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Each generation must get on the same old merry-go-round, only disguised in a fresh coat of paint. American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist, Katherine Anne Porter, had the best-selling novel of 1962. It pertains here: "Ship of Fools." And I am not talking about staff changes. I expect the top six corps, stable or with "lifts and tucks," to amaze. Nothing less than jaw-dropping (it is amazing when they do not, and more often than anyone wants to admit, they do not) will be acceptable. I hope for shows to challenge the top six who bewilder. From the Blue Knights and Stars, from the revival corps Cadets and Phantom. I look forward to innovations that delight from Mandarins and Crossmen. What I am excited about: the rest of the field that amazed this season in ways that we often don't witness from non-finalists and at least the top of the Open Class. Staff changes here matter the most. Annual fresh coats of paint help no corps, but that is often the route taken -- by choice, by circumstance -- among 13-25th place units. It's the rite of passage here. But think of it: last year's off-season musical chairs yielded Pacific Crest's triangulated triumph, the Trooper's gorgeous musical relaunch, Jersey Surf's water wonderland, and the Spartans' goosebump/smile inducing championship. Among others. So don't *yawn*, please, when I am excited about a recent James Logan High School alum taking over as guard caption head; nor *dismiss* a percussion section that will be lead by an up-and-coming indoor group's designers and educators. This roster; found, recruited, hired, and given space to grow will shape the activity's future. (Bless your hearts when long-time, top six staff begin to retire. It's coming, likely sooner than you can imagine.) Oh, and the single thing I am most excited about: the prospect of a 2020 summer season as scintillating, as sizzling, as this one! Amaze us: one and all.

Don’t laugh but I’ve always wanted a Motown show.

Yeah, I would hate for them to sweep all captions and score a 99+. That sucked!

A subject which I can speak on with a little authority. Generally speaking, issues MCL had in staying afloat included money, recruiting (warm bodies aren't enough; bodies committed to the corps and willing/able to meet their obligations were needed), lack of a cohesive long-term vision among the leadership and several broken backs among those who carried the corps for many years. Eventually other things in life become more enjoyable and important. One other point. The way DCA was set up back in the day, if you didn't come to Championships, you essentially had no voice in the organization. And when MCL briefly got a voice it proved too threatening for some and the rules were changed.

Sorry but I don't have staff for that task.

IMO it would be a tough fit. Weekdays are never a good deal for all-age corps. Saturday AM is SoundSport. And the Sunday the day after the DCI title show... who will stick around to watch DCA? Sorry to sound so cynical here. The Labor Day weekend thing will continue to be an issue, especially for any corps outside the "traditional" Northeast. But there's no easy answer as to when a DCA title show could be held. Unless DCA, and its corps, are entirely comfortable with the circuit being comprised only of corps from that traditional region... then, perhaps, Labor Day weekend will remain in play. That is entirely up to them, I would suppose. I will say... the midwestern, southern, and western corps certainly added a nice spark (and several championships for the Minnesota corps) to the title-show weekend in years past, IMO of course. Whatever. I have no dog in any drum corps fight anymore... other than I wish all my friends involved with DCA well. They're great folks.

Blue Devils won by less than a tenth of a point. Both corps performed their azzes off. It was a coin flip win. Add or subtract a tenth in any sub-caption and we are singing a different song. I saw a lot of great drum corp that night and a few Championship level shows. The numbers 0.087 favored BD.

corps will be rewarded for whatever is designed and performed well, regardless of who composed it. People have been saying original music is the wave of the future since Robert W Smith and Suncoast, and yet here we are 34 years later

I know hating on BD is a surefire way to get likes on this forum, but dang dude........

One potential issue with that...the members of DCA corps these days are far younger than in the past. A good percentage are most likely unavailable due to scholastic commitments, be they HS or college, much as with DCI corps.

The Four Tops are my favorite from the era. Levi Stubbs was the MAN!!! Circa 1983... fairly late in their recording career... they did a beautiful ballad called "I Believe in You and Me." Levi absolutely sings the bejesus out of it:

I’m happy to switch from “Hey Jude” to Aretha! Can you imagine opening tour in Detroit with a Motown show?

I love audience participation!

Crank that victrola!

I first listened to 78 RPM records.

I don’t want a B1G band to be like a high school marching band. There. I said it.

Boston and Cavies. Pretty easily, truth be told. Cavies haven't had a great show since 2010, and some of them have been quite bad (looking at you, 2012, 2015, and 2017). And Boston's best output over that timeframe (2018) doesn't come up to the standards of the other two.

the one out of ideas and desperate to win fans over

In twelve years, the number of corps at DCA Championships doubled from 13 (1993) to 26 (2005). Notably, the all-age activity in the Northeast hardly grew at all, going from 11 corps in 1993 to 12 in 2005. The growth was nearly all from other regions, who went from 2 to 14 in that same time period. So what happened? Jim, you are asking the wrong question. You should ask what did not happen. DCA is, and always has been, a NE circuit. When the all-age activity grew organically in the run-up to 2005, these corps from other areas came to DCA hoping that could change, and DCA could become something bigger. Turns out they could/would not. Anyone could see that the travel-to-NE-every-year model would kill precisely the same corps that generated this growth. The opportunities were there to create sustainable, regionally-focused participation models in the South, Midwest and California. Instead, the focus remained on get-to-NE-Labor-Day-weekend-or-die-trying.

when a lot of you membership is performing in said band show, it's tough to get the corps to preform there

honestly, DCP is the last place kids go. unless they come here for ammo to make fun of it on Reddit

Anyone else ever get the feeling they've been around these forums too long? Just me?

not a good premise since most people on here seem to ascribe "performing" to material they personally enjoy and dismiss what they don't personally enjoy as "competing" aka writing to the sheets. i think most show designers are trying to do both, and are successful more often than not.

