Quadman1

I attended my first DCI finals in 1979 at Birmingham, AL. I was a big Vanguard fan at the time. By the end of Blue Devils opening movment, "Canon" (from Chicago III Suite), the contest was over. Their hornline was so overpowering yet perfectly balanced, they made the other corps sound like amateurs by comparison. I'd pay a king's ransom to be transported back to 1979 or 1980 to hear horn power like that (or like Spirit, Madison, or Phantom from the same era) again. I wish I could have heard Muchachos in person in '74 or '75!

I'd like to hear these: Muchachos - Picturas de Espana, Marianne, Concierto de Aranjuez (all featuring Jeff Kievit) Blue Devils - Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor, Channel One Suite, Chicago III Suite, La Fiesta, Spanish Fantasy, Chase The Clouds Away Santa Clara Vanguard - Overture to a New Era, Dance of Welcome, Lezghinka, Gopak, If You Believe, Bottle Dance Freelancers - You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Wedding Procession March, Genji, Toccatta, Bellavia (with Brian Graber on Bongos-Timbales), Even Now Guardsmen - Tiger of San Pedro, Greensleeves North Star - Children of Sanchez, Cookout, Ole 27th Lancers - Crown Imperial March, Niner-Two, Danny Boy Madison Scouts - Malaguena (1978 version), Mac Arthur Park, The Last Battle (drum solo, from Star Wars), The Way We Were Spirit of Atlanta - Georgia on My Mind, Old Man River, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Let It Be Me Phantom Regiment - New World Sympony (4th Movement), March of the Dwarfs, Clair de Lune, Ode to Joy Bridgemen - Pagliacci, Black Market Juggler, Spanish Dreams, William Tell Overture, War Between the States Kingsmen - Folk Song Suite, Mambo, Play in Time, Firebird, Exodus/King of Kings

Regular attendance at the Worlds at Glasgow Green is estimated at approximately 40,000. This is the total for all classes, all day long. There is no real stadium there, just a small grandstand that seats about 1,000 or 1,200, but there are several thousand fans that stand around the periphary of the Grade 1 competition area. Agree about Reid Maxwell. He has provided most of the drum scores for our band over the past 11 years and has spent several weekends in the winter teaching our drum line. He and his colleague, P/M Terry Lee, are first-class, amazingly talented, genuinely nice people who are at the pinnacle of the pipe band world yet remain humble, down-to-earth guys. They have earned my full respect.

Agree 100%. If the first military field drums had been carried level with harnesses instead of tilted with straps, it is possible that "traditional" grip might never have been developed. Matched grip is the natural way to play, and traditional is selected (in drum corps and marching band) for the aesthetic factor. But don't tell me that the 1978 or 1979 SCV snare lines weren't "bad ###". The 1979 Vanguard drum line still ranks as one of the finest units ever put on the field. Remember, Fred and Ralph did things differently, such as having the timpanists play double stroke roll patterns along with the rest of the line. As a quad and snare player, I see this quite easily, but perhaps it is more difficult for those who have known only traditional grip on the snare drum to grasp the concept. I only miss the variety of styles that used to permeate the activity. Everything is rather monotonous by comparison today.

Greg, this is amazing, cool material! Thanks for sharing it. I took lessons from Ron Ziebart in July-August 1981 after getting home from our short Midwest tour with the Blue Knights. As you well know, Ron was a phenomal player with the Argonauts and Freelancers, and one of the strongest players I have ever known (plus a Pac-8 wrestling champion at Oregon State). Ron taught the LA-area Freelancer drummers in the early '80s and was a wonderful guy.

Add two more to your list: 1. Freelancers. We definitely used matched grip in 1982, and I believe also from 1979-1981. We switched back to traditional grip in 1983. 2. Blue Knights. I played snare there in '81 with matched grip. They may have continued with matched in 1982. As a quad player who grew up in the era of level snare drums on carriers, traditional grip never made sense to me. I played matched in the USC Trojan Marching Band in 1981 (snare), and my high school band (Granada Hills High School) used matched grip for many years, starting in the fall of 1979. I learned traditional in 1994 so I could join the Cabar Feidh Pipe Band and still play traditional in that band, but matched grip makes so much more sense to me. I vote for eliminating vocals, electronics, and Bb horns and going back to matched grip and G bugles. If matched was good enough for the '78 and '79 Santa Clara Vanguard, it's good enough for me.

