted out of the band. This opened the way for me to be a squad leader for the 1980 season, so things were really looking great for year two!

That fall, the band travelled to games against Arizona, as well as Stanford, and the team ended up 8-2-1 and ranked 11th in the country - but no bowl game, due to five of the Pac-10 teams being on probation that year, including us, as well as our cross-town rival, UCLA. So, we viewed that game as "The Probation Bowl" (which, dang it, we lost):

That year was also the 100th birthday of the University, and the band, of course, was very involved in the celebrations (click here for a separate post on that). 

Year three (1981-82) had me serving the first of two years as the tuba section leader, and here are a couple of shots from that season, showing my view from our Coliseum seats, as well as a look back at the band in the stands from the sidelines:

That year I made my second trip to Notre Dame, which we won again - three years in a row now! After the win, I briefly got to hang out in the dorm room of a friend of mine who was a student there.

Our expectation, as the button I was wearing on that trip suggested, was that we would end up in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl, but a loss to Arizona, and then Washington, left us 9-2 on the season, and slotted us for the 1982 Fiesta Bowl against Joe Paterno and his Penn State Nittany Lions (where my son now attends).

We entered that game with the 1981 Heisman Trophy winner, and my all-time favorite Trojan football player, Marcus Allen, but it was a miserable day, and we lost, and I don't want to talk about it.

That spring (1982) saw me playing in a small pep band that supported our outstanding women's basketball team, which included a trip to Knoxville, TN, for the NCAA playoffs (we lost a heartbreaker to the Univ. of Tennessee in OT).

And that summer, for a special July 4th celebration, the entire band got to play at the Hollywood Bowl!

But my fourth year (1982-83) got off to a bad start, as I suffered a partially collapsed lung at the morning rehearsal for our first home game. My parents were at that game, and noticed that my spot in the "USC" pregame formation was empty (the top end of the "S"), and knew that something was wrong.

They immediately left the game and found me lying in bed, struggling to breathe, at the house I was living in off campus that year (incidentally, the same house my mother had lived in when she was a student back in the 1950s), and promptly took me to the doctor.

I missed our trip to Oklahoma, who we beat 12-0, and wasn't cleared to play tuba for another couple of games after that. But that left me free to support our halftime show about the hit movie, E.T. They had me ride out of the tunnel, on cue, with E.T. in my bicycle basket! Here's a photo from when he were practicing the surprise that morning:

By mid October, I was cleared to both play and fly, and I needed to do both to participate in the EPCOT All American College Marching Band in Orlando (click here for a separate post on that experience).

In the spring of 1983, I travelled once again with the women's basketball team, and this time we won it all! The Final Four was in Norfolk, VA, and the women invited our little pep band to a special dance party at a local disco to celebrate with them. If you've never seen me trying to look cool while dancing with women who are over 6-feet tall, like Cheryl Miller, well, you've missed a good laugh!

My fifth year (1983-84) had me serving as a Teaching Assistant with the band, and making my final trip to Notre Dame. Then, after graduating, I joined many of our band members and participated in the Olympic All American Band for the 1984 Olympics (click here for lots more on that), so I added a pin from that great experience to my band jacket:

One fun fact about the USC tuba section is where we stored our Sousaphones during these years. The band didn't have a single dedicated space or building to use, so the drums and tubas were kept in a basement room of the old P.E. building across from our practice field. It was known as B-19, and it was like a museum, featuring all of the items the band had stolen from other schools and cities we stayed in over the years. I'm not sure why I never thought to take a photo of that secret hideout!

Oh, and one last thing for this already too-long post. Sometime during or shortly after 1980, we created a slick brochure to boast about the band. Here's my clean copy that I found in an old box the other day. Enjoy!

Memories of USC turning 100 (1980)

My sophomore year at the University of Southern California was a milestone year - the school's 100th birthday! To celebrate, our band cut a new album, with the cover shown above (and in the pale yellow on either side of the drum major's feet, it reads "1880 - 1980").

