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  1. My son had many highlights last year in his rookie season with the Cadets. A month or so after finals when we were casually taking about his experience and his top moments last summer, he didn't hesitate to say said that wearing the Westpoint uniform for the 4th of July parades and for the retreat in Indy was "by far" his greatest moment of the season. He even claimed that he got emotional when trying it on in his dorm at camp. I was surprised about that but as he explained it, he said felt like a superhero, like a champion. He couldn't believe he was lucky enough to wear the uniform that so many great Cadets before him wore. If those uniforms have to be moved/liquidated, I hope they end up with former Cadets who earned the right to wear them and wore them proudly.
    13 points
  2. Glad too see Surf sticking with the fun and audience friendly shows.
    11 points
  3. Here: https://bluecoats.com/news/diversity-socioeconomic-impact-annual-report-2023 Good on them. More reason to root for Bloo IMHO. Edit to add: Also thank you to Bloo for including mixed race statistics. I rarely find that anywhere!
    9 points
  4. You are not lying about the band moms out here in SoCal. Especially the three-way rivalry between the SoCal powerhouses Vista Murrieta, Chino Hills, and Ayala. There were times where I thought the three should just have a Triple Threat Match at WWE SummerSlam lol. But here is a hilarious story about some band moms I encountered. Back in October 2019, my son was in his sophomore year with the Vista Murrieta band, and they were hosting a competition, Of course Chino Hills and Ayala were there for the big showdown. Anyhow, during the intermission between 3A and 4A, there were some band moms from another 5A competing band sitting in front of me. Not going to lie, they were giving off the "Entitled Karen Vibe". So eventually their discussion veered toward drum corps, and one of the mom's (we'll call her son Johnny) says "OMG! Johnny dragged me to one of those drum corps shows at the Rose Bowl a few months ago, and honestly I wasn't impressed with any of those corps. I mean our kids high school band COULD TOTALLY COMPETE AND BEAT ALL THOSE CORPS". Keep in mind when she went to the Rose Bowl, she saw the eventual champion Ghostlight, Bronze Medalist Vox Eversio, and phenomenal shows like Wrong Side of the Tracks, Everglow, and subTerra from Cavies, PC, and Mandarins to name a few. And to top it off, the other moms just chimed in and started agreeing with her (mob mentality) that their kids were totally world class level, and there was no difference between high school band and drum corps. I couldn't help it and laughed out loud, they turned and looked at me, but I passed it off as I was laughing at something else as it would have been a no-win situation getting into it with them. Another guy near us looked at them, and just shook his head lol. So naturally when their kids band came on the field, I was hype and ready to see a historic performance considering these kids could allegedly beat BD head-to-head. Uh yea....................no. They ended up dead last in 5A and got waxed by the competition. Another lesson in its ok to root and support your kids and think they are great, but on the flip side, learn to keep things in reality and know there are levels to this. Lol.
    9 points
  5. They already know that the Devils are going to win those shows, so they decided to cancel to save some money. 🤪🤣
    9 points
  6. Mea culpa - I was not as appreciative of BD's 2022 and 2023 shows as I probably should have been, for a myriad of reasons. Finally got to listen to the CDs/downloads and not Flo audio, and I have to say - for exactly 3 minutes of each show, they go full on Classic BD Jazz Sound and absolutely blow everyone else away. (The guitar and Cowboy Bebop sections after the ballad in 2022, the JoJo opener in 2023.) Fantastic, awesome, incredible... I don't have enough superlatives for those segments. And they manage to work in extra layers of sound (whether it be brass, drums, pit or electronic) that it feels like a lot of corps don't even recognize can be missing - BD just puts it all in the car and stomps on the gas pedal. (And their set drummer, whoever he or she is, deserves extra championship rings each time - absolutely amazing.) Holy cow. Mike
    9 points
  7. Mandarins had a brass camp this past weekend. My son didn't give away any details of what they have so far, but this is what I took away from the conversation........... To anyone thinking the Mandarins were a cute little story and one hit wonder that will fall back to earth in 2024.............prepare to be highly upset Saturday Night, August 10th.
