OldBones

The following scenerio actually happened last week. On a day of a show, you get a call from DCI saying one of the songs in your show has been put on the protected list. You are not allowed to play the song in tonights competition. What do you do?

I talked to the director last night. He has a very ambitious plan. As of now, he is is putting the final touches on a rehearsal site. I am sure we will hear from him very soon.

Spartans jumped almost 5 points. Raiders jumped 9 points.

Rest of the scores: Raiders - 57.25 Targets - 48.6 Raiders show is clearly not finished yet and in New London, they had 3 horn players, 1 tenor, and 1 cymbal player on the sidelines. Any reviews?

Could this be an early championship preview?

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Thank you very much for the nice comment. Yes, there may be 1 or 2 kids who could march with some of the lower tier World Class corps. There may even be a couple who could march in one of the top 5. But please do not raid the corps. Spirit is the only exsisting minority based inner city competing corps in the country today. And tour fee was only $500. The organization does a great job every year (the last two without the help of the city of Newark) making sure the kids get a chance to go on tour. I am no longer with Spirit, but I am certainly proud of the kids who came through the ranks while I was there. This past summer, I worked with a group of individuals who wanted to start a corps in Philly. We got very little support. There were maybe a small handful of people who wanted to start something. But as soon as you talk about basing the corps in the inner city . . . . The inner city schools music programs are really hurting and the kids who are in the music programs could benefit greatly, even from a parade corps. BTW - we have alumni just age out of Cadets, 1 in Spirit JSU, 2 in Boston, 1 in Madison, another in BD, and a couple who won a Championship while marching with East Coast Jazz. As a matter of fact, quite a few kids from Spirit of Newark have gone on to march Div 1. Good luck Spirit as you head into the upcoming season.

I dont have a particular time period. Drum corps has evolved tremendously through the years and I still like most of it today. (Keep electronics in the pit.) I have seen some amazing performances throughout the years. For those of us who were there and can still remember: In the 60s (I started in 65) 65 Royal Aires 67 St Lucys 69 Boston 69-70 Blessed Sac 69 Troopers 69 Kilties Pre season shows like Evening with the Corps In the 70s SCV, Madison, BD, Phantom, 27, the emergence of Crossmen (my ageout corps). 72 Dream (where the crowd was so loud at the ending of the Skyliners show , the tape had to be edited and an ending from a different show was put in just so you could here it on the record) Through the 80s, I loved watching the reemergence of The Cadets and The Cavaliers along with Star of Indiana and VK (They even made watching retreat fun) and Crossmen The 90s BD, Phantom, Cavaliers, Cadets, Crossmen 00's Cadets and Boston 2000 show. BD, Bluecoats, Crown. I feel the passion, dedication, and performance level of the kids from yesteryear is just as strong as they are today. Yes, obviously, the technology and techniques have changed and have improved drum corps dramatically, but for me, watching the kids perform at such high levels ALWAYS gives me goosebumps.

$0 per performance. Most if not all corps survive by finding sponsors, doing multiple fundraisers, selling merchandise, and tour fees.

Spirit of Newark is doing tour. They are in contact with DCI about the schedule. They will be in Buffalo then continue through Ohio to Wisconsin to Michigan City. They should have about 10 shows this season.

I thought Raiders won in 2005?

