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Normy, I'm really not sure what you're trying to say in your first sentence. The sketches were from 2006 and have nothing to do with the new uniform we'll unveil this summer. As to your "well placed source," saying I "dissed the traditional Blue Stars pith helmet...," I have this to say: I'm on the record in multiple places as stating we went away from the helmet in 2008 because it didn't work for us from a visual standpoint. I have said it many times in print, via podcasts, and in meetings with alumni, supporters, etc... There is no secret or scandal there. Those that disagree with me have told me so and we've all moved on to more important issues. I can tell you the new uniform will have a shako, not a helmet. Thanks for your support. Brad Furlano Executive Director Blue Stars Drum & Bugle Corps

For Immediate Release Greensboro, NC Carolina Gold Drum & Bugle Corps Declares DCA Open Class Status. After winning the DCA World Championship in Class A in 2012, the Carolina Gold Drum & Bugle Corps of Greensboro, North Carolina formally announces that it will return to DCA OPEN CLASS competition in 2013. Carolina Gold will present its 2013 field show entitled "Mission: Accepted", a new take on the traditional secret agent theme featuring original compositions written by Rob Stein, Sean Combes, and Justin Mabry. Drill design by Charles Patton and Color Guard design by Drew Zellmer. Visual Caption Head, Jordan Webb, along with Color Guard Caption Heads, Tracy Smith and Drew Zellmer return to the corps for 2013. New staff additions for the upcoming season include Tarvick Linder as Brass Caption Head and Tracy Wiggins as Percussion Caption Head. The Corps last performed in DCA open class competition in 2006, its second consecutive year as a DCA Open Class Finalist. 2013 marks the tenth anniversary of Carolina Gold's first appearance in DCA Open Class. Carolina Gold has recently competed in DCA Class A from 2008 to 2012, appearing in DCA Championship Finals competition four of the last five years. The Carolina Gold Drum & Bugle Corps will begin their competitive season at the DCA sanctioned "Sound of the South" competition hosted by the Shenandoah Sound Drum and Bugle Corps in Nokesville, VA on July 6th.

SoCal Dream is pleased to announce that we have reached our fund-raising goal for our 2013 Uniform Pledge Drive! We are deeply thankful for the amazing help and strength the Community has showed during our fund-raising efforts. Thanks to everyone who has participated to make this happen. THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! http://socaldream.org/successfulpledgedrive/ Still looking for a place to March? Didn’t make the cut or pass the audition? And still want to march? Then SoCal Dream has a Place for you! We have a few positions to fill in Battery, Front Ensemble, Trumpet / Soprano, and Baritone/ Euphonium. Low Membership Fee and you will be competing in 8 Show California. Weekend Only Rehearsal! If you're interested or have any questions contact membership@socaldream.org for more information.

One might think that a successful drill writer would give a corps drill that matches their show concept much closer than the Blue Stars were given last year. For a nautical show it sure did have a lot of geometric forms and rotating boxes! You are correct there is only one Myron Rosander and I love what he did with SCV, especially 1999, but his drill for the Blue Stars last year was not good.

I was kind of hoping that hiring me as Staff Writer was the smartest thing they've ever done, so now I'm kind of crushed.

I enjoy posts like this because it shows how many of us come from different walks of life but come together to enjoy a common bond called Drum Corps. My first introduction to Drum Corps (no DCI back then - 1966) is a bit different. I was actually cutting school one day when I got caught crossing the street by the music teacher. He yelled at me to get back to the school side of the street and proceeded to rip into me. Told me to be back at the school that evening for what I thought was detention. I arrived at the school that evening and walked into the Band Room when I noticed all the chairs were rearranged into a semi circle. Seeing that I thought the teacher was going to have me sweep the floors. Just then some kids entering the band room with these cases at their side. I asked if they were there for detention and just at that time the music teacher entered the room and pointed at me to follow him. I did as he said and we went over to this row of closets where he started digging around. I assumed he was going to pull out a mop or a broom but instead handed me this brass baritone bugle. Told me to go over with the rest of the kids and watch what they were doing. That evening I heard a sound like no other I'd ever heard before, not with band or orchestra. There were only 18 horns there but they blew me away with the sound they were making that night. Later that evening when I was leaving with this new case at my side I got to the exit and then looked back into the band room and standing there with this "smirk" smile on this face was the music teacher - "welcome to drum corps kid!". That music teacher was Gail Royer.

Which was there first, marching band or drum corps? Why didn't drum corps call itself marching band from the get-go? Drum corps may be newer than marching band as an idiom, but it's not new. Isn't nearly 100 years of existence enough to establish a brand? Most people would "know" drum corps if they were only exposed to it. Why don't we place our energy on exposing it to more people instead of trying to change drum corps into what we think people would recognize. Is our marketing focused on people who are familiar with marching arts, or on those people who have never seen marching music and truly wouldn't know the difference between a clarinet and a baritone? If it's the former, they'll get the difference after one viewing. If its the latter who don't care anyway, why are we wasting time, energy, and money trying to teach them a distinction without a difference? There are a whole bunch of people who already get what tooting on a football field means. Let's get to them and see how the activity does before we start rebranding in order to attract people who don't care about the activity, or the distinction of drum corps, in the first place.

