There are no tubas in the Aggie band. (They are sousaphones, often called basses.)

My ol' Lady plays the Trombone. Our Zip year we were marching to the side line, as he crossed over, he slipped on the turf, his slide went sailing and nailed a Tceh band dude in the chest.

In my 4 years in the Bass Room, we never had a bell come off.

[This message has been edited by CBattBQ87 (edited 8/9/2006 1:07p).]

I saw the Rice debacle while I was still in high school. My oldest brother was a sophmore in the band. The mob began blowing whistles, confounding many a BQ. Eventually they just stopped. Played, and left the field.

Man, you want to talk about some pissed off Aggie fans. We outnumbered the rice fans 2 to 1, so when the mob took the field, the crowd was so loud, you couldn't hear them at all. I may be exagerating, but if I recall correctly, they finally became so frustrated (or scared) the quit as well, and left the field.

When the team came out from halftime, you would have thought we were playing the t-sips for the MNC because the crowd went nuts, and the boys proceeded to put as ass-whoopin' on that poor rice team that didn't know what they'd done wrong.

Having seen the 04 halftime a few times...recovery did not happen. 2 obvious holes the rest of the show. While an untrained eye might not catch it, I did along with several other people.

BQbassdrummer'91.....That was one trip that you have on us. I always loved the pic of the band in front of the carrier. We got to go to New York, Chicago, Notre Dame, Washington DC....but that was one I always wanted to do (and we almost freaking made it)

Judd....noone want's to see you commando. Or doing the dateless whatever it was called

I can’t believe no one has mentioned the BS that went on in Austin in ’92.

Sips want to have their 100th anniversary celebration and want us to march with them at halftime (why?). We don’t want to march with the wieners so they threaten to take date tickets etc. The final compromise is that we get to do a shortened drill and then play a couple of songs with them. About 8 Zips and one frick decide they aren’t doing it and just walk off the field. (They were kicked out of the band before the third quarter started).


It was a disaster. The tu football team came back on the field too early and a few wise crackers tried to run through the corner of the band. (one of whom found himself being thrown to the ground by his facemask courtesy of Mike Pratt ’94). The big set up was that when we stopped to play with their sorry azzes they broke and started to run towards the Aggie Band. I can assure you if it wasn’t for the quick thinking of Matt Daniel – head drum major the poop would have hit the fan in the middle of DKRLMNOP stadium.

Matt pulled it out and broke the band sending them to the sidelines where a few shots were thrown because a good percentage of the sips were blowing dog whistles at Rev. ESPN came back to the game while the shenanigans were still going on in the Southeast corner of the field. The game was delayed for some time.

Thanks for reminding me of why I can’t stand most of those bastages.

Yep, I marched in the SMU fiasco in Dallas. The "Lost Indian" drill lived up to it's namesake that day.

Well at least you didn't have to play "Celebrate a Celebration" with the UCLA band and Rangerettes during the Cotton Bowl

cleaver... you mean clever. The title hurt my head for a minute.

'72 Tech game at Kyle. Night game. Maroon Band Sergebutt named Robert Porter broke his trombone in half at the handle when he did his countermarch. His bell (rear portion of the instrument) was lying on the field and he just kept his slide up and sliding back and forth for the rest of the drill. One of the junior yell leaders ran out on the field and picked it up before we headed back that way so that no one would trip over it. We were laughing pretty good; didn't affect the drill and no one missed a thing. Damn good recovery; which was the point of the thread.

'73 Wichita State opening game at Kyle the next year, another night game. Drill was simple and perfect until the HDM missed a whistle on forming the T at the end. Did not step off in time and one side overhand of the top of the T kept going while the other side tried to hold up 2 counts to keep the line intact. We zips were pretty steamed when we hid the sideline - the Winged T was not part of the drill. The next Monday after practice LTC Adams came and spoke to the band about screwups over the years. He had been retired the previous spring much to our consternation and his presence cooled off a lynch mob mentality that several of us had been simmering over.

An entire season of 8 o'clock drills were a rarity, we never made it through a season in my 4 years of walking in the band without at least one drill that was not an 8 o'clock.