    9 points
  8. In memory of Poppy on DCP........... "Those naughty little Devils did it again."
    8 points
  9. I didn’t read it but if it’s of benefit to the Canton area young people, more power to them. The underserved communities have been ignored for decades in the marching arts. A step back from when I marched, IMO.
    8 points
  10. Hornline put in a lot of work this weekend and sounds great for March! Not hyping but things are good in all sections. Guard really is getting good member numbers and have exciting plans to help with their movement technique. They should start off better than last year. Percussion just won, and are full. Horns are full from what I've been told. Specific shout outs to tubas! They are tight. Hornline is moving well. No show announcements. No hype. Just positive vibes. They ate well too.
    8 points
  11. Musically both design and execution have been consistently excellent for a very long time. RHRN, Spacepants show, choose your "miss" : they were all visual blunders. Hell 2010 was a design blunder (spend massive amounts of time of unjudged part of show and then put performers in impossible listening positions. Musically that show was fabulous but was undercut repeatedly by frankly ridiculous staging. Visually under Rick Subel they were ... what's the word ... amorphous?. The visual design was there but no one was quite sure what it was. Also (just personal opinion here) Rick doesn't "get" outdoor the way he does indoor; and that's no indictment of Rick's abilities. There are a LOT of indoor designers who just don't seem to get outdoor (again IMHO mostly because they can't stand to "lower" themselves to being obvious. Football fields need obvious.) And so Crownies are repeatedly left hoping and praying that this year the visual design excellence will match the musical design excellence. Heck even the "old" visual team missed as often as they hit.
    8 points
  12. June 1999. At the time I was stationed aboard the USS Germantown in Sasebo Japan. I went home on leave back to LA to see my family for 30 days. Decided to take a few days and drive up to Oakland to see one of my knucklehead high school friends that moved up to the Bay Area. Well the weekend I went up there, DCI had a show in Concord. I contemplated going as I hadn't attended a show since I joined the Navy couple years prior. Instead I chose to hang out with my friend and a couple of his buddies. All we did was drive around Oakland, and go to some dirty, nasty, stank rundown club in Richmond where you would probably catch something just standing in the club. I wanted to set my clothes on fire once we left there. Complete waste of a night. Meanwhile 20 miles up the road in Concord, the show that I passed up, turned out to be the famous "Lights Out" performance, where the stadium lights went out during the middle of BDs performance, and they kept going and finished the show completely in the dark. Years later someone posted that performance on YT, and when the lights went out and BD kept going, the crowd lost their freaking minds. I remember someone here on DCP talking about being there that night. They said not only were there babies being thrown, grown adults were also being tossed onto the field as it was one of the most electric moments in DCI history, and there were times the crowd was so loud, you couldn't even hear BD. But I chose to go hang out and drive around Oakland. You can tell that I made smart decisions back then at the age of 21............................says no one ever.
    8 points
  13. seen on the interwebs Mackey will write the closer after seeing (hearing?) the rest of the show. Now THAT'S interesting as it provides the opportunity to both tie together concepts and recapitulate motifs from throughout the program. So it's not just a Mackey piece commissioned by Crown -- it's a Mackey piece written specifically for this show and these other pieces.
    8 points
  14. D.E.I. is political in nature. Doesn't this topic violate DCP guidelines?
    7 points
  15. Interesting development from the case. The judge appears to be dismissing “The Garfield Cadets” for lack of prosecution. I don’t pay for the legal website service so I can’t see the entire document. Not sure if this is just a formality since the Garfield Cadets don’t technically exist anymore so they’re just cleaning up the parties listed or the case is being dropped in full.