Not to throw a monkey-wrench into Class A, but Carolina Gold is expecting to perform in OPEN CLASS in 2013. Please see our recent press release posted today. Our departure may certainly make finals competition in Class A very, very interesting. We wish all of our friends in Class A best of luck!!

No, not " some ". As a matter of fact., not a single solitary poster has said this on this thread, Stu. I challenge you ( or anyone else for that matter ) to repost from this thread where a single poster has said this. One of the problems it appears we have here on DCP is that some posters comment on things that were never said, nor even implied. Such sensible dialogue then becomes impossible. If we can't read and comprehend properly what is being stated then communication quickly devolves into attempts to defend things that in fact were never uttered at all. It would be like me stating that you posted here that doing Band Camp is " the greatest thing to do in the summer; far better than doing DCI Drum Corps " and telling you to defend that... something you never stated at all on here, Stu. Would you like to be put in a position to have to defend something that you never said at all ?( nor anyone else has said on here either ? )

Agreed. People should stop treating their own little circle as representative of the world, or in this instance, drum corps fans.

NOTHING beats this Blue Stars look....forever! :thumbup:/>/>

The Troopers Color Guard is still seeking color guard auditionees for the 2013 season!! Auditions are taking place on April 26th-28th in Wyoming and on May 4th-5th in Indiana. Register online at www.troopersdrumcorps.org! Please post any questions or email troopersguard2013@gmail.com. Come be a part of a summer to remember at the Troopers!

I can easily imagine someone from the wider public having a different take on the imagery in that logo...

They will be playing he Sebeski arrangement. Was listening to it today on the way home from vacation.

Please see the bold; where did I write 'on this thread'? I did not write any such thing. I did write, some here on 'DCP'; and I can, if I had time to research, show where many posters on other threads have claimed that a summer with a corps provides better quality, education, etc... than summer band camps. BUT!!!!! That was not the point of my posting at all; you never addressed the actual post which dealt with the value of teaching a youth that sacrifices and choices must sometimes be made; and that they need to learn to make hard choices because most times in the real world compromising to accommodate what they want, when they want, to do everything they want will not happen.

You said EXACTLY that...."whether its an overlap or not". No flip flop at all. I have never said a member should be in two corps at the same time. A corps member who fulfills their contract at one should be free to audition for another...but I never intimated that they should be in both at the same time as you want to allow...and in fact I agreed that there should be cutoff points to such movement. Yes, the band director has the right to set the rules for his her program...if band camp is mandatory, so be it. It doesn't deny the student the right to march in a corps...they are free not to do the marching band if the band has an attendance requirement and the student wants to choose the corps...or another activity if there were attendance conflicts that were not acceptable to the director.

Agreed, hope Fairbanks works out well, I always thought his stuff at Bluecoats was underrated.

I'm fine with the shako instead of the helmet... I understand the visual concerns, and I have no problem with that at all. But I hope the corps returns to its "blue as the main color" motif.

It is time for the alumni corps to make its debut now.

Drum corps fans will never be the general public, which is why we need to be more welcoming to the marching band label. I think DCI actually did a great job with the "Marching Music's Major League" tagline. It connotes marching band without being specific. We need to embrace marching band as our brother (sister?) and seek our solutions in what we have in common. THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN COMMON INSTRUMENTATION. It should mean leveraging our not-insignificant community in the interest of all. In other words: Can't we all just get along? HH

I always loved Spartan Stadium in San Jose, for Pacific Procession: Spartan Stadium images The acoustics in there were amazing. -K

This will probably only cause confusion; but marching band is actually an offshoot of drum corps. Drum corps have existed for centuries upon centuries - most specifically as military signal corps. The intricate and complex drill was both an evasive maneuver to avoid the enemy from targeting a communication tool, as well as some visual "smack talk." That said, viewing drum and bugle corps as we understand them today, and you are closer.

A friend of a friend's cousin's sister in law's divorced brother works at ESPN and told me that they already have a spelling bee scheduled in that slot.

