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Building upon their fan-friendly production "78th and Madison," the Scouts are proud to announce their 2016 show "Ashley Madison."

Huge to you and one other person that I can see.....not to anyone else. Claiming that a piece of art MUST ALWAYS BE PERFORMED IN FAITHFUL SOLIDARITY TO THE CREATOR'S INTENT is the opposite of art to begin with. If that were held true to it's most pedantic effect, Bernstein would never have been able to do "West Side Story." You DO remember the source material for that, right?

I'm not going to needle anyone who thinks LPs are groovy or pit them against those who beam about CDs. Frankly, I'm still reeling over the magnetic attraction some have for tape.

LP surface noise is why I turned to CD and never looked back, except for stuff you can't find on CD. Do you have any old drum corps LPs, like early 70s DCI prelims? Ken Kobold knew what he was doing.

I didn't know it existed and now I'm sad

"Political Class"? "Public Consumers"? "Pacific Crest"? "Not to mention...", but you did. I just can't figure out to what you're referencing.

I caught the distinctions right away.....and didn't care. It's a PR piece. and really, to the majority of people following drum corps today, they don't care what attendance was anywhere else.

looking to buy a 2 valve soprano. If you've got one or know someone who has one let me know what it will take let it go.

OK I'm out of the loop on this. Went to dcacorps.org and no real info and some of what is there is confusing. Has anything official been released or is a page describing the problems DCI is having supposed to apply to DCA also. IOW..... don't really hold your breath. And lack of scheduled live shows is really disheartening...... especially no word on that one over Labor Day weekend.... Hope the only money I spend on corps this year didn't just get sent to a certain corps I might not get to see....

Hey folks, here's a quick and dirty review of my opinions from the action in Rockmart, Georgia tonight. I took several pictures but unfortunately the lighting played games with my phone's camera and most of them were bad. I've included a couple that were usable. Atlanta CV Alumni Ensemble (exhibition): Atlanta, GA - 9 brass, 1 conductor Brand new this year, the CV Alumni Ensemble consists of several early CV alumni who have kept up their playing. They presented the national anthem at tonight's show. There was talk floating around CV of starting an alumni corps and I believe this is the first step towards that goal. Southern Knights (exhibition): Birmingham, AL - 14 brass, 3 percussion The Southern Knights return for their 3rd and final show of 2015. Just like in Woodstock, the brass was electric and gave us a nice sizzling g bugle sound. New for this performance was a fantastic wailing contrabass solo featuring Joe Murphy, widely-acclaimed tuba soloist and brass caption head of the corps. These folks will surely be a hit in the Class A scene next season. Cincinnati Tradition (Class A): Cincinnati, OH - 14 brass, 12 battery, 6 pit, ~10 guard, 1 DM The drumline really stole the show here. They are very obviously the strongest section in the corps and they play a very prominent role in this show. I'm a horn guy so I don't understand the intricacies of marching percussion, but there were several moments (especially from the bass line) that made a very good impression on me. There were some strong moments in the show design with the guard split into two groups, each spinning a different flag in keeping with Tradition's 2-sided show theme. At the same time, the horn drill looked quite odd. The drill certainly wasn't doing the horns any favors, with the small line being spread across nearly 40 yards of field space at some points. It was a little puzzling to watch the corps be so separated during big ensemble moments. I feel as if the hornline could have achieved a higher level of excellence in ensemble playing if their drill would have kept them close together. The last moments of the show displayed a nice full ensemble moment where the horns finally gave us a big sound the rest of the show was missing. IMO, field coverage should not take precedence over setting musicians up for a good listening environment. The line gelled well in close quarters and I wish they had more moments like that. ALLIANCE (Class A): Atlanta, GA - 23 brass, 18 battery, 8 pit, ?? guard, 1 DM + 1 conductor I said in my last review that I really enjoyed the brass. I'll say it again because they play very well. There is some very, very excellent brass writing and execution going on in this drum corps and it's impressive what they do with their small hornline. Of course, being ALLIANCE the drumline is also excellent. Again, I know very little about drumming but they were the clear winner in Class A percussion tonight and I would expect to be a serious contender for the Class A percussion title at championships. This is an excellent line taught by some of the best in the area, and the corps' connection to the Atlanta Quest organization does them a lot of favors as well. During the course of the show, a tenor player lost his shako and I nervously watched at least 5 brass players kick it around before a guard member scooped it up at the end of a movement. Fortunately no one was injured. Brand new for this run, the horns and drums have a new sash that they flipped open towards the end of the production to expose a bright red color to contrast with the icy blue that dominates the visual scheme for most of the show (picture above). Overall, this is a well-programmed show that should be in the running for a Class A title come championship weekend. Tonight's score puts them several points behind the current Class A leader but all that could change when they go head to head. Carolina Gold (Open Class): Greensboro, NC - 28 brass, 21 battery, 11 pit, huge (~30) guard, 1 DM + 1 conductor Gold continued their upswing tonight with a noticeably improved show over DCA Woodstock. The corps came out sans plumes due to an impending thunderstorm. Additionally, the drums have received a new light blue wrap to better fit the wintry theme of the show. The comments I previously made about the hornline were rendered invalid tonight - the horns did a much improved job of projecting and playing confidently, although there were a few noticeable instances of phasing that occurred at several points in the show. Gold's drum major's passion is very evident in his conducting and he is a joy to watch. The guard is massive and dominates the field. As I noted in my last review, they are probably Gold's strong suit as they have been for several years. Very excellent guard work and design throughout this show. Atlanta CV (Open Class): Atlanta, GA - 48 brass, 18 battery, 15 pit, ~30 guard, 2 DM + 2 conductor Homer bias aside, CV truly looked and sounded like they were in a class of their own tonight. Many members and alumni believe this could be the best CV ever and I'd have to agree with them. This is the most well-designed and executed show I personally have ever seen from them. This show is just chock full of GE moments. A notable improvement and enhancement since the last show is new printed eye graphics on the shutter props - these rotate like vertical blinds throughout the show from closed eyes to open eyes, and sometimes at an angle to let the viewer see through the prop to the field behind. Although the timing of the changes is not solid yet, it's an impressive effect that builds anticipation for the impact moments that follow in the seconds after. The brass playing is really, really excellent in this show. If you saw CV live last year, you have an idea of the quality of the hornline that wore the green, red, and black in 2014 and took 4th place in brass during championships. This line is many, many steps ahead of that one. There are loads of high-energy impact moments and section features, good solo work, and very clever horn writing. The whole show is a musical treat and there's lots of stuff to recognize from drum corps in years past. Further carrying the "eyeconic" throwback theme, some guard members don shakos during a feature moment and do a short routine similar to what the guards of the "good old days" would have done. This show score puts CV in 5th place in Open Class. The 4-7 race is very close right now and it's anyone's game, but I believe this show has the potential to give CV their first ever 5th (or even 4th) place finals finish. The Rocketeers (Exhibition): Huntsville, AL - 10 brass, 1 percussion, 1 conductor Tonight's show was a standstill version of their Soundsport program I got to see at DCI Atlanta. It's a fun show with a lot of easily recognizable music and some playful work with props throughout. They play well and present a very crowd-friendly and entertaining show. I hope they can attract enough members to become a full-fledged competing corps in the near future. DCA South can definitely use some more friendly faces. Wouldn't it be great to have a southern division with 6 competing corps next summer?

