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LOL! Oh, wow, I've never heard this story. I can only imagine what that felt like. And hello to a fellow Oakie! :)

You could very well be right. I know the crowd was loud. But I've also read this explanation on RAMD: Re: Santa Clara, and the Bottledance

From a musical standpoint, you're correct. However, the guard held it together somehow. I'll never figure out how they managed that. One of those sad moments in history that you wish you could rewrite. Just rewind the tape, and this time they play with no phasing. Let it happen the way it was supposed to. *sigh*

One minor detail I haven't seen mentioned yet (and it may be assumed by everyone who knows . . . and anyone who doesn't). But as I recall, it was the T/P (timing and penalties) judge who fired the gun at the beginning and end of the execution judging period. Edit: Oops, sorry John, I see you mentioned the T/P judge in your post. Can't recall if I ever witnessed the "flailing arms" technique, though. I'm sure I'd remember it if I had. :P

I did a search on corpsreps.com: Junior Corps 1995, Southern Illusion, "The Time Warp" (from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") Senior and Alumni Corps 1975, Rochester Crusaders, "Rocky Horror Picture Show"

I was marching Oakland that summer, but for the life of me, I can't remember where I was when I first heard the news. It would've been through my fellow corps members, of course. What I do remember is being at a show later on with Spirit, and wondering how they were coping. One of those things I regret is that I never approached any of the corps members and asked. I knew it had to be hard; that wasn't the point of asking. Maybe someone would've appreciated the concern. Who knows what to say or do in those situations? But maybe that's OK. Maybe it was understood that everyone felt badly for all the people in the Spirit organization . . . and yet we all knew there wasn't a whole lot we could do. As others have noted, Jim Ott's legacy lives on. Here we are, still talking about him, still remembering his magical touch with music.

We called it the "chair" step. My high school (Vincennes, Indiana) did that through the beginning of my freshman year, when our head band director quit and the assistant replaced him. That's when we began marching "corps" style (1973), and it was the first time I'd ever heard of rolling your feet while marching. We also did a high-knee-lift mark time, but the technique for that was very different from the Big 10-style "chair" step.

No, Rita Moreno did her one and only turn on the DCI telecast in 1980. I think the gal's name was Pat Birch. She was a Broadway choreographer who had some interesting insights into where the future of drum corps and choreography might lead. And, ironically, she was right. I'll give Rita credit. I didn't like her comments about Two-Seven, but other than that, I thought she was one of the best guest commentators DCI ever had. She was enthusiastic, asked intelligent questions, and I can't recall her ever saying "band" even once. She gets a gold star in my book just for that.

Thanks for the help, everyone. Yes, JoJo, what a relief! I'm not losin' it . . . yet. :P You're probably right, Rich: stoned, not bored. Either way, Carmine's participation in the telecast--or the lack thereof--was abysmal. I hate to think how much money DCI wasted on him for that gig. Going back to Randy's comment, I think the Whitewater telecast still featured all of the Top 12 corps' performances in their entirety. But I could be wrong about that. The reason I didn't consider that one in my original question is because it wasn't DCI finals, and I'm not even sure it was live. Was it aired later on? That's something I'm having a hard time remembering. And Steve, my memory isn't so far-gone that I've forgotten who the guest commentators were. :P Both of the people you mentioned were vastly superior to ol' Carmine . . . which made him look especially bad. But I'm trying to remember. Which year was Chuck Mangione a guest commentator? He, too, was a lot better than Carmine, though it seemed a struggle for him to express some of his thoughts. (The basic answer to that, I think, is that he's a musician, not a commentator.) I'm thinking that must've been '83, because the Broadway choreographer (can't remember her name) liked what a lot of the guards were doing, but seemed unimpressed with Garfield's guard. And I'm pretty sure this was the first year Garfield won. (This gal was a sort of co-guest commentator along with Mangione.) As I recall, she said that they looked untrained, dance-wise, but yet what they did had a lot of impact because the entire guard did it in unison. Interesting how that trend has pretty much reversed itself over the years, eh? So who was the guest commentator in '82? Or was it just Rondo and Jim Peck? Uh-oh, time to get out the videotapes. Edit: Oh, never mind. Now it's coming back to me; 1982 was the ghastly "voice-over" telecast of Rondo and Rob McConnell. Yet another reason to buy the "Legacy" DVD for that year.

I think Randy is right, that Carmine Appice was the guest commentator--such as he was--for the Whitewater telecast. What a waste of air time. I've always chuckled at Curt Gowdy's little flubs, but at least he had something to say and said it with some enthusiasm. Carmine Appice sat there through the whole thing looking like he was bored out of his skull and couldn't wait to get the #### outta there.