Ok. So drum corps is marching band, or it's something else? You might want to say "don't pigeonhole", but that's not much of a positioning statement. If American football wanted to say "hey, don't say we're like soccer or rugby or not like rugby or soccer, because we don't want to be pigeonholed", that wouldn't do much to define them as being something. New activities that are based on old activities have to be able to define themselves if they want a rationale for existence in the eye of the public. Marching band is the base activity that the majority of people understand. Now, do we want to try and define how drum corps is different than band, or are we ok with letting them hear "drum corps. it's basically marching band", think of the sloppy, soggy marching band at their local high school (since BOA bands aside, most marching band programs DON'T take it that seriously) and think "oh, you're into that, huh? Ok..." and call it a day? Until we can define fairly precisely what drum corps (or whatever it ends up being called) is for ourselves, it's going to remain difficult to define it to strangers, whether they be potential new fans, new participants, or new sponsors.

As long as they had enough camera crews for coverage of staff free time...

There may be a connection. The Maid of Orleans was burned at the stake. This one has personality to burn.

I'll take a stab..... IW 1-Pride 2-Onyx 3-Blessed Sacrament SW 1-Carmel 2-Arcadia 3-Flanagan IO 1-Field of View 2-Interplay 3-University of Alabama Alta Marea SO 1-Claudia Taylor Johnson 2-Mechanicsburg 3-Cypress Bay IA 1-Artistry in Blue 2-Zydeco A 3-Salem Blue SA 1-Bellbrook 2-Minooka Community 3-Jamestown

+1 on Whitewater. Honorable mention: Horlick Field, Racine. >aka "Drums along the Foundries." In the middle of an industrial area; you could usually hear the forging presses banging away in the plant across the street, immediately behind the backfield stands. >No track, so stands were close to the sidelines. Great audience interaction. >Surrounded by concrete walls topped with barbed wire. >Beer at the concession stand. >Corps waiting to perform were usually lined up right in front of said concession stand. (Good luck breaking ranks on the Troopers on your way to get another beer.) >Knowledgeable and responsive drum corps crowds. >Some historic moments: Racine Scouts upset win in '67, a rare Kilties defeat in '69, Santa Clara's coming out in '70. Even a visit by Hawthorne Caballeros in '75, I think.

I'm touched. Thank you. But I'm willing to take a back seat the the corps performances.

Mr. Boo, every year when I receive my finals blu-ray the highlight for me is reading your liner notes.

Colts Documentary, No Boundaries, Is In The Final Stages Of Production March 25, 2013 Colts Staff Ever want to be a film producer? The full length documentary on the Colts that was filmed last summer is in the final stages of production, but we need backers to finish it by summer. Several hundred hours of great audio and video are "in the can", all recorded as it happened last summer on tour by a professional video team who traveled with us all summer. Now, the detail work begins to funnel it all down into a feature length film that will tell the story of the Colts and drum corps. A professional videographer and sound engineer traveled with us for the entire summer last year, capturing hundreds of hours of footage from the inside. See the tour unfold and enjoy interviews with members, staff, judges, alums, and leaders of the drum corps activity. Take a private look inside at the determination, hard work, and intensity it takes to field a world-class drum corps. "No Boundaries," a professional full-length documentary, is in the final stages of production just in time for our 50th Anniversary. A generous private donor got the project started, and with your help we can raise the remaining $10,000 for final production. A sneak peek trailer from the film, and information on how you can donate, is on line. Click the link and enjoy a glimpse of what it can be: Trailer of the Colts "No Boundaries" Click HERE Your contribution can be made through kickstarter, or directly to the Colts. Your donation is tax-deductible, and goes directly and securely to the Colts Youth Organization, earmarked for the film project.

I'd be curious if DCI or anyone else has ever done any polling to see what, if anything, the public thinks when they hear "drum corps.". If they did, and we all found out that the general public viewed us as something similar to "Civil War re-enactors", would that be a reason to consider a major rebranding of the activity? The faux-military vibe, while not nearly as common as it was 30 or 40 years ago, seems a little out of step these days (no pun), especially when some of these same faux-mlitary units show up with color guards who clearly didn't get the 'military" memo. Garfield, re: your tennis/badminton/ping pong, question, the better analogy might be racquetball vs squash. To the untrained eye, there are more similarities in the two sports than there are differences, being played in very similar environments, using implements that are similar, and with the basic elements of the two games being pretty closely aligned. Squash is the older of the two games - when racquetball first caught on in the 70s and 80s, I always figured it was because no one my age wanted to be caught dead playing squash. So which is drum corps in that analogy - the old school traditional game, or the less-restrictive modernized game?

call me when it leaves Indy. responses here are exactly why DCI drops the ball by not showing finals on the Fan Network for an extra fee

There is a sub topic here in which sort of needs to be addressed. When did it become ok to teach students that they can do everything they want, when they want, irrespective of conflicting activities? Part of teaching youth to become responsible adults, whether done by a parent or a teacher, is supposed to be instructing them that sometimes one thing has to be sacrificed to do the other. There is very little compromise once we reach adulthood; and youth need to be taught this at some point 'prior' to them getting blindsided as an adult. Sure, we can debate all day on whether or not being in drum corps enhances or detracts from being in marching band; however that is not the issue. When a band director 'requires' everyone who wants to be in band to attend summer rehearsals that is the prerogative of the director (who, by the way, is not only thinking about winning a fall contest but also attempting to teach students a sense of duty and responsibility). Then along comes a student who desires to not only be in the marching band but also be in a summer touring drum corps which creates a conflict with summer band attendance 'requirements'. Some here on DCP say that DCI is the greatest thing to do in the summer; far better than summer band camps and the mean ole band director should just create a special compromise for the drum corps kid because that kid is getting way more valuable experience in the drum corps. However, I say there is actually greater educational value, as it applies to adult life preparedness, in having that youth choose only one of the two conflicting activities.