"Recall.....Step off on Hullabaloo..."

celebration at the cottonbowl was horrible... my feet are still cold from the snow bowl and it sucks that our last drill was marching back and forth between goal lines. Was mildly fun trying to get the snow off boot heels while marching though...

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courtesy of Mike Pratt ’94).

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I wonder if Michael still holds the record for the biggest circumference boots ever made?

one time at band camp....

I had the pleasure of being in the Aggie Band....one of two bands I watch.

Our buggle rank never messed up! the one time we were out of step (drumer) the fish had to make it "RAIN" in the drum room.

forever a Raider
87grad

So what do y'all do when you get a drum stick jacked?

Bryan I'll answer your request for a roll call...

A-Co

Just a few comments...

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Oh, and its a Bass, thank you very much.

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Sure it is!

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"Jackson Extraction"

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Oh the memories...

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looked like a damn Mexican General with his 6 rows of ribbons

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I had forgotten about all of the ribbons

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Each time we practiced, you'd end passing different people

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In four years of practices and halftime performances I don't recall ever passing the same person twice going through the 4-way

Thanks for the memories...the stories could certianly go on forever!

B. King
A-Co BQ '02

I'm betting the biggest zip boots ever made were for Danny Tanner 98, though he failed out at the end of his junior year. All 6'11" and 325lbs of him. The football team seriosuly tried to get him to walk on his fish year. I tried to block him once in the BQ bowl my pisshead year, and he threw my 170lb butt about 10feet backwards.

I was marching in 1995 I think behind one of my trombone buddies, and during a countermarch he got his slide hung on Tyson Voelkel's RV cord, and when tyson contermarched, it ripped the slide right off, so it was hanging on his cord. He waited until he got near the endzone, and unhooked it during another countermarch and tossed it into the end zone. My buddy had to march with just the slide rods sticking out for the rest of the drill.

I also got to be the nose of the cow head my pisshead year when we sawed the horns off in the cow extraction drill.

Almost forgot when some of my buddies got into a fight with north texas's rah rah boys in the end zone before halftime when they tried to take a drum major's whistle. They NT cheer boys got their aszes beat, AND then got in deep **** later and got suspended for a year.

[This message has been edited by MouthBQ98 (edited 8/9/2006 7:05p).]

[This message has been edited by MouthBQ98 (edited 8/9/2006 7:07p).]

I have a few questions about the '99 tu game (IMHO the best halftime show I've ever seen):

1. What is that kind of 4 way cross called?
2. How f'ed up was that thing when ya'll were doing it? (This fits the theme of the thread because when the people came out of it it looked perfect, but it sure looked like a madhouse in the middle.))

The SMU snafu was in '74. ...went into the T and did a Lost Indian. DM's had to count to about eleventy thousand for the outside shell to get all the way around. Long story short, a DM's forward march whistle came about six steps too early. The core of the T had already stopped - most of them took off on the whistle. Some in the outer shell tried to get to their correct position, some tried to go with the flow from where they were. It was a mess but it held together and we got off the field. ...don't know of a Lost Indian T being tried since. As mentioned, we lost to a pitiful Pony team that day too. I remember the next drill vs TCU at Kyle as probably the sharpest during my time.

One of the basses lost a bell at the tu game that year too (coldest and worst footbal game of my life BTW). ...didn't consider it a big deal but the sips got a kick out of it.

MA

My favorite part of the Sugar Bowl drill practices was where all the upperclassmen kept getting fish West (yes, the extremely fat one) to sing "Cartman's mom is a *****" in his perfect Eric Cartman voice. Now THAT was classic!

[This message has been edited by BQAG02 (edited 8/9/2006 8:00p).]

The hardest cross thru done to date is not the 4-way. The hardest was when we split the band in half. File #1-#6 on the west sidelines. File #7-#12 on east sidelines. Both halves marching North to South. Around the 40 yardline the two halves start doing a GATE TURN towards each other. The danger here is that the files closest to the interior are taking half steps toward the center of the field. The files that are on the sideline are almost taking a double step toward the center of the field. Each file is taking a little bit longer step then the person that is closest to the interior. Theoretically each rank turns just like a gate. In reality that turn was an individual assignment with a high chance of screwing up. The problem was that the ranks had a tendency to drift apart. This drifting caused the spacing to be off at the point of cross thru. We never once did the cross thru right in practice, and this includes on saturday morning drill at Kyle. The only time we made it through was during the game. Col. Haney never did the gate turn again after that performance. It is also the reason the 4-way was started. At least the 4-way has specific turning points on the field.