We also, of course, threw a birthday party at one of our halftime shows that fall. Here's our grand entrance down the peristyle steps at the Coliseum - something we only did on special occasions:

And here's part of the actual halftime show, complete with a giant birthday cake and more horses than usual running around the track!

If I remember correctly, we actually changed uniforms between the pre-game show and halftime, debuting our new uniforms for the big party. Here I am marching to the Coliseum before the game in our old uniforms (with the exception of the helmet, which was our new version; you can see that the brush on top is the darker red, which was our new color):

To get a good look at our old helmet, here we are in the full old uniforms, from the 1980 Rose Parade in January (that's me, four in):

And here's the tuba section from around that time (perhaps 1981?) where you can see how different our new uniforms looked (darker red, embroidered Trojan shield on the chest, stripes on the pants, white spats and gloves, full wire brush plume on the helmet, with an embroidered visor that stuck out further than the old plastic one with buttons, and, what you can't see here, capes that were about the size and design of our old ones):

That morning, my parents even took a few photographs of our final practice on Cromwell field (that's me in the blue and red striped shirt):

And here I am, posing with a few "fans," which are actually the young daughters of some good friends of ours from church back then, Jeff and Marie Robinson, who are USC alums. Oh, and that's my section leader, Keala Sereno, behind me in the center of the photo, with dark hair. He was a great friend!

The Sousaphones we were using at that time were built by King, and I remember them sounding great! We had 16 players in the tuba section - four squads of four horns.

And here we are, playing for the crowd on campus at Heritage Hall, before marching to the Coliseum for the game and the 100th birthday celebration!

Ah, yes, such great memories - Fight On!

Memories of Epcot's Grand Opening

Early in the summer of 1982, while I was beginning the project of restoring and painting the exterior of the old home I was living in off campus, I received a letter with the following logo on the envelope:

I had just finished my third year at the University of Southern California, and I was set to serve for my second year as the Tuba Section Leader of "The Spirit of Troy," the Trojan Marching Band:

Much to my surprise and delight, I had been selected by our band director, Dr. Arthur C. Bartner, to be one of the representatives of USC for a special band being formed for the Grand Opening of Disney's EPCOT CENTER that Fall. Here's the letter I received, dated June 3:

Dr. Bartner had been leading the All American College Marching Band each summer at Disneyland, which was a small ensemble of elite college players (and I had toyed with throwing my hat in the ring for that gig at one point as well), but this version was going to be colossal. Here's the follow up letter I received at the end of July, providing more details:

The 450-piece EPCOT ALL AMERICAN COLLEGE MARCHING BAND was, for some reason, limited to brass and percussion, and included 76 trombones (of course!) and 47 Sousaphones. 

Concerning the latter, we tuba players received follow up correspondence from Disney asking us initially to locate and bring with us a white fiberglass Sousaphone, as that was the look they desired for the section. However, many of us struggled to find one, so they eventually asked us just to bring whatever horn we had access to. But, shortly after that concession, we received word that 47 squeaky-clean Conn 36K's would be waiting for us when we arrived in Orlando (perhaps provided by Conn?). That certainly made travelling easier!

(And speaking of "sqeaky-clean," that pretty much sums up the "Disney Look" that we were all required to conform to in our personal grooming and presentation, as mentioned in that second letter above!)

Here's the best shot I took that shows us with the horns provided by Disney:

This was taken during one of our practices up on the roof of one of the CommuniCore buildings, which were mirror-images of each other, in the middle of Future World (that building, I just learned, is being razed at this very moment, to make way for something new). This is where the Grand Opening Dedication Ceremony would take place on Sunday, October 24 - not the roofs, of course, but the plaza between those two buildings - as the beautiful, over-sized program explained:

Our "Grand Entrance," as it is noted above, was truly "Grand," as we were positioned way back, out of sight, on top of those buildings, and then, on cue, we marched forward, in long lines, to the very edge of the roof, surrounding the dignitaries seated in the plaza below. It was quite impressive - but also quite difficult to play together, spread out that much!