    7 points
  16. Guess who never attended a band booster meeting?
    7 points
  17. Oh 2000 too. SCV 2000. I've shared this story before but my grandmother died Jan 1, 2000 and for a LOT of reasons, I was unable to truly grieve for a long time. SCV put Adagio for Strings out there Thursday night after a long hot day in the stands watching all the corps and that rifle toss from midfield to the end zone at the most dramatic moment is when I finally was able to 'feel feelings' more fully again. That night I was having the strains Barber float through my head. I woke up the next morning for my walk before eating and getting around to head in for Semifinals and I swear I'm hearing Adagio for Strings....but nah, it's still just in my head. As I complete my walk back at the end of the cul de sac in my apartment complex where there's a middle school. HOLY CRAP...there's SCV rehearsing the ballad still. I WAS hearing that. I sat by the fence at the back line and just listen and sobbed. Then went in and got lunch and ready to go on in for Semis. Boston 2000 as well. Anyone who saw Red on finals night can tell you how special that show and performance was.
    7 points
  18. I’m not going very far back. Mandarins last year. I’m usually kind of meh about them. Not that they aren’t good because they are. It’s me. But when I saw them in Cincinnati last August…holy moly… 🥰 First runner up: 2022 Troopers. Didn’t see that coming either. .
    7 points
  19. He did. After the Cadets announcement, he decided to put all of his eggs into one basket for auditions. He really wanted to work under Matt Harloff and be a part of the Crown brass line. He worked extremely hard leading up to the first camp and was given a lead mello contract soon after. He's really enjoyed the camps so far and we're all exited for him and the coming season. Here we go again, Chief!
    7 points
  20. I’ll be blunt: Memphis Cadets or Cadets of Memphis or Cadets of Shelby County is the dumbest thing I’ve heard this year … so far.
    7 points
  21. Wow this is incredible!!!
    7 points
  22. Hey all! It's that time of year again! March Madness DCI Edition. There seemed to be a decent amount of people who enjoyed this last year and I did as well, so thought I'd bring it back! I did some digging through last year's thread for this year's topic and there were a lot of good suggestions, but the theme I decided on this year will be.... The Greatest Shows to Almost Win, a tournament to decide the favorite silver medalist! The top 34 highest-scoring silver medalists will compete until a winner is crowned. The bottom 4 shows will open the tournament with a play-in round starting this Sunday! I'm going to switch things up just slightly this year. I found a website that allows you to create your own predictions on the bracket for those who enjoy a little friendly competition. You can cast your predictions and follow along on that bracket as the week progresses. To submit a bracket, it seems you'll have to submit an email, but you can probably provide a fake one. I don't believe it asks you to verify it. I'll post a google survey link starting on Sunday to vote for each round and will update the bracket accordingly with the results. Voting for the play-in round will open Sunday (3/10) at 5pm est, and each round will start at the same time each proceeding day. Per usual, don't take it too seriously and let's have a good time! Bracket: https://challonge.com/3xw8av4s Voting: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfpoJGrkKCq1qkV-V4APLya67N9NZRuFLYuX7PbBYhSkSa4rw/viewform?usp=sf_link
    6 points
  23. 4th place in the annual predictions thread is reserved for BD.
    6 points
  24. I’m sure most posters will place Crown fourth (or lower) in the predictions thread. But I’ll be honest and say last season was significantly more enjoyable for me because I tuned all that stuff out for the most part. I can only speak for myself but obsessing over scores, placements and spreads kinda kills the fun.
    6 points
  25. One of my fellow Chiefs I was stationed with in San Diego was a volunteer coach for Pop Warner football. One day he asked me if I wanted to volunteer to coach. I told him no I couldn't handle it and would end up choke slamming someone thru the bleachers. He laughs and says "Bro the kids aren't that bad".........my response.........."I wasn't talking about the kids, I was talking about the parents".
