bstar82

Garfield can play Elk's Parade from 1980 and 81...

Parades were never that much fun especially doing 2-3 a day on a hot humid day, but they were sure great free PR for drum corps.

I’ll share with you how Robert Lendman changed my life at the drum corps age of 20-21. I had marched three years prior to 1982, but due to some changes in my life, I did not plan on marching my age out year, which I’m sure a lot of others have had to make that difficult decision as well. Up until 1980, only two corps had placed in every DCI finals, SCV and the Blue Stars. When the corps did not make finals in 1980, it had a huge effect on the entire organization including many age eligible members choosing not to return to the corps, either quitting completely or moving on to other corps in the area. The corps placed 13th in 1980 and a respectable 16th in 1981, but the damage of missing finals was already done. In the fall of 1981, there were very few members who returned to the corps and I do mean very few. Robert Lendman was brought on to restore the corps to top 12 status even though it would take years to achieve. From what I can recall, there may have been 30-40 members at the monthly camps, but that number decreased with every passing month. The corps was determined to be on the field for the 1982 season, but it would take an incredible effort by Bob Lendman, his wife Allison and Moe Latour and the small staff they had put together to make their goal of competing in 1982. The remainder of the off season was very tough as the corps had only 19 members. Something drastic needed to be done. One of the percussion instructors was a band director in the Spokane, Washington area and he recruited 20 members from his high school program to join the corps in the spring. I do not believe they made one camp before a bus was sent to pick them up and return them to LaCrosse. Of course there were many parents who were concerned how this “drum corps thing” worked. Bob personally promised them they would be taken care of, have three square meals a day, a gym floor to sleep on, a lifetime of memories and he would return them safely after the season had concluded. With the new corps members in LaCrosse, all days began despite numerous holes in all sections. The drill was rewritten numerous times in order to keep the holes to a minimum even though more members would be recruited once the season began. The corps started their tour in June with 50-60% percent rookies. The few vets are relied upon heavily to lead the way on and off the field. The majority of the vets were 16-19 years old and no age outs in the corps. The scores were mediocre at best and it was probably somewhat shocking to most fans to see the condition this perennial top 12 corps had taken. Overall, the fans were very sympathetic and supportive of this small, young corps. As the corps made their way to California, an announcement was made after every show the need for anybody who may be interested in joining. The corps performed at a show in Boulder, Colorado that I attended with a friend I taught in high school. After the announcement was made, I told him this is the perfect opportunity to join a corps at probably a minimal cost. I encouraged him to talk to the staff after the show, but he wasn’t keen on doing this alone. I could sense he wanted me to come along for my age out year even though I had some pretty solid plans for that summer. The next day as I took my friend to the corps housing site, Bob came right up to me and said,” I hear you’re a tympani player. I need you in this corps not only for your playing ability, but I need someone older who has been around to be a leader of these kids on the field. Can you do that for me?” I really decided not to march, but Bob convinced me that this was my last chance to march in a jr. corps and I really didn’t have a choice in his eyes. I went on tour with my buddy, and I recruited a gal I knew from our color guard as well. The corps continued this process picking up new members from Utah, California, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Iowa, Florida, Idaho and Alabama. Heck, we even convinced a snare drummer from Garfield to join us. The corps now looked more like a corps with 70 members. The staff was pretty much made up of alumni who did not want to see this corps go by the wayside. During the few days in between tours, the corps stayed at an old auditorium in downtown LaCrosse. Bob had put the word out to local merchants of their new “guests” in town and I remember going into one place to eat and the owner asked if we were some of the out of town Blue Stars? We answered yes and he said, ”You’re money is no good here. Come in anytime you’re hungry”. After the Decorah show, the parents of a brother and sister in the corps hosted a BBQ for the entire corps. Money was tight I am sure of and on our way to Whitewater for DCI Midwest, the corps had not eaten the night