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Nah....SOME of it's on the drum....

The Sunrisers would like to announce their first Open House for the 2012 season to be held on Saturday, November 26, 2011 between the hours of 12:00 noon and 6:00 pm at the: Brentwood High School @ The Sonderling Building #2 Sixth Avenue Brentwood, Long Island, New York 11717 - 6100 Everyone is invited to attend and meet our 2012 instructional staff, pick up a pair of sticks, colorguard equiptment, or a horn and give it a try. We think you will like what you find in the Sunrisers. No matter what your skill level, the Sunrisers' staff will make it happen for you!

There is a video of the non age-outs playing the ballad for the age outs, and I count about 16 from the hornline. And the quality of playing still sounds great with the 64 members still playing. I don't see this number of hornline age outs causing any problems for them.

Frank is still arranging the music for them, so he is not out of the picture. It says that Ryan Mohney was a trumpet tech last year with them, so he knows the program. Just depends on if these two continue down the "breathe dah" path, or what changes they will make. I do not see this being as a detriment to the corps at all. I believe they will continue to have a great hornline sound. We will have to wait and see how they teach before we make very many assumptions.

Sorry, I didn't mean to phrase it like that, and I adjusted my post accordingly. He has done some great work for them for the past few years, but I think it's time for a big change visually for the Blue Stars. A new drill designer with a fresh perspective for their consistent design team could help a lot.

http://www.bluestars.org/story.php?story_id=619

Out of the blue, completely unexpected in DCA-land ... TOM PEASHEY ... has written and published a novel!! Check it out -- http://www.amazon.com/Am-Woman-Affair-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B005WNWJSG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319698201&sr=8-1

It's legal. If you hit it with a stick.

God, I hope not.

May I add an overlooked solo? The trumpet solo AFTER the bari solo (actually, in between the two bari solo sections) in Bring Him Home was just as beautiful and played as well as any solo done this year. I think most people didn't comment because It wasn't a screamer and it was a relatively short passage, but the tone was great and played with feeling.

Shadow of the Colossus It's a PlayStation 2 game form 2005 that's used as an example to defend the notion that video games can be art, and you'll know why if you do some research on it. Look it up on "the site." The artistic design of the environments and the colossi themselves could make for some amazing guard and choreography designs, and the music is regularly regarded as some of the best in video game history. In particular, these songs stand out to me the most: *The Opened Way *Counterattack *Demise of the Ritual (would make a PERFECT ballad) *In Awe of the Power *A Despair-Filled Farewell The best way to appreciate this music is the play the game, though.

Leaving it all on the field

The Drum Corps Plague comes around every other year or so, it hit really bad in '09, and it came back this year. Just something about so many people in such close quarters for so long, things spread quickly....

Thanks for the kind words everybody. And it's okay to laugh, if you don't have laughter in your life than you are taking it too seriously! Joe Stork

If you have not been to one of Sound's practices/open houses yet, Manassas Park High School is an outstanding facility for a drumcorps to work out of. Those of you who have competed there will agree.

Peter and the Wolf.... it's gonna happen!!!

For the life of me I have no idea why Jolesch felt the need to publicly publish this photograph, especially without any greater context to the situation. It almost seems that their intent was to embarrass this young man. So let me put it in context, this was one of our snare drummers and the photo was taken on Finals night. All week long he had been battling an illness, one that had him in the ER on the Monday before Finals. In late July we lost one of our snare drummers due to injury leaving us to finish the season with only 8. This young man fought hard all week to keep the section in tact for the championships. Instead of sitting on the sidelines he opted to perform...and perform he did. I can tell you that everybody had the greatest respect for his effort. Obviously the physical exertion took its toll at the end of the show, much like you see with athletes who push themselves to the limit. Once he was able to rest and rehydrate, he was fine and attended the retreat ceremonies. He was a great sport about the situation and the guys in the corps appreciated the fact that he "left it all on the field" that night. So that's the full story. Chris Komnick Executive Director Madison Scouts

ME GUSTA

Sun Devils Inc. will be holding the annual Board of Directors meeting on this Sat. Oct 29th 12 noon at Frostproof High School. This will be to hold elections and work on a plan and budget for 2012. All SD members past and present are welcome and anyone interested in joining the corps as a volunteer or as a Board member can attend. message me for more info or directions

Congrats SD!

Starting an independent drum corps or winter program in the communities that you describe is not the solution. Supporting and strengthening opportunities within the school system is a much better solution for a variety of reasons. The country doesn't need more than about 40 drum corps... but the more marching bands and winter programs, the better.

I have been personally involved with several HS bands whose budget would make a pauper blush, and can think of quite a few others off the top of my head. The idea that HS music education can be provided only for the affluent is incorrect. Mike

Where I teach, about 50% of our kids are on free or reduced lunch plans. Where I teach, our marching band will be performing at the ISSMA State Championships next weekend at Lucas Oil. Those local drum corps were much worse than small high school marching bands today. Sorry, wrong on nearly all counts.

so JJ If I'm not mistaken, that's only 25 miles or so south of Disney World... seems pretty centrally located to me... best of luck with it...