currently under construction, like most of 95 was when I was driving from Baltimore to NJ yesterday... Standbye while we here at unBiased reviews powow on how to better serve you. (See also, the future wife gave me lots of crap to do today, so I'll have you something later today)

Having spoken to a friend/fraternity brother who has been on BD staff for a few years now, I can contribute this to the conversation. When designing the show, the BD staff loves to leave things open for interpretation. Yes, they do have a set storyline that they emphasize, but their main point in designing the show is to make the viewer want more. To see more, to hear more, to understand more. Thus their complicated themes and their wide field placement while doing many different visuals at a time. They want people to feel inclined to watch their performance again, whether it be at a future show or on video. It's similar to how some of the best movies have to be watched multiple times in order to catch everything. The main theme of the show is presented for the audience to enjoy and the judges to... well, judge. However, they add so many layers to it as a kind of reward for repeated viewings. There is a huge amount of artistic development that goes into the shows, and part of it is to make you want more. After all, the shows you remember the most are the ones you view most often. That's how BD, Crown, Cadets, Bluecoats, Madison, Cavaliers, Phantom, etc. have all remained near the top for all of these years. One part of watching/listening to a show from the past is enjoying the music or visuals; another equally important part is watching/listening for something you didn't quite catch before that adds to the excitement. Just my two cents.

Who are you even talking to? This is like the third or fourth time at least you have tried to bring the petition back into the conversation. Did someone here start it? Did a bunch of people here say they supported it? Or are you just desperate to pick a fight here because you got kicked off of Facebook or something?

I was watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown show on CNN the other night and the episode was featuring New Jersey. At one point, they interviewed a lady that funds and manages a youth drum line and dance group in a rough part of town and it made me wonder, what happened to the Spirit of Newark/New Jersey corps that existed not so long ago. I then started thinking of all the Div II/III corps I once remember seeing scores for that I no longer see. Curious, does anyone know when the following corps folded and if any of these organizations still exist with hopes of returning to the field? Spirit of Newark/New Jersey Marion Glory Cadets Lehigh Valley Knights Citations Revolution Dutch Boy Patriots East Coast Jazz Yamato Americanos Scenic City Esperanza Capital Regiment Kiwanis Kavaliers Fever Lake Erie Regiment Most of these existed in the early 2000s, when I first started following DCI. Some of these placed high and some made it to World Class...others not so much. Feel free to update on other corps too!