before and traveled all night for a very early OTL. Around 7AM, we pulled in a VFW hall where a pancake breakfast was being held. Bob went in, had a few kind words with the group and the next thing you know, we are being summoned off the buses as all members in the joint happily served us breakfast. I think we may have held up their banner at a local parade some days later, but old Bob pulled it off! By the time Whitewater prelims had arrived it was evident the corps was not going to make finals. But when we ended the show with ”Come in from the Rain” and “Tiger Rag”, we had received a standing ovation from the great crowd that Whitewater is known for. It was obvious that the fans now knew the struggles we had gone thru just to stay on the field. The kids were depressed not to make DCI Midwest finals, but Bob wouldn’t allow for any sulking. He looks at me and his drum major and said, “ Get these kids on the buses, I just booked us a slot in Michigan City”. And on it went, doing three parades on one late July day in the Illinois/Wisconsin area making a few bucks here and there. This is one of my favorite memories. As with all parades, we had the pit marching horns to look bigger than we were. Bob tells my instructor I’m not marching, I’m walking the parade route with him. Boy I thought I was in trouble. Truth is Bob knew it was my 21st birthday and proceeded to initiate me into adulthood by us staying ahead of the corps by a couple of blocks and him buying me a few cold ones. What he was actually doing was probing me about my future. He knew I was writing drill for high schools and had my own winter guard back home. Fast forward to Canton, Ohio. We finish the show and Bob is stalking me. He asked me,” How you would like to come on staff next year and be my right hand man?” To say I was shocked would be an understatement. How tight was our budget? When I broke a couple of tympani heads, we didn’t have any backups, so Bob sent me to Phantom Regiment’s part of the field we were sharing with them to ask for tympani heads. We also had a bad blowout on one of our two buses enroute to a show in Centerville. Bus One continued down the road, Bus Two stayed by the road for hours with the members asleep in it until Bus One could come back and take us on our way. It took quite a long time to get that tire repaired, I’m sure money was once again the issue. And sure enough, Bob gets it taken care of just before our show that evening. So we make our way to Montreal for DCI. We stayed in Varennes and on a whim ended up doing a parade for the local community. The night before finals, Bob and Moe order everybody on the buses and tell us, “Put something on nice and clean if you have it”. We end up having an unannounced banquet at a really decent restaurant. I recall one of the staff members commenting to Bob that we didn’t have the money to do this. Bob replied, “These kids stopped their lives for us, they deserve this”. I later heard Bob and Moe paid out of their pockets for the entire dinner for about 100 folks including the staff. Moe gave a very tearful speech on how proud he was of everybody and this wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of Bob and Allison Lendman. There was not a dry eye in the place and very few words were spoken heading back to our school. He asked that I say a few words at the dinner being the only age out of the corps, but I couldn’t after what I just saw and heard. I wasn’t in the mood to upstage anybody. We performed our prelim slot, came off the field and Bob was waiting for me. He shook my hand and said,” Thank you for coming on tour with us. Do you see why I needed you?” I broke into tears not because I just performed my last show ever, but the respect and admiration I had for this man. And just as Bob promised, after we made it back to LaCrosse, a busload of kids who most of them didn’t know what drum corps was, grew up very quickly in 2-3 months, jumped on that bus headed towards Iowa, Colorado, Utah, California and Washington to deliver “his” kids back home. We stopped at grocery stores along the way, pitched in what little money we had left and bought milk, cereal, bread, cold cuts and chips and sat out in the parking lots having our meals in true blue drum corps fashion. Bob and Allison drove all the way cross country to fulfill that promise. The Blue Stars went inactive in 1983 following the financial struggles of 1982 and I never took my step being an instructor or administrator for a drum corps. But I became a huge fan and I have Bob and Allison and Moe to thank for this. Moe Latour was inducted into the DCI Hall of Fame in 2002 for his contributions. Bob Lendman should be enshrined there as well. Bob Lendman, I love you, I have no shame in saying that and I will miss your sometimes gruff personality and life long friendship. May God watch over your soul… P.S. Excuse my grammar, this is way too long to go back and correct every mistake.