First experience not-live was my band director putting on '05 finals (ESPN) on the TV in the band room. Only corps I remember (or saw? not sure) was Cadets '05. Blew my 15 year old mind. Especially the baritone solo. The only thing I remember thinking was "how do they hold those horns up for so long?" After that, I finally auditioned and made Troopers (long story) and did not see a show until after I had performed in one. 2008 Boston was my first live experience, and it's a special show to me to this day. Oh- and I forgot. Fast forward two years. Who is my new baritone tech but the the same baritone soloist in 2005 Cadets?

No, they don't. Whatever attendance requirement a high school (or college) director places on his students, it's still the student's choice to participate or not. I've known plenty of corps members who went to schools where that was the policy, and they told the director to get stuffed. Frankly, I have zero respect for directors that try and stop their students in participating in drum corps because they might miss band activities in the summer. I think it does the band program as a whole a major disservice.

The Troopers Color Guard is still seeking color guard auditionees for the 2013 season!! Auditions are taking place on April 26th-28th in Wyoming and on May 4th-5th in Indiana. Register online at www.troopersdrumcorps.org! Please post any questions or email troopersguard2013@gmail.com. Come be a part of a summer to remember at the Troopers!

I've been to or marched in every DCI finals since 1975. My how things have changed! I still don't like DCI in Lowcost Oily Stadium.

Blue stars posted today that they really are getting new uniforms.

Where? I've spent a lot of time watching shows, and I can not recall many examples if any of BD doing company fronts. Not saying you're wrong, just looking for examples. As usual, this whole argument breaks down into different strokes for different folks. If people like what BD is putting down, cool. If not, there are 20 or so other corps out there putting out shows to enjoy. Everyone gets different opinions about what works and what doesn't in these summer marching band shows. Like what you like, don't like what you don't, but let other people have their own opinions as well.

...so close to being funny. E for effort though.

I don't understand why crowd excitement should be the conclusive measure of whether a corps is good or not. The volume and type of chord a show ends with is much more indicative of how a crowd will react than whether what they did was "good" or not. I think there is much more to drum corps then ending a show with a company front, marching in half time, and playing at a triple-forte. Will that get a big crowd reaction? Sure ... but we can be more creative than that, can't we?

I'm bothered by the use of "many" too. It is not provable at all. And even if it was, it is used here as a tool to try to convince people to reject what they are doing and to suggest what they are doing is bad for Drum Crops ... or is somehow inauthentic or not worthy or praise. It is being used to try to stifle innovation and variety. Not everything has to fit your own subjective definition of "good". It's a classic use of the argumentum ad populum fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum The fact that "many" believe something does not make it true.

I think it would be a travesty if we lost the unique brilliance of the Blue Devils. I understand that some hate them, some don't like them, and that they aren't "crowd pleasers". I would have to say that I dislike more fo their shows than I like (though I loved their 2012 show). But ... what is with people wanting to force everyone into a little square box? I think what they are doing is edgy and brilliant. Losing innovation in drum corps would lead to the death of DCI quicker than anything the Blue Devils are doing. Don't like it? Then listen to someone else until you do like it. The Blue Devils are GOOD for drum corps. Variety is GOOD for drum corps. If their style isn't selling, it will change ... eventually. But you don't grow by rejecting innovation. So dislike them all you want, but don't try to force your tastes on everyone else.

For me, I like that the BD are not afraid to do different things and not repeat the same thing over and over. As for success...the years you note above they have 3 firsts and 1 second...so I would say they have had a lot of success with these shows too, as much as ever.

I totally dig what they do and continue to do.

For me I must say since Crowns "The Grass is always Greener" they have created some great pre-shows since then. Before that I didn't notice it that much. Also Phantom Regiment "Spartacus" had a great Pre-show. It was more acting and setting up the theme of the show thou but was good.

Agree with everything about Tarpon. They definitely stepped it up this year and would probably be in 4th if they went to champs. I notice the overkill with narration in the marching shows as well.

Nope: Your problem is that even in this list you did not address the one axiom, the single focus, in which any director of any business has to, must follow to succeed, survive, and stay alive: The 'primary' goal of any business is to.... what?