What is it about the concept of "Finals" that people don't understand or accept anymore? I guess it can all be blamed on Duane Thomas, Running Back for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970's. When interviewed by CBS "reporter" Tom Brookshier at the time of the upcoming Super Bowl (and Brookshier was, himself, a former player in the NFL. RB or DB for the Eagles, I believe...), and when asked "How does it feel to go into the ultimate game?", Thomas responded "If this is going to be the ultimate game....then why are they going to play it again next year?" If nothing else, I think that Thomas already foresaw the hypocrisy with which we, as an "advanced" society, perceived the apparent attainment of ultimate glory which we, as that society, were already attaching to individual accomplishments. In the end, the champion of an individual year is THE champion of that individual year. It doesn't mean that they are the "best of all time"...not does it confer upon them the status of "the best that shall ever be." One year....that year alone...period. And in the case of DCI. that year...and for that day.

While Show Design is everything today, bottom line, if you have to have your weakest link, make it Drums or Bugles... don't..... ever...... make...... it....... Color Guard.

Treat your members with respect. Have fun on tour. Explore interesting show designs and music. Hire really cool staff members whom the corps loves. Then after word gets around that it's a really drum corps to be in. Never mind... just start a petition and whine all off season like you always do.

Agree....certainly my era, 70-72, was just like that. We knew we had it tough with our themed shows in 71 and esp 72, but we just did everything we could to be our best.

When it comes to design, talent, management, facilities, and quality of tour, Bluecoats can compete with anyone. As for the show, their design team, instructional team, and talented members can compete with the Big Boys more consistently these days (top 5 four times in the last six years, top 3 two years running).

How about they just sit down after finals and before the awards, ring you up and ask you who you think should win, and adjust the system to yield the results you want? Yeah, that would work... :silly: :silly:

The guard, and the staging of the guard (through the first half of the show) weighed on the overall success of the show. For me, the biggest thing that negatively affected things was the move to the black uniforms. Interesting concept, but the creme colored pants presented a very visual and flashy look, when used in context with the drill style of Jeff Sacktig. I believe they lost a lot of the visual "pop" once they changed over. It became shadows and blending, instead of contrast and light. I don't fault the thought, to help bring out the neon colors, but it just didn't work like I think they planned. The kids really performed the heck out of the show, as always. Kudos to them...just a very competitive season.

Say what? No compression on LPs? The best LPs have far more dynamic range compression going on than the best CDs. Not even close. Now analog tape, that's different. But LPs, no, they're highly compressed if the source material had a wide dynamic range. Please note, people producing CDs and other digital tracks new these days usually employ loudness war techniques and jam it all up high, but that's not a problem with digital or CDs; that's a problem with poor sound recording and mixing technique. If you can listen to a great LP of say Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem or any other whisper-to-roar classical recording and not hear a ton of compression going on, then welcome to the tin ear brigade! Personally I don't hear any more warmth in a good LP than a good CD, but that's personal taste. I can't get past the ticks, pops, scratches, and rumble of LPs. If you'd like to buy my remaining LPs and have the pick-up truck to haul 'em outta here, because they're too expensive to ship these days, you can have 'em. I'm done.

Just give us the.Cliff Notes....please.

Look who's talking, Rog! Looks for an eventful prelim & finals.. See you in a couple of weeks, dude! Pat

Appreciate your excellent work, Spandy! Plenty of high hopes going into the next 2 weeks it would seem.

Waited up as long as I could last night, but only now did I find this on the DCA Facebook page: 75.5 Skyliners 79.25 Bushwackers 79.85 Hurricanes 81.95 Sunrisers 86.4 White Sabers 86.75 Fusion Core 88.9 Cadets2 91.05 Caballeros 91.7 Buccaneers

Tressona

Must have been Ashley Madison.

on any given Saturday....

I sent you a PM the other day

Yes and no, depending on how you define "compression." LPs sound phat precisely because dynamic range compression is employed. An LP can't possibly reproduce the full dynamic range of a typical music performance by a large group, so the dynamic range is compressed to fit more easily on the LP format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression Digital compression is a completely different animal. It compresses not the dynamic range of a digital audio file but the size of the file. It's how the mp3 format came about, to send audio files over the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression

I believe you're thinking of the William Lucas Rhythm Nation, that was active through the 1999 season.