Here are a few more of the photos I was able to take during our practices:

(Make note of how the Horizons building in the background is still under construction! A number of the EPCOT structures had not been completed prior to the Grand Opening.)

One of the great pleasures of this experience was getting to know top-notch players from so many other great universities - including one of USC's most bitter rivals, UCLA!

When that Grand Opening Dedication day finally arrived, the weather was nice, but a bit on the cold side. And while I have audio recordings of a few of the pieces we played, which we band members were given by Disney on cassette tapes (remember those?!), I have not been able to find any online video of that day's events that shows the EPCOT ALL AMERICAN COLLEGE MARCHING BAND. I'm assuming Disney recorded us, but I guess it's tucked away in their mythical "vault" somewhere (click here for some of what went on that morning).

But here's the one photo I know of, shared by our band director, Dr. Bartner (and also at the top of this post), that shows a portion of the band that Sunday morning. Note not only the line of Sousaphones on the far building (I'm in there somewhere), but also the cape of one of my fellow-Trojans in the foreground. We each wore the uniform from our respective bands, while also wearing a pull-over white-with-gold-trim vest, as well as a white hat, provided by Disney. But my colleague (and perhaps me too - I don't recall) chose to let his cape fly free over the back of his vest. Trojan swagger, for sure!

Our week-long intensive practices, held both at EPCOT and in the ballroom of our hotel in Orlando, involved not only preparing for the event above, but also for a special event the evening prior, marking the Official Opening of EPCOT's World Showcase. Here are portions of the brochure for that day:

Unfortunately, it rained much of that evening, but we still pulled off a great program. It began with marching around the World Showcase, along the Promenade, starting at "The American Adventure" pavilion. We had practiced earlier that day (I think it was), during which I was able to take at least one photograph while we waited around (you can see Italy in the background):

While marching on the Promenade, along the World Showcase Lagoon, we played the "World Showcase March," written by legendary Disney songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman (I was surprised to discover that there is no way to hear that march online, until now - I posted my copy, from an old cassette tape, given to each of us band members by Disney at the end of our time in the band. UPDATE: I was just made aware of the version with lyrics, apparently titled, "No Place Like World Showcase.").

Once we reached the Showcase Plaza, we were joined by the West Point Glee Club for a rousing concert which included a special music medley and a really fun version of Yankee Doodle. The men of West Point really enjoyed the latter, as I recall, and the off-and-on rain didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits!

A brief part of that wet evening was included in a special television show, EPCOT Center: The Opening Celebration, featuring Hollywood legend Danny Kaye and a very young Drew Barrymore, who had recently starred in the movie E.T. That program is available online, and you can see us doing our part at the very end, at around 47:20 (and you can hear Danny complaining about the rain right at the beginning!). We concluded that event with a stirring rendition of This is My Country.

While our week in Orlando was a busy one, with lots of hard work, we were treated to part of a day at the Magic Kingdom. Here is my hotel-mate, from the University of Kansas (whose name, sadly, escapes me all these years later - perhaps Jeff?), as we enjoyed that time:

Notice the polo shirt he is wearing. I wore mine out eventually, but before tossing it, I cut out the embroidered logo and saved it:

And, of course, we enjoyed hotel living and free meals all week (I'm not sure why I kept this, but it made me smile when I found it!):

One of my favorite memories came, I think, right at the end, where Disney threw the entire band a private party at River Country, where they had the wonderful musical groups from all of the Disney parks join us to provide the entertainment. Plus, there was great food everywhere, and the water park was all ours to enjoy. It was quite an evening!

Shortly after that magical week, back in the swing of the Fall semester and football season (I would have missed our 38-0 blowout of Oregon State at the Coliseum on Oct. 23!), we each received the following thank you note from producer Bob Jani: