tommytimp

I like the idea that that snareline had to drop a section of the show because they couldn't get it clean enough. Certainly can't say that about the book. Exposure to Error up the guz.

I don't have FN, but there's of course no video from Montreal. The records, however, were recorded at Finals, and have Free on them. IDK why that audio wouldn't be available. That's my favorite show of theirs. "I Get Crazy" is a great chart.

And why do ALL EIGHT of the Caets' marimbas have to look EXACTLY alike? Annoying.

Just to give you a heads up: Richard Rodgers, Kurt weill and Jerome Kern are all coming back from the dead to kick your ###.

I played traditional grip on timps for 5 years. (No I didn't.) I was a traditional-grip DM for my age-out. (No I wasn't.) Always conducted with my left palm up, ring finger and pinky pulled in. (DIDN'T.)

Glad to hear those seats don't exist. But still, after all...it is Indianapolis.

Indeed. A great keyboard section, one of the best timpani players in DCI history, and some tasty Latin writing, but not the cleanest line you'll ever hear. Especially the snareline.

Is what I'm saying. Used to be DCI set the tempo, as it were. All the 83 and 84 band programs did "Rocky Point Holiday" and "In the Stone" because the Kewl Kidz in DCI did it first. Should DCI be the followers? Aitch Eee Ell Ell Know.

And what's-her-name will be fapping about Wayne Downey and Bubble Yum or something.

Seriously, every high schoolshow choir is going to be all over that stuff this fall, and a lot of bands too, I would imagine. Maybe, MAYBE, an Open Class unit could use it in that vein, as a kind of educational tool-type show. Would not want to see, say, Spirit or Blue Devils or Teal Sound be so reactionary as to follow the common herd.

Ha. Remember when all those corps did those fantastic shows based on the music of "Shields & Yarnell" (RIP Lorraine), "The Carol Burnett Show" and "Miami Vice?" Me neither.

In 85 we played JC Superstar, and the big ballad is called "Could We Start Again, Please." We didn't want to deal with the DM saying that and having us all smart-azz back to him for the whole summer, it would have wasted too much time. So we called that number "Rutabaga" all season. It just made everything easier. In 83, the tenors and baris shared a melody in the opener of "Russlan and Ludmilla," and the horn instructirs would always say "From the bari melody!" The drummers would be all, "Say WHAT?" and our drum guys would yell "Tenor melody!" Until finally one day someone just said "From the cello melody." Nothing like going to the source.

Two horns from North Star back into each other in the finale from 1980. There's also a one-count-too-early horn entrance in North Star's closer from 1982. Sounds like I hated North Star, doesn't it? Well I didn't. I loved me some Chrome Wall. Just two examples I can think of.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII don't know about that. YMMV, of course, but I fail to see anything simple or efficient about the old Belleville uniforms, for instance, and a good thing, too, because their look was Queen's horse guards, and their job was to inspire awe and a sense of concern that they might, you know, kill you if you got too close to the Queen. And find that Cavies picture of Sam Flores from 1975, where he's got his xylophone, his mallets, his goody bag, AND a chime tube riding his axe. If he steps wrong all that crap is going to fall over and he'll look like something out of PDQ Bach. Corps now do more with more, but do it with an efficiency that boggles the mind. Yes, there's too much pit equipment and no, corps don't need new drums and/or every year, but they could be doing a lot worse than they are in terms of excess. Content dictates form.

Wouldn't work. if you're a corps director, you get up EVERY MORNING. No matter what happened the day before.

And yet, on this occasion, you did it so very well. Some things are unteachable, I guess. Just don't hide your light under a bushel. And don't defer too hard. We just had the floors waxed.

Well, I didn't think that at the time, so why the screaming hell would I type it? Way to suck all the juice out of a one-liner.

AND HEADING INTO THE FOURTH QUARTER!!! IT'S ANYBODY'S GAME!!! CHEESE AND CRACKERS, I NEVER SAUSAGE ACTION!!!

Favorite: 1988. Much as I love and appreciate the 93 show, the Stupid Symmetrical Pit (copyright TSheaCorp) is a huge turnoff, and I just like the tastiness of the 88 book more. The mallet audition feature in the opener (I don't think they stop playing 16th notes until the stop hit, and in F# too) and the best sop soloist in DCI that year IMO (who I believe, was Becky Wood's fiance, there's a winner in life). Plus one of the best bass drum melodies of all time and a new way to look at the tenor section. Worst:1986. The 92 show is so well-performed that my personal distaste for the hard-sell approach is mitigated, so 86 it is. Not terrible, just unmemorable. John Williams? Yawn. Funny 86 story, though-we had to borrow a bell stand from them at one show for whatever reason. Comes time to give it back, I tell their timp player I can't remember which one was theirs. He says "Know what? Keep it. We've got plenty." And I thought, F@%k, these guys really are rich."

Sky Ryders, 1991. VK, 90, 92. Is that it for the gone guys?

That, indeed, is what I'm talking about.

BUMP Pictures!!!

I thought the Muchachos won that year.

I don't know. The word "great" was in his post twice. I think his admiration for the soloist is unreserved. Pity you can't (or won't) distinguish the performing from the performance. I didn't see the show once all summer, but congratulations to the Bluecoats. And that solo does look sick. A bari player I marched with tells the story of BD's soloist in "Everybody Loves the Blues" from 83 and how he had no idea you could do that with a bari horn. Could this be that kind of moment?

Timps don't "need" amplification. (I sure as hell didn't.) They get it anyway.