I would sincerely welcome that. I'll be in the states in December. Should be in various parts of the states (Seattle, SLC, Chigaco, NYC, Tampa for sure). Would love to catch up with DCP folks for a beer.

Can I hug you? :) Part of the reason I dig DCP, to be honest, is that it is unrefined, unfiltered, without specific motivation. That is part of what makes it fun. In the real world, good or bad, no one speaks to me like this... ever. It simply doesn't happen. Could be that I am using DCP as sort of a porthole to some semblance of reality. Keep it up, Chachi.

I will concede that you may perceive my recommendations as gibberish. As for simply donating money... I'm more interested to help build a better engine than to just simply fill up a tank. DCP continues to absolutely fascinate me. I don't trouble too much about the negativity, as I understand even the staunchest critic would behave radically different sitting across the table having a beer.

Yet they have the majority of the same audience, majority of the same partners, the majority of the same participants, majority of the same educators, majority of the same creators, majority of the same adjudicators... it is completely irresponsible that they are each doing their own thing, duplicating efforts... and each scraping by. Saving money is making money.

BOA is in trouble. USSBA is not. BOA is down the street from DCI and holds their finals and many other shows in exactly the same venues as DCI. Fry the fish already in the boat first... rather than planning recipes for the one you've yet to dig worms for. It ain't no book learnin'. I don't have much experience with HR. Please tell me more. You bring up points I have never considered. I'm sort of new to writing business plans... forgive me if it is not so clear to you. Maybe there is some business plan writing software you could recommend or maybe a seminar? It doesn't. I just have a soft spot for poor struggling multi-national law firms and want to do whatever I can to help them get a fair shake. The Mozilla Foundation started as a mission-based organization as a crazy clever scheme/quick fix work around for Google to support as a counterbalance to IE, structured in a way as not to expose Google to any similar anti-trust complaints or DOJ refusal of any pending/near-term acquisitions in the search revenue space until a key decision was reached by the courts, after which time Google would launch their own browser based on the Mozilla core... as their way to have their cake and another piece... and eating them both. Um... wait... nevermind. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Different animal. Not the right time. DCI and WGI is the first obvious pairing... BOA is just because of opportunity. They have people wearing different hats, performing different task depending on the season. Better to have specialists that are laser focused, with highly specific skills performing similar tasks year round. Again, merging in the other activities is only one aspect. The larger opportunity is revenue from sources that have NOTHING to do with drum corps, marching band, winterguard, scholastic or education programs. That's expecting too much. No. Board of parent. A practical and actionable plan. It is about being a better structure for SOME aspects of operations, not all. ONLY those that could benefit from this should be moved out. This is not an uncommon structure at all. A good example of this is the Mozilla Foundation, which is a 501c3 not-for-profit org, and their Mozilla Corporation subsidiary, which is a for profit corporation (they choose an S-corp as vehicle rather than LLC because of 2 things... 1 - much of their initial core assest came from a publicly traded company that passed to the foundation, but had existing support contracts to continue to be fulfilled. 2 - multiple key initial investors and contributors were also publicly traded.). These points are not relevant to DCI. Mozilla Corporation generates around $92M in revenue, accounting for a significant portion of the Mozilla Foundations revenue, which is around $105M. 98% of their revenue comes from search marketing deals. Mozilla is not trying to generate their revenues from commercial sales of their product, but focuses on broad distribution and generates revenue from passing the audience attention and information to partners. There is something to be learned here.

I completely agree. This is why my thoughts are now that DCI should not be the parent org... parent should be a different org with separate management team. Anyway, the fact that these orgs haven't merged long ago is baffling. Sure, there are a bit of conflicting interests here with initiatives of some DCI member orgs (USSBA comes to mind)... but I wonder if done right, how those couldn't be more complimentary than conflicting?

Have you ever had Pepsico as a client? Know what their priorities are? I've sat on the phone with the guys in Texas from Frito-Lay trying to hammer out a spin campaign after a brand of chips tweaked their oils and made people #### their pants. Do you know how many millions they were willing to spend to try to repair a brand that made people #### their pants? If drum corps got 2% of that they'd be gold.

DCI would then need to man up and look for more work. I see DCI as basically an organization set up to provide for the needs of 20 some odd mistresses. We're not talking about startup here... we're talking about diversification. There are already investments into resources that are severely underutilized. Finding cash isn't as hard as you think. Someone investing into something like this would not be doing it because of their expectation of immediate return. There are thousands of other places to put money where you'd do better. But... people put money into things for a variety of reasons. I did my time in a venture capital firm. I remember sitting one night trying to talk one investor out of investing in a company because he was completely taken by the woman that was the founder. Asking her out would have been much cheaper and require less paper work. He invested, lost his ### (she was hot, but not that bright), but still he was happy. Point being... people make investments in things for a variety of reasons. Sometimes an investment, in cases like this, can make more sense or can be more easily sold than a donation... since it is investing in an engine... not just buying gas.