Ah, thank you, Rich! (Sorry, somehow I skipped over your post and was replying to Randy up above.) What a relief! The reason I was just a little bit concerned was because of the whole taping thing. I wasn't actually there, parked in front of a TV, during the live telecast, but only saw the tapes afterward. So there was some uncertainty in the back of my mind. Like, had I been assuming incorrectly all these years? But thanks to you, now I know I'm not just imagining things. Whew! :) And, like you, yeah, I miss those days. Of course, we at least have the advantage now of buying videotapes and DVDs, so it's not like we're going to miss out entirely (if we can afford to fork out the big bucks, that is). But I always thought that four-hour live telecast was a luxury that wouldn't last. And it didn't.

OK, but I'm asking about before '82. Specifically, 1979 and and '80, and any years before that. The point being that at one time, the PBS telecast featured every single corps' performance in its entirety. Then, in the early '80s, they began whittling away at that, gradually easing into more of a "highlights" format. Can any old-timers remember back that far? I'd like to think I'm not making all this up.

I posted about this in another thread, saying that all of the Top 12 corps used to be shown live, all shows in their entirety (not edited), on the PBS telecast. Someone else challenged me on it, but I could've sworn that was true. Please tell me this is not just my imagination. . . . Here's what I posted, based on my recollections: Maybe I'm remembering this wrong--it wouldn't be the first time--but I could've sworn I watched all of the Top 12 corps' shows in their entirety in 1979 and 1980. These were videotapes my college band director had the university's audio/visual department make of the PBS telecasts both years. I thought it was live, but maybe I got that wrong, too. I just remember that I was marching those years, and while I was away, my parents watched the telecast on TV. That's why I had to wait for a tape, because I was there at finals. Not performing, unfortunately. Just watching. So there was no way for me to watch the live telecast on TV. I remember being upset because I thought I was never going to see the telecasts as long as I marched, but then I was overjoyed when I found out my band director had taped them. I remember a comment my mom made several years later, after they started shortening the telecast to more of a "highlights" program. She said she liked it, because it went from being a four-hour marathon that she had a hard time sitting through to two hours, which she found more agreeable. (Needless to say, I disagreed. I wanted the four-hour marathon.)

Thanks for that explanation, Tom! It's always great to find out a little more drum corps history. I figured corps had to be doing it before the early '80s. After all, my high school band director didn't claim it as an original thought. He credited it to drum corps, and we were marching that style in the early '70s. I've always remembered the corps he cited being Santa Clara . . . which would make sense, if Troopers were one of the corps that started using that style. Didn't Pete Emmons march Troopers? (I'm thinking he was their drum major in the mid-'60s.)

I guess it depends how well-defined the "heel/toe" roll is. But I know my band director taught us the "glide" step, which was very different from the more jerky "Big 10"/Bill Moffit-style marching we'd done previously. My band director was deliberately copying the smoother marching style he saw drum corps using because he felt that would improve our tone quality by minimizing bouncing in the upper body, thus keeping the embouchure and breath support as steady as possible. That was a big thing for him, and was one of the reasons why he preferred corps-style marching to the "Big 10" style we had been doing. (I guess I should explain how this change came about. The summer of my freshman year, 1973, we were still doing the Moffit style and preparing a show for state fair. The band I was in had had a great deal of competitive success with that style, but its popularity--and my band's success with it--were waning in Indiana. At band camp that year, our head band director announced he was retiring after we competed at state fair. Then, our assistant band director would become the head band director. It was no secret to most of us that the assistant had been pushing for years to switch to more of a corps style, but the head band director wouldn't hear of it. He'd been trained under the Moffit style, and he wasn't about to change. So he retired, and his assistant took over. Now that I think back on it, it was a pretty weird year. We started out Moffit-style, did state fair, then immediately switched over to corps-style and learned a brand-new show for the fall contests. And, I might add, not without a fair bit of resistance from some of the older band members. But we did it, and stayed with that style all four years I was in high school.) I know I'm not imagining that, because it was such a huge stylistic change for our band. (For example, the technique of a corps-style "high knee lift" is very different from the "chair step" . . . so we had to work very hard my freshman year to "unlearn" our old marching technique and replace it with this style.) But I do believe that as drills have increased in speed and complexity, the emphasis on the "rolling" motion of the foot has increased to where it's far more visible today than it was in the mid-'70s. P.S. I may be attributing it to the wrong corps. (Remember, this was 30 years ago.) I remember him talking about us emulating Madison's high knee lift, because that was something they were known for. And I'm thinking he got the idea for the glide step from several corps of that era, but especially Santa Clara. He showed us all kinds of films of them so that we could see their technique and try to copy it.

Yup. I know that my high school band director taught us "heel/toe" marching in the mid-'70s, and that was based on the style of marching he saw Madison and Santa Clara doing. The point was to roll from the heel to the toe to minimize bouncing, whether that was for a horn player (to smooth out the sound by preventing as much jarring to the body as possible) or guard member (to prevent bouncing of equipment). So I know it's been around at least that long, and probably longer. As you note, it's probably been emphasized more and more as drills speed up, and the need to streamline the amount of excess body movement increases.

Yup. I would've been thrilled just to make finals. :( And, of course, we all know about Oakland and the drum trophy they didn't get to take home in '77. If the corps had made finals, I can't imagine any Oakie ever forgetting that caption award.