Love the Gamelan, but how about the annual Panorama Steel Band competition in Trinidad and Tobago? Here's the 2009 champion, Silverstars Steel Orchestra, playing "First In De Line": I love pan! No vocals, no amplification, no woodwinds. The strict adherence to percussion only actually offers composers and band leaders the freedom to create within the idiom. While were at it, a link to the back-to-back world champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band's winning medly performance three weeks ago at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow. No vocals, no amplification, no woodwinds, no brass - just pipes & drums. Another classic world music event which, like Panorama, draws huge crowds, television coverage, and more and more young people interested in the purity and quality of the music. Similar to what used to be known as Drum & Bugle Corps. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVGjcdElS2Y

Those lips rocked! That show had great music.

Also saw them all and agree 100%. 1980 wins. One of the most powerful hornline closers of all time. Nice work by Dan Veerhusen with the instamatic camera and the '75 DCI Champions banner! I think in prelims he drank a cup of water during the last chord; one of the best showmen drum majors ever!

The reason is that prior to 2004, DCI was an organization of Drum and Bugle Corps, not of marching bands. So sad to witness the decline of a once-great activitity.

Will do!

Birmingham (Legion Field) was ok in 1979 as the weather was tolerable and the corps were great, but it turned into a freakin' sauna in 1980. There was a killer heat wave across the southern U.S. that year from Arizona to Florida. Elderly people without air conditioning died by the hundreds from late July through mid August. At least it didn't rain in Birmingham. I stopped to visit friends in Dallas (Plano) on the way to Birmingham and it was about 100 degrees there. Alabama was like a swamp. The corps souvenir sales were set up underneath the north stands of the stadium and it felt like the engine room on a WWII battleship steaming along past the Solomon Islands. What made the weather bearable was the amazing drum corps we saw that year, possibly the best top 7 (from an entertainment perspective) in DCI history. Legion Field had no parking and was located in a rather sketchy part of town. In 1980 I ran into someone with 4 extra tickets for finals exactly on the 50 yard line and about 3 rows in front of the TV broadcast crew's booth (which was set up in the main stands, just where the upper deck began to cover the lower deck). Nothing sticks in my mind like (i) the sheer wall of sound produced by Spirit of Atlanta in "Let It Be Me"; (ii) the antics of Dan Veerhusen, Madison's DM, at the end of "Through the Eyes of Love" when he got a drink of water and took a picture of the final set as the horn line held the final note for what seemed like minutes; (iii) the amazing Santa Clara Vanguard "High Quad" section; (iv) the best overall drum corps the Bridgemen ever put on the field; (v) 27th Lancers' magnificent drill and color guard; and (vi) the flawless horn playing and marching of the Blue Devils. I have to agree with you regarding South Florida in 1983. That was a horrible experience. We stayed in Lauderdale Lakes in a gym with air conditioning set at about 68 degrees and an outside temp of 95 with 90% humidity. I ended up getting seriously ill in Finals week, but I toughed it out. At prelimis I was so spaced out that I left my plume and my timbale sticks at the high school. There was ZERO parking anywhere near the Orange Bowl. My parents flew over from L.A. and my mom spent much of the finals night in the air conditioned womens restroom at the Orange Bowl. The week before we were in St. Petersburg (staying at St. Petersburg Catholic H.S.) and there were cockroaches all over the gym and locker rooms. We did a show at Clearwater where there was a long rain delay (27 was also at that show), and it felt like 100% humidity. Just a disgusting environment for drum corps.

1975 Santa Clara Vanguard is my favorite 2nd place performance. Perfect GE and High Drums. One of the most tasteful yet exciting programs ever put on the field.

Edmund and Donald's brother, Mike Mindiak and his wife, Kathy McLaughlin Mindiak, are super nice people who live here in SoCal!

I remember this like it was last year. DATR was a two-show affair at old Mile High Stadium in '81. The first night, the Troopers marched with their standard Slingerland TDRs. They saw Phantom's new Ludwig High-Volume (or was it "Hi-Volume"?) Challenger STs and flipped over the massive sound they produced. By the second night's contest, Troopers had created their own set of home-made "high-volume" TDRs! It was pretty funny to see, especially since the TDR lug casings were fairly light compared to the Challenger casings; no doubt Troopers had to insert spacers underneath to keep the casings from cracking and collapsing the two halves of the shells. But they sounded great on the opening double rim shots of "The Cowboys - Main Title": Gok Gok Gok, Gok-Gok!