Maybe that is one of the things that is wrong with DCI. Yes it is suppose to be about being the elite of the Marching Music programs. But in doing so, it created an elitist activity. Drum corps use to be for all. Now, if you have the thousands of dollars needed to participate you can belong. With tour fee, per camp fee, some corps have instrumental and uniform rentals, spending money for tour, it all adds up to a substancial sum. Not everyone can afford it. Some Open Class corps tour as much as the World Class corps. That raises the cost of tour fee even more. There use to be a lot of local circuits throughout the country. One of them was the Garden State Circuit which served many corps from New Jersey, Pa, New England, Va. They even had a division for real small corps that did standstill. New England had their own circuit that did a great job for more corps than what exsists now in all of DCI. The Midwest also had several large circuits as well. All were tremendous and helped corps of all sizes and helped grow the activity. Those who are not at the top are in a "Catch 22" situation. They are trying to improve. Some are. In the last several years, corps like Citation, 7th Regiment, Spirit of New Jersey (though not this year), and Racine Scouts have improved. Some band directors and some kids want nothing to do with these corps because they aren't as successful therefore the kids will not improve. (I've actually had this type of conversation with a couple of band directors) I know that kids who come from these corps improve their skills by the time the season is over. I am positive no corps out there wants to take away the "DCI experience" from their kids because the kids they serve either can not afford or are not ready for the elite corps. Not everyone has the money to join say Surf or Raiders, not to mention the upper echelon of World Class. Do you also think that the lower end of World Class also give up on competing in DCI? I think not. All the non elite corps around the country provides a place for those who cannot march in the elite corps to participate and tour. And since DCI is the only game in town . . . . . . Will DCI create such circuits again? I truly doubt it. At best, they may help if some people take up the challenge. Can you do it? and if you could, would you? Running a drum corps is daunting enough. Imagine running a circuit for several corps. And a curcuit that is run by the participating corps wouldn't work. (EGOS get in the way - Just look at GSC and DCI East for that matter)

Congratulations to 7th Regiment on a very successful season. Sorry to see they are not going to Pasdena. Nice jump in score for Targets. I know it isnt as successful as they would want it to be, but, they definately worked hard on their show this year. I look forward to seeing them again next year. Speaking of a score jump, did anyone notice Spirit of NJ score? Thats a 11pt jump in one week!!!!! b**bs

The only score that counts is the one you receive at Prelims and Finals. Keeping up there the scores in the caption ratings are a little clouded because some corps have been in front of judges quite a few times, some only 2-3 times. But it is fun to keep up with all the corps and try to figure out who will end up where.

Thank you for the kind words. Yes, its rocky but with the dedicated staff, volunteers, and lets not forget the kids, the corps will be OK this summer. Our philosophy has always been about giving these kids an opportunity to compete against the best in Div 3. And this year, everyone is on top of their game. We look forward to joining them in sunny California.

Kevin, I will say that we were still planning to go to Pasadena either way. Mr Itkor I dont remember seeing you around the Spirit of Newark practices to determine if the members in our corps are from Newark or not. In fact there are only 8 members who are not from the Newark area. Most of the drummers go to Newark public schools and the rest of the members are from schools in Newark that do NOT provide a music program. This funding is the only way the inner city kids have an opportunity to march in a drum corps. Not ALL kids can afford the $1000+ fees of the other surrounding corps and marching in a DCA corps can get expensive as well. One of our members from Newark experienced that when he went to a parade with your corps only to find his out of pocket expenses for the weekend were far more than he ever expected. He came back to us right after that. Most of our recruiting is in the public schools and some private schools in Newark. We often reach kids with little or no music experience. Its not like we recruit from all over and have kids from all over. These kids represents the city of Newark as a member of our corps. Another musical organization from Newark, the Newark Symphony Orchestra, gets more funding from the city than we do and I'll bet not all their members are from Newark either. We may not as successful as we would like scorewise, but we represent a positive side of Newark around the country, which none of the other organizations from Newark get to do. Should the city wipe out all funding to all the organizations representing Newark that have members from outside the city? I think the mayor is trying to do just that. That may be why there was such an outcry by the citizens of Newark who know of these programs and the work we do. I think the councils money is better spent on these kids and these programs than on the kids who end up in jail and detension centers. How much of their budget goes towards incarceration? I bet that may also be a tad bit more than the funding they give Spirit. In the future, please know your facts before you make such statements in a public forum. Thank you

VE has gone inactive. I knew this a while back but was waiting for some kind of official announcement. DCI started the Springfield show later so not to mess up the reporting times for all the corps. BTW Targets ran a very nice smooth running show on Saturday. It was very enjoyable. Nice size crowd. Nice response for all the corps. Very enthusiastic. Kudos to Mike and his entire staff.