I'm sad to share with you that Bob Lendman has passed away. He was a former director of the Phantom Regiment and the Blue Stars in the 70's and early 80's. Bob was injured in a motorcycle accident not too long ago and the latest news sounded like he was recovering just fine. Anybody who knew Bob or marched under Bob's leadership can attest to what a great person and friend he was. Our prayers go out to his wife Allison and the entire family.

Agree. Madison 75 live is nothing compared to the DVD and LP recordings...

Brass- Jim Elvord, Wayne Downey, Gino Cipriani Percussion- Fred Sanford, Scott Johnson, Rob Carson Visual-Steve Brubaker, Todd Ryan, Greg Clarke Guard-Jim Moore/April Gilligan Tour Director- Jack Bevins Corps Director- Jim Jones Head Cook- (very important) Dawn Christianson Corps Mom- Ginger "Go get em kids" Smith Head Bus Driver- Allison Lendman and her her ability to navigate the narrow streets of Montreal Drum Major- Daniel Veerhusen and Al Go

Jenny McCarthy, although I have played craps with her for a couple of hours in Las Vegas.

One of DCI's great guys, Bob Lendman (Director 1976-1981) is in serious condition after a motorcycle accident in Florida on Tuesday, February 15th. He was airlifted to the trauma center at Shands Hospital (University of Florida) in Gainesville, FL. According to Bob's daughter Joan, he's pretty beat up but has not lost the ability to harass the nurses. Please join the Phantom Regiment in keeping Bob and the Lendman family in our thoughts and prayers. Read more: http://www.regiment.org/story.cfm?ID=1072#ixzz1EcgiqN3p

And the NFL goes to LOS next year. Don't screw anything up!

Ron, I have kept really good records of all of my trips and the one area you can add would be,"non drum corps tourist money". I usually make a habit of taking in the local tourist attractions either before or the day after DCI events and spend an extra day or two i.e. golf, museums, parks, Epcot, you get the idea. So I'll break down for you what I spend on DCI finals week only, not including the regionals and other shows I've attended since 1995. My budget has pretty much been the same since then spending more time and money in Florida and beyond. The tickets are the toughest one to figure out. I have bought them thru DCI, as a member of Friends of DCI, from the corps themselves and have been given freebies for the entire week other years. Since 1995, Tickets average $75 a year Airfare average $50 I have a frequent flier ticket I use every year for finals. Rental Cars, fuel, parking, taxi, shuttles etc., $150 Food and drink $250 Hotel $500 Souvies $ 500 Non drum corps tourist expense $200 Total $1725 That's about right but I'm sure if I paid for a full fare airline ticket that total would increase to around $2000 Before 1995, I"m assuming $1000 a year since 1975 minus the years I marched. I'm proud to say I went to my first DCI alone in 1975 as a 14 year old and attending every DCI 35 years in a row finally missing last year. I have done everything there is to see and do in the Indy area. I don't much desire to go there for 7 additional years. So, over my lifetime and outside of my marching years, I spent around $40k on DCI finals. And I thought my Super Bowl trips were expensive!

Yup, same Cotton Bowl lo these many years...

The Cotton Bowl doesn't look much like it did in 1991. The stadium was expanded to 92,000 seats with the enclosing of the upper deck among other renovations. It probably helps that Texas and OU are scheduled to play there until at least 2015.

Yup, the only time you see a halftime performance is during the Super Bowl and recently, the AFC and NFC chanpionship games and these are more Broadway type productions presented by "so and so". It's all about the money and more importantly (in their minds) the TV networks hiring every ex player and coach on the planet to get their "expert" analysis. In the early AFL days, you would about 5-8 minutes of band coverage and a quick lead into the 2nd half by the broadcasting crew on site before there was a studio sports desk back in New York.

FYI, Mike Lecrone did the commentary on the DCI "Best in the Midwest" video in 1975.

Wow, this is a big surprise!

I do as well. My brother was a bigwig w/ PBS back in the day and he was able to get me a copy. How he got his hands on it, I'll never know, but he has connections with some Canadian tv stations to this day, maybe that's the ticket. But he made me promise I could never make copies of it now more than ever ( Utube) without him getting into some sort of legal trouble. It also includes Phantom, Geneseo, Madison, St Croix, Freelancers, Defenders, Sky Ryders, Ventures etc...

Kyle in 07-08 maybe?

With all the complaints about the judges and their bias for/against certain corps, will there ever come a day where the judging panel would have no affiliation with any corps in their past? It seems like DCI needs to set up some type of system i.e. background check of potential judges and their credentials. Nearly every judge has either marched or has been employed by some type of drum corps. It makes sense that these are the people that are the most qualified and willing to become judges, but at the same time their evaluations cannot ever be considered equal across the board. One judge earlier this year was being raked across the coals for her numbers in some early season shows. I knew her from 24 years ago marching drum corps and she has been judging D2 and D3 corps for around 5 years or so. This was the first time I noticed her judging on a WC level and her numbers were way off both directions according to most people on here. But I knew there was no way she would be judging 1/4's, semis or finals on the WC level. I noticed Dick Saucedo judged open class this week. Could he ever judge Cavaliers fairly or any other corps he has worked for? Even as far back as 30 years ago, people were complaining about politics with Dave Bandy, Mike Deangelo in the 80's and Sandra Opie who have been accused of playing favorites. Should DCI go outside of their comfort zone and find educated people who do not have a previous corps affiliation and try and hire them to take on such a difficult job? It would probably take a lot more money to train them and to keep them employed compared to what we have today. It is a thankless job and I applaud my friend for doing her best, but I would never want to be in her shoes so to speak. It reminds me though of when I worked as a pit boss in a casino. There's a famous saying among card and dice dealers. You don't deal according to company policy as much as you deal to whoever is your boss that shift. It is a stupid but very true statement. I guess corps have to perform in the same manner, to whomever is on the judging panel each night. How they are ever expected to reach their peak by this manner, I'll never know.