    6 points
  26. 6 points
  27. Season 2 Real band moms of Indianapolis and have a confrontation between Avon moms and Carmel moms
    6 points
  28. true story....my senior year in HS, our drill designer was a Boston alum. when he would count stuff off, he never said 27. so i asked him and he told me. so i of course told the band and we yelled it. then in our closer, we had a slow turning front, and for the last day of camp, i got the band to sing Danny Boy while we did the drill. he eventually forgave me, and we even marched together later. and now he's a Lutheran Pastor
    6 points
  29. gigantic list. dci is what really got me into instrumental/classical music as a young teen. I played in the band and enjoyed it and all, but after getting exposed to the following pieces and composers with dci, I became the kid listening to classical on my walkman/discman (yes, i'm old) while all my friends were listening to Nirvana and Kriss Kross. 91 Star: All of the Respighi stuff. This got me to backtrack and watch some older corps,, including Cadets 87. Ended up going to the library and checking out cassettes of both The Pines of Rome and Appalachian Spring. Ended up wearing out the entirely of both cassettes and my love for classical was born. 92/93 Cadets: The Holsinger stuff they used really got me into wind ensemble music for the first time, and I started to really embrace 6:30 AM rehearsals with my band and understand the stuff by John Barnes Chance, De Meij, Gillis, Nelson, etc that we were playing is really really really good. The only way to get recordings of wind ensemble stuff back in the early 90s was my school's music library where out band director would put all of his sample CD's from publishing houses. I "borrowed" them for a couple years. 😉 93 Star: I had heard Adagio for Strings by Barber, but this opened me to all of his other stuff. Same with Bartok. The fall of 93 is when I started playing for the first time in our local regional symphony and the first pieces I performed at a concert were Mahler 1 and we had a guest soloist do Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, so that was more. dci truly was really the catalyst for all of it for me though.
    6 points
  30. I am with you so far. Not following you here. First, BDB is not "local", judging from their near-perennial appearances in Indiana over the past 16 years. If you want to discuss local drum corps programs, BDC would be the example. As far as what makes BDC or other local programs possible... the truly local programs work because there is so much less travel (and associated cost). No, it really is the other way around. Without the local, there is no community money. It is also worth noting that for a drum corps to justify hiring even one full-time employee, it makes sense to add other programs that are not on the same seasonal trajectory that DCI drum corps follows. I would like to hear more about this. I cannot say whether anybody specifically thought that was a good idea. For that matter, with all the personnel turnover, not sure there really was a "regime". I thought it was local/community bridges that were the topic there. If anything, "hard-headed" Cadet alumni* would be far more interested in maintaining those connections than the administrations which relocated the corps. (* - assuming there are hard-headed Cadet alumni without evidence, only for the purpose of discussion) And honestly, in all three cases, the bridge burning was done under the same corps director. There was one person who was the Hiroshima/Nagasaki of burned bridges. And he was not a Cadet alum.
    6 points
  31. I’ve often said everything I know about classical music I learned from drum corps or Bugs Bunny cartoons.
    6 points
  32. Back in the 80s as a kid, BD introduced me to Chick Corea.
    6 points
  33. That was unnecessarily Snarky, Puppy.
    6 points
  34. Working my way down a backlog of official DCI audio that I never got a chance to listen to - 2019 Crown is probably the best music book of the entire year. Funny enough, it's also probably one of the most "old school" in structure too. That closer is amazing. For that matter, the 2021 Right Here Right Now book is just as good - but man oh man I wish they hadn't hammered that phrase into us the entire show. Their closer that year was absolutely explosive, and they had the crowd in an uproar by the end - it was very, very cool. Anyways, just dropping some 🙂 thoughts into the thread as I catch up. -Mike
    6 points
  35. 1965 Royal Airs. In fact, the whole show at McCormick Place. I about wore out my bootleg cassette tape when I was a kid.
    6 points
  36. Got a small snippet of the PC sound from their brass camp. Let's just say the complaints last year of them not being loud compared to other corps and music being too easy will probably be squashed this year. Gonna be an exciting summer!
    6 points
  37. Honestly, it should be their encore piece from now until the end of time. -Mike
    6 points
  38. nothing beat a YEA volunteer when i got to a YEA run show and had the exact same seat info on my ticket as 3 other people and they informed me "well you got here after them, so i have openings on the 20". and i informed them to call george so he could refund me out of his pocket now.