I argue being mission-driven in the first place is what doesn't fit. When was the last time making more money and higher profits killed an activity? My point is to start a discussion, get people thinking and talking... to consider a broader range of possibilities. The individuals who this would actually be relevant to are experienced enough to get the concept and work out the details for themselves. No, I want them to make additional external revenues (having absolutely nothing to do with drum corps or marching band, etc.) with the resources, skills and capacity they already have, which is essentially massively underutilized for 3/4 of the year. Here's a story... I started my first company with less than $300, sort of my accident.. after touring a flour mill, I got this idea to turn old cloth flour bags they used into kitchen aprons. I bought a stack of them made some prototypes, and then went around to various local shops until I got any sort of small order. I put it into production with a group of local stay-at-home moms who sewed them at home and delivered them to the shop. The guys at the flour mills were sort of confused as to why I kept buying so many bags, but didn't think too much of it really. I took the money from the first few orders and went to a retail buyers convention in Las Vegas. I ended up landing a deal with one of the suppliers for Williams and Sonoma. With an order for 5,000, I found a production house and started real production... and within a matter of weeks put in an order with the flour mill for an additional 15,000 bags. I was young, stupid and pretty green about things... but that was where I learned my first lesson about intellectual property. I got a nice cease and desist letter from the lawyers of the flour mill (who figured things out when the wife of one of the owners saw them in a shop). I settled with them and agreed to sell them my contracts with the production house and the distribution agreements... and they made major investments in building up that aspect of their business, based on existing resources and capacity... something they had never even considered. Today this business that started with the aprons expanded into other kitchen items... and generates several times more in revenue than the flour mill. My point is that DCI has existing resources and capacity that they are severely underutilizing and probably have not considered aggressively applying to other areas that could be considerably more profitable than their current scope of activities. What you are missing in all of this is that DCI generates more revenue... which can be distributed in a number of ways. If there is less revenue, big dogs eat first... if there is more revenue, there's more to go around. I am completely scratching my head on that one.

1-8: Yes (or that would at least be the goal) 9-10: Not equally applicable to all corps. If it makes financial sense for some groups to travel further distances or more travel earlier, not doing this is leaving money on the table.

This is the fundamental weakness of current sources of revenue... on top of the fact that these revenues do not cover the full bill... which is the whole motivation for this discussion in the first place. Yep, troll. I have no idea what I am talking about. She/he? Um... you definitely know absolutely nothing about me (ex: I am of pretty unambiguous gender... and post under my real name). If you have Google and less than 3 minutes on your hands... you could easily verify anything you wanted. I'm not much of a mystery. Wait... don't you have me on ignore?

No corps should have any equity stake in DCI or any DCI subsidiary. DCI Congress should not be a subsidiary of DCI and should act more like an association. Again, bad idea on my part to suggest that any individual corps should be shareholders... that's what I get for drinking beer on a Sunday afternoon and trying to think.

Completely Agree.

I agree, I would love to see them get a new drill writer(not that Kevin Ford is doing them a disservice, but to get a change in drill design for them), and have a visual staff that will push them to the next level. Their playing has been fine, now all they need is a more refined visual and great things could happen. I also don't know much about the two guys, but as far as I can tell they seem like good choices. Oh, I also hope last year helped them learn that props might not always be the best route to choose (not to say that they never work, but certain aspects of props do not).

Here is the top 12 of the Top 12 (most years in finals): 1. Santa Clara 40 2. Cavaliers 38 2. Blue Devils 38 2. Phantom Regiment 38 5. Madison Scouts 36 6. Cadets 34 7. Bluecoats 24 8. Crossmen 22 9. Spirit 18 10. Blue Knights 17 11. Carolina Crown 16 11. Glassmen 16

Also throw in Dream Contest 1974 (Hurricanes out during a deluge) and Dream Contest 1979 (Bayonne performs without pants - who else?)

I say a G8 corps could also have issues with gas prices where they are

I prefer no voice at all. And no electronics but that's another tired subject.

Sounds like a lucrative pairing. Now Zildjian doesn't have to sell crappy drumsticks anymore.

That's a VERY bad thing.

I actually enjoy watching it with the sound turned off. I have never been a fan of the music they selected.

I'm going to guess Spirit of Atlanta.

I've never played one of those but I thought they sounded fine when Magic and Southwind used them a few years back. Exactly what were the issues with that snare?

To countless band directors, the names Ludwig and Musser are golden. It's all they have had for decades in their band rooms. If the company can capture a new generation, there's no telling how far it can go with this. See that Al Murray created something from scratch already and now has a chance to build upon product names that still have recognition, I agree it should be interesting. Mike (who has a Musser marimba and vibraphone at home, in addition to a Deagan xylophone and bells...and that's a name we haven't seen around for a long time)

Ludwig used to be the absolute best in the marching percussion game. I actually hope they make it happen!