Spirit of New Jersey 4th of July schedule Leave camp at 5am Teaneck NJ 8:30 Ridgewood NJ 11:30am (usually a good number of NJ corps at this one) + KofC performance and lunch Asbury Park NJ 2pm

A half hour southeast of Hershey is Lancaster Pa. There is plenty to see and do here. The home of the Amish. Some real nice sites and excellent food (lunch at Millers), and plenty of discount shopping. If you have little ones (2-10), Dutch Wonderland is an excellent amusement park. Or, you can also take an old fashioned steam train ride to Paradise on the Strasburg Railroad. If you are a history buff, Gettysburg is less than an hour south. Of course, there is nothing more convenient as coming out of Hershey Park and walking across the parking lot and into the stadium.

The overaged member was a close friend of mine. He was my best man. We marched together in a small corps from Bristol Pa known as the Bracken Cavaliers. When Bracken broke up a lot of the members went to Crossmen and some went to Caballeros. I went to Cabs but ended up in Crossmen. At the time, Crossmen did not ask for proof of age. At least they did not ask for mine. I do not know if the corps knew his age. The so called alleged "snitch" was the director of a well known Philly corps from the mid 70s. It was not the director of Bracken. Technically The Blue Stars are the ones who "snitched". There were a couple corps trying to get Crossmen disqualified in both 75 and 76, mostly from the local circuit Crossmen belonged to. Should he have known better, yes. I know he always felt bad about it. I thought I'd clear a little bit of the story up as this thread has come up a couple times in the past.

I believe no truer words have been spoken. Add to this, at least where I am from in North Jersey, the student gets to pick which corps to go to from the following list: The Cadets, Crossmen, Surf, Raiders, Reading, Cabs, Bushwackers, Vision Elite, Spirit of New Jersey, Sky (before they went inactive), Core Fusion, and Network. And pretty much in that order. Thats 12 corps within 100 miles. Add the fact that quite a few bands in New Jersey and Pa do full summer band programs, and the numbers get quite small in a hurry, especially if you are one of the last 5 corps on the list. In order to attract the talent, you have to have won a championship, have an extremely solid staff, be very creative and offer something really special. We have actually approached other corps about cut lists. Not the best idea we ever had. All the corps will share a wealth of info. We help each other out in other ways where and when we can. But not by giving a cut list. Lets face it, directors of a corps do not know the inner workings of other corps. They are taking a chance if they were to recommend kids to another corps. I have heard quite a few horror stories over the years from what people thought were excellent corps to go to, and recommending someone where a situation might not be the best is very risky.

All went well. Since we only had a few minutes of performance time, we played our opener, Caravan. It was done inside and to a full room. Even J Lo was there. We got an excellent response from everyone. The weather was hot but we had shade. The bubble was actually hotter than outside. Excellent facility. It didn't start raining until the trip home. I am waiting for a copy of the tape so we can post it on our web page.

Quite simply, ALL OF THEM. Whether they would be Div1 - Div2 - or Div3. Wouldn't be nice to have drum corps back as it was back in the 60s? Tons of local shows. Busy every weekend. Middle of the week shows that you do not have to travel hundreds of miles to get to. It would actually make drum corps more affordable and more accessable. Now if there there was a way to start a corps without spending $150,000 - $250,000 - $500,000

I am not sure if it will be taped or if it will be a live broadcast. If it is a live broadcast, we will obtain the tape and post it on our website as soon as we get permission from FOX. We are hoping for good weather. I hear there are going to be scattered thunderstorms in the area. It should be a lot of fun though. We will be spending the whole day practicing and giving a performance. If you are in the area, come on out.