At first glance, the San Antonio/Dallas dates do not make a lot of sense until you realize BD and SCV would most likely join up with and be part of the opening season shows in Albuquerque and Phoenix area on their way back to Cali. It is quite a long haul for Cadets, Crown and Blucoats to head down to Texas earlier than normal. Their profit margin has to be decreased with the added fuel expense, food costs and driver reimbursment etc.. I guess the others not headed to the west can justify that added cost by staying out on the road and participating in some other opening shows in the midwest. Omaha looks like it was planned so the G7 corps at DATR and Kalamazoo could meet up there. But if fans are on a limited budget and want to see all G7 corps compete, wouldn't this hurt the local shows within a few hours drive who normally have 2-3 G7 corps? Namely the Sioux Falls and Ankeny shows. And when the Austin show is scheduled for Friday July 22nd, I assume the DCI has already decided to do away with the Friday Houston and Lake Highland shows or there wouldn't be any G7 corps at either site? The interesting week though is July 31st thru August 7th. Three G7 shows in eight days with Allentown on the 5th and 6th. Well, Hop's West Chester show on the 4th shouldn't be affected. The question again though is, how many people would rather go to Akron and see all G7 corps perform than attending the Centerville and Massillon show with 2-4 G7 coprs in the lineup?. This could affect attendance in Rock Hill, Salem and Fairfax as well with the Charlotte G7 show close by and fans who are willing to travel to see all G7 corps. Not a good thing for the local shows we love to attend.

also, North Star 79, Ole! Sky Ryders 83, La Virgin de la Macarena BD 90, Pinball Wizard VK 84, Centaurian Starfire Suncoast 83, Aquarius

Madison 75 MacArthur Park BD 84 La Fiesta Geneseo 81 Eleanor Rigby Madison 79 Granada Smoothie Guardsmen 79 Tiger of San Pedro

I used to do attendance estimates at sporting events, outdoor concerts, festivals etc... for liquor enforcement. I stood on the upper level in the end zone waiting inbetween corps's shows last year, and I took a pic of the crowd. I'll try and find it and post it here later. My best guess last year would have been 15500. Pasadena I would say anywhere from 20k to 22k. 15k to 20k is probably a good ballpark figure any year.

The first corps I marched with, I went to a standstill w/ some of my school buddies. The percussion staff asked us if we knew anybody who could play tympani as they had lost one in their line. All of my friends were drummers, but they were too scared to possibly join the corps. I told them I'd be willing to go on tour even though I wasn't much of a percussionist at the time. After a long afternoon of q and a on both parts, I agreed to join as long as my parents approved. Just my luck, my parents were out of state attending my great grandmother's funeral as we were left home to watch over my Dad's business. I called them and told them of the wonderful opportunity that I was presented with. My Dad knew of drum corps but didn't really understand the concept of competition and touring and wanted me to stay home and work in his business. I think thruout high school, he saw me perform maybe once or twice in four years be it marching band, concert band, pep band, jazz band, playing in the orchestra pit etc.. He wasn't against music as he had me taking music lessons before I was in first grade. But the fact was he owned his own business, was bringing up 3 others younger than me and times were really tough in the country then. I'm talking during the recession in the 70's. My Dad brought up the money issue and who would take my place at work and pretty much said no, I was not going to do this. I could hear my mom in the background telling him how much I loved music and I have been dreaming of marching drum corps and they shouldn't stop me from living my dream. I took every penny I owned at the time so they wouldn't have to pay for anything. Heck, I even sold my car to have enough money to go on tour. Not that my parents didn't support me, but they had so many other things going on in their lives, they let me go and after the first year, it was obvious I would do this on my own every summer until I aged out. They never saw me perform in drum corps, which made me feel like I was out on my own whether it be drum corps or life. My dad who is now near 75 has gone to a couple of shows w/ me and has told me he's sorry he never saw me perform or helped me out to march at the time. My Mom who passed away ten years ago, told me on her death bed that her biggest regret was not seeing me march in a drum corps show, but that she was proud of me for volunteering and sponsoring others who I have no connection with for the past 25-30 years. She had mentioned she had wondered what direction my life would have taken had she agreed w/ my dad not to allow me to join. Now what I wonder is, what am I'm going to do with all the souvenirs I have collected over the past 30 some years when my time comes? Probably donate them a local school music program or somebody I have sponsored in the past who loves drum corps as much as I do. But they better have a good size truck, cause my collection is pretty large.

Off the line, production number, concert and stop time also???

I know the Morman kids we had in Blue Stars from Utah loved Old Style..