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DCI Dinosaur Communications - 2 cans and a string?


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Corps in California were like another planet to us.

In 1963 people in the East never knew much about the Corps from the West until June

Here we are in 2013 and people in the East STILL won't know much about Corps from the West until June( and vice versa )

Some things just never change it appears.

Edited by BRASSO
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It's interesting how things have have changed.

We've gone from trying to get information during the season to a point where corps members are encouraged not to get information.

I remember going to a show and spending my time soaking up whatever I could from Drum Corps World before the show would start. There was so much less criticism and arm-chair critiquing back then.

Remember in '81 when Phantom had a libretto to explain their show? No one freaked out.

The lack of information made attending a show more exciting in the 70's and early 80's. Even if you read Drum Corps News or Drum Corps World--and most people did not--the scores were over a week old. Also, there was no way to see and hear the corps except in person. You might have read or heard what a corps was playing, but that was it.

There was also a good chance the particular corps in the competition had not competed with each other before.

Lack of information wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

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Great fun in the late 80s trying to get scores and info. On tour we would get old Drum Corps World issues from the souvie booth and read the reviews and get scores from shows two weeks ago. It didn't help that our caption head called them the "rag sheets" and didn't want us reading them. I distinctly remember salvaging the hi scores from DCW and rumors and putting them in order on a piece of notebook paper. My calculation had us in 14th and a few points out of finals. Oh the brew-ha-ha that started! "You can't compare scores from different shows....", and off of the same stuff we say now. Sometimes we would get to see a recap, but rarely.

During the summer, as an early performing corps, we could catch most of the action every night. I saw Garfield about 18 times live in 1987. I also remember my rookie year seeing corps I had never even heard of, and being blown away by how good some DIV 2 corps were. At Regionals you had morning prelims and might even just stay at the stadium all day, you got to see and hear a lot of corps.

Some of the most fun we had on tour would be starting a rumor. You could say, "I heard Dutch Boy scored an 85 last night and won high drums." A rumor like that could last days or weeks.

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In my pre marching days I had no idea who won finals until PBS aired the show. And in Maryland they aired championships on Thanksgiving weekend. That is how far out of the loop I was.

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Classic story from this era - Sr corps side.....

1975 there were two Sr circuits consisting of DCA (better corps) and RCA (lesser corps). A new corps started competing in 1975 but due to DCA rules they were not able to compete at any DCA shows until Prelims. So they went to RCA and, with the exception of the first show ever, wiped up the field with the lesser corps.

At Prelims they were scheduled last because they were new to DCA. Corps before them used to be a Jr corps (Blessed Sac) and some people stuck around To watch this version of Sac. Remember this was when Prelims and Finals were the same day and only a few hours (if that) between the two. So this last corps comes out to a pretty empty stadium and Holy #### comes in 4th at Prelims! Wonder how many people watched almost all of Prelims and came back to Finals to find out they missed the story of the day.

Phoenix - Rochester, NY...

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The lack of information made attending a show more exciting in the 70's and early 80's. Even if you read Drum Corps News or Drum Corps World--and most people did not--the scores were over a week old. Also, there was no way to see and hear the corps except in person. You might have read or heard what a corps was playing, but that was it.

There was also a good chance the particular corps in the competition had not competed with each other before.

Lack of information wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

There was far more information available to fans and the public in earlier decades Drum Corps than what fans and the public receive in info today, imo.

There were far more Corps in World Class Division and spread out among a much wider area, ie Canada, Florida, Maine, etc. too.. so there was always the exciting competition placement unknown and well beyond early July too where these dozens of Corps would fare once brought into national head to head competition. But off season practices, unlike today, were always wide open so its was easy to see what Corps strengths and weaknesses might be for the coming season compared to their previous year's strengths and weanesses and overall morale, marcher totals, etc.

Edited by BRASSO
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It was mostly word of mouth. Everybody was talking to everybody else about everything. The only exception that I can remember are the Bridgemen when they switched from their cadet style uniforms to the long yellow coats and floppy head gear. I don't think that anyone saw that coming. How they managed to do that I'll never know.

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1371233766[/url]' post='3267518']

In 1963 people in the East never knew much about the Corps from the West until June

Here we are in 2013 and people in the East STILL won't know much about Corps from the West until June( and vice versa )

Some things just never change it appears.

Haha that's probably because the west coast corps do a much better job of keeping camp videos from popping up on YouTube. Not so sure about the vice versa though.

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It was mostly word of mouth. Everybody was talking to everybody else about everything. The only exception that I can remember are the Bridgemen when they switched from their cadet style uniforms to the long yellow coats and floppy head gear. I don't think that anyone saw that coming. How they managed to do that I'll never know.

Pip,

Are you in any way pointing to Bridgemen/Crown parallels? ha, ha. Don't let the Surf know. :rolleyes:/>/>

Edited by drilltech1
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It was mostly word of mouth. Everybody was talking to everybody else about everything. The only exception that I can remember are the Bridgemen when they switched from their cadet style uniforms to the long yellow coats and floppy head gear. I don't think that anyone saw that coming. How they managed to do that I'll never know.

One thing that has never changed over the years regarding this topic are a) rumors and b) hype.

There are as many rumors and hype today as there was in earlier decades. We used to hear all sorts of stuff that later turned out to be untrue. Of course, some rumors ( and hype ) did ultimately turn out to be true as well.

Rumors could start with anonymous sources too. Thats not changed over the years. Its probably much easier to start a rumor with today's anonymous posters on this new "Interweeeb", I would think however. But while there were differences in how info was received over the years, the level of gossip, hype, and rumors is probably about on the same level, imo.

Edited by BRASSO
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