The color guard design/show in 2005 PR was one of the most beautiful and interesting things about the show. Everything the color guard did was "wow" - art deco-style flags/umbrellas based on chevrons, multiple period-style costume changes (where every new costume was better than the one it replaced), equipment work that was cheeky and so much fun. And then that closer with that head dress and the incredible orange color. One of the best color guard programs ever put on a field.

I believe original music compositions is the future of drum corps. It is becoming increasingly common to hear corps performing original music, composed specifically for the corps. I believe corps will be rewarded for original music within the scoring system. It’s a great opportunity for growth and advancement of the activity. What do you think about this?

If a DCA corps decides to play "Nearer My God To Thee"... then we'll know it's over.

My paternal grandfather sold those for Columbia and opened the Pacific Rim for them. My father's family lived in Shanghai, China for 4 years but were recalled to the US when WWI broke out; my aunt Mary was born there. We had several in the house with rooms full of the old wax records in many different colors.

Valid. But if you push DCA up one week (the week after DCI Finals,) you're only losing a week of rehersal. We've all been there. It's complicated but not something that should be dismissed out of hand IMHO. If the corps aren't all in, then yes that's an issue. My feeling though, is a little better situation for all corps might help stem any wavering.

Sure, we could always start the season at the end of May like we did in the past, but how many corps would just come out, perform a truncated standstill, and swallow the penalty, before they were finally "ready" in late June or early July? Seems like one...maybe two corps are able to "push themselves", while the other organizations simply want to fall back on excuses about why they cannot. And yes....look at the results! The results are that virtually only ONE corps seems to win EVERY year. And how is that healthy for ANY circuit. Seems as though DCA needs to sit down with the member corps and see how many are all in. If the answer is "not that many", then perhaps they should no longer waste everyone's time.

45’s! Now you are really showing your (our) age!

I’m not laughing ... I think it would be awesome!

I actually thought people were going to 'name names' of who they thought went 'bad'!

Translation: No chance.

based on talking to people in those regions and stuff posted here and elsewhere. Look the NE was established, they didn't have to work at it, the outer regions did. Most of those areas had no clue what DCA was. That was my concern abiout Winston Salem....the market had no clue what DCA was. You can't just say you're going to move your championships to an area that has no clue what DCA is, it's not a nationally known and touring entity like DCI is. And given finals has a higher ticket price than your average local show, it's not going to entice people with no idea for the cost. Like I said before about the WS experiment in 05....3500 or so people in a 70,000 seat stadium ( thats what they say the attendance was, i'd be highly surprised from my vantage point it broke 2000), at $40 a seat....or the 18,000 seat arena across the street sold out for a monster truck rally at $15 a head. It's not algebra, it's not new math, it's not rocket science.

they redid Florida Suite in 89, with some different material, and yeah, 88 Symphonic Dances for the confused drum corps fan

Absolutely. Toss in some Weather Report and I am totally on board!

Exactly! As time goes by, more will come to understand the significance of the Winston-Salem interest in hosting a Championship. The voting membership around that 2005 period was pretty-much a 50/50 split of NE/non-NE corps. The time to try a Championship a little outside the ‘Greater New Jersey Area’ was back then.

Doug Thrower and Tom Rarick talk about the process of creating the joyful Beatles production that was so loved by audiences this Summer. You can listen to us below, or if you want to take us with you, you can download us from iTunes. Read the rest of the article here. View the full article

Yes. But musically speaking, I find "Four Corners" and "Frameworks" to be about two minutes of interesting music each stretched out five times too long. "Spin Cycle" holds up. It's the second-best original drum corps composition, in my opinion. "Machine" is somewhere in between.

Which brings up the question of who should corps play for? The people in the stands or corps staff....

i think i would prefer to hear arrangements of great music than music of arrangers pretending to be composers.

I have many fans on DCP, But I must say Sutasaurus and Continental are my biggest ones 🙂

You love giving Cappy the business lol. You guys need a podcast. I would totally tune in!

My recap of this year’s Drum Corps Associates World Championships I&E And Mini Corps events is now available for your reading pleasure in the September issue of Drum Corps World! http://www.gaminnet.info/?p=5944

Hey, shouldn't Matt be in full Avon mode, this time of year?!?!

Hmm. No changes??? https://bluedevils.org/programs/a-corps/seasons/?module=staff&season=2020 I don't see Cappybara's name anymore as major consultant...................................................................................................................unless it's that coda called Re-Cap.

"Hated the narration" is a massive understatement. I know I have given this show some grief, but that is ONLY because of the narration. It was completely unnecessary. Not only was it unnecessary it was overload. That corps was so extremely talented and the drill writing is fantastic. Horn line.... wow. It's a shame that when many of us look back on this show (myself included) the first thing that is remembered is how bad the narration was and not how great this corps truly was. That is a serious design flaw.

yup. people take these discussion forums way too seriously

The Cavaliers perform a show titled "Contras". A show performed by 155 contra players and it ends with Fnugg in Blue.

Would love to see Bluecoats do an all jazz show. How about a show that explores the different styles of jazz. Something from New Orleans, Chicago, St Louis, NYC, something from over seas..etc.