    5 points
  39. Great googly moogly! https://bluecoats.com/news/2024/3/6/son-lux-named-artist-in-residence
    5 points
  40. I first heard Tower of Power from Anaheim Kingsmen. Now I try see them in concert once a year. I saw them again last November.
    5 points
  41. Just watched to check it out. See what you mean. Whole corp just seems to float across the field. Cool
    5 points
  42. It's not domes for me, it's Indianapolis. I realize from a logistical perspective it makes it easier to have it in one place, but I miss the days were it travelled. 1. So many more people were exposed to the activity, and 2. It was fun seeing different parts of the country. No offense, Indianapolis, you're a lovely city but I don't ever have the need to visit you again. A few times was enough.
    5 points
  43. I know I'm out of touch, but you could offer to pay *me* $75 to name any tune done by any of those bands and I'd be stumped. A woman in the office asked me to name a single Taylor Swift song. I couldn't do it. She was also shocked to learn I've never seen a full episode of Friends in my entire life.
    5 points
  44. I, for one, have expanded since my marching days.
    5 points
  45. I still wig out and how deftly and creatively Thrower wove those songs together. The way Eleanor Rigby sort of just moves the show in another direction and when She's So Heavy drops...man. it was a good show.
    5 points
  46. Nice post. I don't have any real numbers myself. The corps was founded in 1934 but how many of those who marched in the 30s and 40s are still around. I would imagine they still have a very large base of alumni out there but how many of them have real cash to spare? Many are likely retired on fixed incomes. How many of them walked away because of certain people in management? How many were put off by the constant relocation and name changes? When this current trial is done we have no way of knowing if there might be more. @Jeff Ream mentioned something important a few pages back that this was likely going to happen (Cadets going inactive and perhaps folding). After 2017-18 they managemed to band-aid a few things and hang around but the off-field issues with finances, lawsuits, and other legal issues were eventially going to catchup. Others have mentioned it, but trying to fund a corps solely on alumni dollars will not work...not unless you are lucky to have some sugar daddy with $5 mil to $10 mil who is willing to invest in the long-term health of the org. Even when Ted Swaldo invested into the Bluecoats to keep them from folding in 1984 he made sure to setup fundraisers, bingo, and other ventures that would keep Bloo alive and well for years to come. The Cadets org needs to hope they can come out of this trial with a zero balance and not be in debt too much. Then they need to put it to bed for a while. Trying to force a comeback would likely be a mistake. If there is hope for a comeback down the road a very serious effort will need to be made toward setting up operations and funding. You need people with time to spare and personal cash on hand to begin what could be several years of operational setup. What are the chances of this happening? If it were me and I had just enough cash to pay down any debt they have after this trial -- and if I had the time and the say so (which I do not) -- I would take whatever was left (uniforms and trophies) and try to make amends with the city of Garfield, NJ mostly for preservation of corps history. I would try to find a place in town where the corps history could be displayed. I would change the name officially back to the Garfield Cadets, with the city owning the rights to the name, and then close shop. If a group of alumni or business people wish to take up the challenge of resurrecting the corps they will have to work with the city of Garfield. Sounds bleak but at least the history is preserved and a very small "flag" is planted back in the appopriate resting place.
    5 points
  47. “Generous with their opinions and miserly with their checkbooks.” Classic. So true in many many organizations.
    5 points
  48. Mr. Anova is correct with his analysis. Anyone still in denial is literally whistling past the graveyard. The Cadets have no money, no equipment, no property, no organizational infrastructure, and a logjam of complainants lined up for their financial pounds of flesh for misdeeds from 40 years ago. If this Memphis thing comes to pass, if they actually purchase uniforms, put "Since 1934" on their trucks, adopt the FHNSB iconography, they are literally begging to end up in court for something they have zero involvement with. I can't imagine anybody with half a brain pursuing this.
    5 points
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