And I took my own notes at finals that year; Santa Clara is who I wrote down for best guard. I just thought it was funny that the poster marched guard in Santa Clara that year, yet couldn't clearly remember her own guard getting the guard award. (She also marched Blue Devils' guard in '82, and she has a question mark by them that year, too.) I would've thought that would stand in one's memory. But now I'm reading jojo's comments and thinking, "Well, maybe not."

Well, this is interesting. I did a Google search and found an old RAMD posting, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. The posting lists 27th Lancers winning best guard in '75, Blue Devils winning in '76, and unfortunately, '77 is blank. And she even has a question mark by one of the guards she marched, Santa Clara, in '78. (She also marched Blue Devils' guard.) So I'm not sure that this does anything to solve the mystery: Championship Color Guards @ DCI

Thanks...that's not what I mean...BD did win high GE those years, but I believe we maxed out in guard, they did not. Only if there had been a tie with BDs guard would they have been announced instead of us. I'll look back in our books, I beleive I may be correct. I don't remember BD winning guard in either 76 or 77. Thanks for your help. I did know for sure we tied with SCV in 78. Ah, OK. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. So, in other words, the GE score was the tie-breaker if there was a tie between two or more top scores? (Gee, if we had tie-breakers for caption awards, how come we never had such a thing for a first-place tie, overall, until recently? You'd think if it was deemed important enough for caption awards, it would be deemed important for the championship trophy. But I digress. . . .) OK, so I went back to my yearbooks and read them a bit more closely. It's really irritating, because I don't see a guard caption on the recaps until 1978 . . . and even then, it's only worth a measly 2 points. (I can remember us talking about that in terms of 20 points, to give it a more meaningful ring. Like, if a guard scored 1.7, we said they got a 17.) Unfortunately, I can't find anything that specifies the top guard for 1976 or '77; just '78, with both you and Santa Clara getting the top guard scores (2.0). Santa Clara's 2.0 surprises me just a bit. I wouldn't have said that till I watched the videotape/DVD of finals that year. Not only did they not have any weapons in their show that year (which, in my opinion, diminishes the overall demand of the equipment work, so I would have a hard time giving that guard as high a score as a guard that does use weapons and executes that equipment well). But there were also what, to my eye, look to be a few timing errors and/or performance breaks that are pretty obvious on the video/DVD. So I would say 27th Lancers (even with the pom-poms; after all, Santa Clara used hoops and a maypole) should've been the winner of the guard award. We've had this discussion before, but it is too bad that such a fantastic rifle line got relegated to pom-poms for a fairly significant portion of your show. I'm sure it was all in the name of GE, but the guard loses a lot of its power (not to mention one of its trademarks; a great rifle line is one of the things you were known for) during the pom sections. I don't doubt that Two-Seven got best guard in '76 and '77. I just can't find it documented in my yearbooks . . . though there's certainly no shortage of praise of the fine guards 27th Lancers always had. It was probably mentioned on the album liner notes for those years, but I don't have them. And it's not mentioned in the "Legacy" DVD liner notes.

I only have yearbooks going back to '77 (which includes recaps for the '76 season), so I can't help out with '74 or '75. But going by the high GE score from the finals recaps, you can add these to the list: 1976: Blue Devils 1977: Blue Devils 1978: Santa Clara Vanguard Also, I took notes from the 1978 finals, and wrote down Santa Clara as the winner of the guard award (though, according to the 1978 DCI album liner notes, 27th Lancers' guard did score a perfect 2, along with Santa Clara, that year in finals).

It's funny, but I don't have the same negative reaction to the term, "twirl," that many folks here seem to. (And I've actually marched in a band that had twirlers.) The way I look at it, color guard has borrowed a lot from baton twirling. Certainly, some of the finest guards--Blue Devils and Miller's Blackhawks are two that come to mind--have drawn on their baton twirling background to enhance their equipment work. Some really wonderful innovations in flag and weapon technique came directly from twirling.

Both. For me, spins are push or drop/easy and normal handspins. Twirling, IMO, involves some of the other movement that isn't just a set spin (tosses, butterflies and other twirling-type movements).

We had a name for those: Dixie Cups. We had brand names for everything. Like, when the flag gets caught around the top of the pole: It's Q-Tipped.

Actually, I believe the "drop spins" are more involved.....not so much difficult, but just more expectations from both hands. Where as in "push spins" the left hand is doing most of the work.....while the right, is pretty much stationary. That's true. With push spins, the left hand does all the work; all the right hand does is stay in place as a kind of brace, catching the flag every second count. With drop spins, both hands are involved . . . which I think is part of what leads to the flapping of the arms. As the right hand the flag down into a drop position in the left hand, it's oh-so-easy for those elbows to raise up. With a push spin, the right elbow is always going to be lowered because the right hand isn't really going anywhere. Interesting how differences in the various types of spins result in such different techniques. But one has to be aware of the technique of both in order to execute them properly.