A good BQ story archive is at:

http://www.aggieband.com/story/archive.html

And a detailed account of SMU '74 is at

http://www.aggieband.com/story/smu.html

And for the Roll Call: White Band 1973-76, BCO 76-77.


[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 8/9/2006 9:37p).]

I was in the stadium for the '92 tu game - the halftime performance (BQ's walking off the field) was extremely embarassing, but the game was one of the most fun a$$-kickings I attended.

I remember the students chanting "Peter, Peter" at Gardere every frickin' time he touched the football, and Aaron's 93 yard interception-returned for a TD. All of that made up for those few member's of the band's lack of maturity.

Thanks for reminding me of a time of greatness in our football history.

i couldn't remember the band part but I was at that game as a kid and remember yelling at peter Glad to see all of you older Bq's on here, love hearing your old stories!

Anyone have some good ones about the directors?

The directors? I like when Capt. Rhea was giving his "tech" speech after drill and someone yelled "Timmae!"

Cracks me up even today.

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San Diego-1990 Holiday Bowl (You know, the one with Bucky Richardson and the Ags kicking BYU ass!)

This was one of the all time worst drills in history. We were doing the “card shuffle drill” and the lines were all messed up and the “cards” weren’t coming together correctly.

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Yes, we had some great trips during my time in the Band. Thankfully, you won't be able to find any video of the Card Shuffle Drill faux pas. That year, I was a Butt, marching File 11 Rank 2.

BQbassdrum91, Sometime over a beer, I'll be happy to give you the gory details on who caused it and how it happened. The short summary is that your two '91 wag buddies turned 5 yards too early and when they did it, they took about 1/2 of our rank with them.

I remember COL Toler's words after the drill - "At least we're beating the Hell out of 'em on the Football field".

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anaggiemom
posted 4:36p, 8/9/2006




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courtesy of Mike Pratt ’94).
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I wonder if Michael still holds the record for the biggest circumference boots ever made?

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If no the biggest boot circumference, then definately the biggest head circumference!

This may be top secret stuff, but do you guys have a "panic signal" or something like that...for just in case a formation goes so wrong that it can't be fixed without stopping and completely changing course?

(I've been watching your performances for 13 years and I've always wondered)

basically you hear someone yell s$%$ or something like that. We never had one that I know of. You just didn't mess up, or if you did you tried to make it as small as possible.

"Yes, we had some great trips during my time in the Band. Thankfully, you won't be able to find any video of the Card Shuffle Drill faux pas. That year, I was a Butt, marching File 11 Rank 2. "

I have the 1990 Holiday Bowl band performance on DVD and on my computer...

I've seen one video of the 1990 Holiday Bowl performance and I think during the card shuffle drill disaster, it cuts away and shows something else, doesn't it. Or an angle where you can't tell what's going on.

Yeah, we did a gate turn in '92 as well. Not fun.

Funniest thing ever was the Todd Neander and the Bass Experiment.

"Basses, I f*ed'em."

I figured he'd be the victim of some unfortunate accident shortly thereafter.

The "Timmae!" thing sounds hilarious (considering what an uptight, ***** he is). Could someone tell the whole story?

BQAG02,
Good memory on the "lost Baldwin" drill. He was at the front left corner of spread band. I was right behind him when he missed the turn. He turned 2 steps past the rest of boot rank, and I wound up in front of him b/c I did the countermarch at the right spot. The person he "pushed" was me, but that didn't get his spot back, we switched. I still laugh my ass off about that one.

i rememeber the '74 smu fiasco, the drum major was the the one who blew that one, instead of remembering what was to take place at each yard line he had everything based on a count, he lost count and blew a wrong whistle, the band went into all kinds of motions, it looked like a chinese fire drill, the drum major blew the drill to a halt and removed the band from the field, uuuuuUUUUUUGLY!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by aeon-ag (edited 8/10/2006 1:47p).]