They were Ludwig Vistalite drums. Here's a link to a website devoted to those clear, heavy things: http://www.vistalites.com/

Thanks for the compliment on our '83 show! We had a great hornline that year and an ok drumlime. I personally thought our 1982 show was much more exciting and fun to play, and we marched better that year. We saw 27 a lot on tour in '83. Remember the Clearwater, FL show when it poured in the middle of the show? The last week of tour was a hot and wet mess in Florida. We went on last at prelims (just after midnight and right after BD - worst possible slot). Your drumline was the strength of 27 in both '83 and '84. I totally agree with you re Phantom's tenor lines from 1978 through 1982 (and pretty darned good in 1983, although they switched from the Power Toms to the Power Cuts that year). They were freakin' solid and loud, and the writing was phenomally effective. If you listed to the CDs, you can hear virtually every note those guys play througout the show, each year, even when they are playing soft with puffy mallets. The dynamic range of those PR lines was fantastic. Especially in 1981. Those tenor dudes were all giants as well (but so was our line in 1982 -six guys all over 6'). Marty Hurley's writing was perfect for Phantom's horn book. I miss big drumlines that carried all of their equipment. Nothing like having 34 angry drummers marching up toward an uncluttered sideline, spitting fire at the crowd!

Ben Curtis is a super guy who has been playing with us in the Cabar Feidh Pipe Band (San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, CA) this year. I believe he runs the alumni website for the USAF drum corps and pipe pand that you reference above. Ben has reinvigorated us by introducing some historic rudimental elements to our repertoire. Our drum sergeant for the past 20 years or so is John Davis, lead soprano with the Muchachos in their heyday and also a former member of Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights and St. Rose of Lima drum and bugle corps of Newark, NJ. I've had the pleasure of marching with John in Cabar Feidh since 1994.

I also witnessed '88 live and have to agree that the judges "forgave" a lot of mush coming out of the Scouts drumline. Not just a little snare fuzz, but many major ensemble problems. I liked their show and love that style of drum corps, and they certainly were balls-out that night, but I thought Santa Clara should have won, with BD second and Madison third.

I stayed home this year - I did not attend one show the entire summer. My brother (with whom I marched in Freelancers and KAC) said the Vanguard had their best program in more than 20 years, worth the price of admission all by itself. I wish I could have heard and seen their show live. However, between work and family, with some pipe band rehearsals and performances thrown in, I just couldn't devote 6-8 hours to drive to a stadium and sit through 6 or 7 extremely dull shows with drummers running around and making monkey movements while playing snippets instead of tunes, hornlines playing like concert wind ensembles (no FF anymore), and having to endure the incredibly idiotic experience of the "narration". Yikes! I attended DCI Finals as a spectator in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, and 2007. I was a member of Friends for many years. I marched at DCI in 1982 & 1983. I was a totally commited Drum Corps Geek. But by the mid '90s I stopped bringing new fans to shows. Since the music had become so boring and subservient to the movement, most of my friends found attending them a waste of time. I found there were maybe 1-2 corps with shows worth listening to (or capable of being remembered) at any particular contest, with the remaining 5-6 shows seemingly designed to annoy rather than entertain. This trend only worsened into the 2000s. Attending finals at the Rose Bowl in 2007, the only truly memorable parts to me were Carolina Crown's great color guard (horses) and the horrifying narrations of the Cadets and Blue Devils. What an underwhelming, non-entertaining, disappointing waste of time and money! The kids now are more talented than ever, and working harder than we did back in the day, but for what? I think the current product is a colossal waste of time, money, energy, and effort. I sure hope DCI turns things around before the activity goes the way of the Dodo!

Maybe it was the black and grey unis in '88 that ultimately denied BD the title. That's the only problem I ever saw that year. That sop line and that snare line were UNGODLY clean!!!

"Selections" is not what I'm talking about. I mean the '76, '77, or '86 arrangements that comprised more than half of the show.

I attended at Buffalo in 1990 and 1995. Nice city, not too hot in August, decent stadium, huge parking lot. MUCH better than Camp Randall.

The "rights" thing has really hurt the activity. I recall at Foxboro in '94 when DCI tried to ban even still picture cameras. How many CDs, LPs, and cassettes were bought over the years by people exposed to these styles for the first time through Drum Corps? DCI and the corps themselves could probably make more money by offering free links to Youtube and increasing the exposure of the activity (which is comparatively miniscule in the entertainment world). Probably 9 out of 10 Americans have no idea what DCI is all about or what a drum & bugle corps is. I feel the same about overzelous attorneys working for music publishing houses and record companies. What a shame that we can't hear great drum corps classics performed any more.

Drum corps would benefit greatly from a reduction in the "visual responsibilities" it places on marching members and an increase in the musical responsibilities it places on both show designers and marching members. It's been about 25-20 years since I've gotten excited about buying and listening to DCI cds. This activity has become a visual/athletic endeavor first and a musical activity second. I prefer the drill to support the music, and any movement or design that takes away from the music is, IMHO, undesirable. Thank GOD I don't have to carry quads/quints while running around playing percussive effects written to accompany non-melodious contemporary "music".