When you are a marching member you always think you are getting dumped on unless you win. Cadets won brass and nearly won percussion while finish 4th with a relatively weak guard which bled over to the visual side of GE. In a highly competitive year at the top, finishing 4th and almost taking two captions is nothing to be ashamed at. Especially when the sheets are written to weight the guard heavily in GE, visual analysis, and performance...that relative weakness hit captions that were worth 50% of the score (probably more since all the GE judges are realistically looking at the total show now).

Used to work with Mike Seabrook, and his Mom and Dad. All good people. He told me the Patriots were very careful with their money and decided that they were better off running a well-funded Div II corps that treated the kids right and well rather than running a crappy Div I unit on a shoestring and giving the kids far less of a quality experience. The Patriots were a real quality unit did everything very well. Also saw Kiwanis in the early 90's. Decent. The big problem with the Canadian teams is the lack of Instrumental music programs in Canadian Schools. It gradually became to be a disadvantage they just couldn't fight anymore as time went on. As for Spirit of Newark- there were a few teams along with them in the old Garden State Circuit that are no longer around. Those corps were mostly Boys and Girls Club corps that were there to give these kinds something positive in their lives. Quest, Phoenix, The Kips Bay Knight Club, Southern Illusion, One out of Mount Vernon, NY whose name escapes me... They made it into the mid 90's, then, well... how to put this: Certain circles drew most of the member corps into the idea that they should be doing the DCI tour, that they were good enough, etc. etc. and they bought into this belief around 1996-7. By 1998, they'd killed themselves IIRC and the circuit was dead. Most of these corps should have known better and not gotten seduced by the DCI enticements, but they were. They were youth organizations designed to give city kids a way out of the crap for the Summer and to teach musical fundamentals and give these kinds confidence in themselves, not to be some high level DCI affiliate going toe to toe with SCV Cadets and BDB. Just my tuppence. What's sad to me is that those now dead GSC corps were providing a real service for kids who needed it badly, and had they just said "Thanks, but we're going to stay local here within our own teeny circuit and do what we do to help our kids grow as young adults," maybe they'd still be providing that service to them. Surf used to come to GSC Championships mainly to show the flag, be an attendance draw, and to help the other Jersey Corps out. IIRC, Quest and Spirit of Newark fought on for awhile here and there, but the only remnants are Surf and the Raiders in Open.

The only ones who treat Clara badly are those who can't handle a 10 year old with a ring.

Whole lotta bravado here in your conviction. I wonder how you know with such certainty. Or do you just have strong opinions? I'm not as confident as you that you're correct.

The article was quite clear on that, as I noted above. "Following an incredible record-setting national tour, Drum Corps International (DCI) ended the season with the highest paid attendance in Indianapolis at the World Championship Finals." It also went on to describe attendance records all over the country. I'm not sure what else is being asked for in this thread.

Marketer here. My opinion, that's just the free market. If SCV wants the talent, it's up to them to get it. And if they want help, well, I freelance. That said, I believe for the most part that staffs push corps into the gold slightly more so than members. Which, arguably, is part of marketing, so it's a loop.

The word "Peak". Under the current system, the best corps peaks on Saturday night. That's what makes it better. Now, if you changed finals week so that no scores are announced until Saturday night, and they represent all three judged performances, with the same judges...

That was indeed the intention.

Let it Be Me is the classic but We Are the Reason from 82 and 83 was a powerful closer as well......so many amazing classics they could resurrect.

This year has especially highlighted that the oft-quoted Cesario comment about judges encouraging corps to develop their own identity is very alive and well. For Exhibit A, see Scouts, Madison. There's no reason Spirit can't do the same. Mike

The notion that a show theme MUST rigidly hold to the original theme or meaning of the source music is an opinion, not a fact.

Ok -- THIS I can buy.

I don't need a show theme. Just give me 3 or 4 great songs. You old timers remember opener, drum solo, concert, production & closer?

Tonight is the 2015 Tournament of Drums in Cedar Rapids, IA, and open class show including SCVC, RIver City Rhythm, Les Stentors, Colt Cadets But tonight is also the culmination of 18 months of work in putting together the Emerald Knights/Nite Express Alumni Corps. Over the weekend we have a 50th Anniversary reunion with people from across the US and even from the UK. We had an amazing weekend, catching up with old friends/family...telling stories and rehearsing for the pre-show performance. What an amazing weekend, i'll never forget it.

I couldn't care less if a show has a theme as long as it is entertaining and performed well.

For my taste, it doesn't have to have a deep storyline. Half of the "deep" shows out there don't make sense to me any way unless I've read something about it. I want to be entertained with great music, awesome drill, and great color guard work. I don't care if it comes with a deep message or not.

The Oregon Crusaders is in need of CDL and Non-CDL drivers for all or part of our summer tour beginning July 1st. If interested please email tom@oregoncrusaders.org.