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TomPeashey

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Posts posted by TomPeashey

    Guess Who?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted

    Speaking of which

    We lost one of the "good guys" yesterday

    Long time judge and arranger instructor Brady Rouse

    Our careers crossed paths many times over the years - he was an excellent drum corps guy from every angle

    His Marcus Whitman HS guards were legendary

    He's now painting the parking lots of the sky with dots with his dear friend Bruce McCready

    Guess Who?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted

    as for the Ray Fudge picture... I'd title that... "how to make a pussycat look like a lion"

    most of the stories I could tell about this gentleman couldn't be told...

    but I must say, he and his two brothers had the dang nicest parents you could ever ask for...

    His kid plays almost as well as him on lead and is versatile as he can also strap on a snare and keep up with the best...

    • Like 1

    Did DCA even have Inspections?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted · Edited by TomPeashey

    Inspection was one of the annoyances that helped create DCA... having some dignitary (army officer or whoever) actually take points away from the field score was completely against everything we stood for... however, I'll give you that close up we sure looked good back then... what choice did we have? So no, DCA NEVER considered inspections.

    True story... one of the times I saw Vince Bruni with true fire in his eyes... 1972 Legion Nationals Chicago Soldier Field... we got on the inspection line and looked as the "officer" was about to inspect us and low and behold it was the recently retired Mr. Caballero Ralph Silverbrand being honored by the legion by making him the "inspector general" for the day... a quick smile and Vince could breath again - he got the message loud and clear... I believe he found 2 ticks and managed to find the same 2 ticks on Cabs... but for a few seconds... TENSION did exist...

    While every part of this is accurate... I've been accused of misleading you because I referred to 1972 Legion Nationals Chicago Soldier Field... and of course inspection was at prelims which was held at some high school... generally I refer to legion nationals 72 as soldier field... sorry if I didn't cross the t's and dot the i's the way everyone wishes... duh... picky picky

    • Like 4

    DCA Predictions for 2015

    in DCA - All-Age Corps Discussions

    Posted

    Everything said above I can agree with... comparing 2010/12 to this year? I'm only using videos but it's considerably stronger... at 64 it's their largest horn line playing a ridiculously difficult but amazing book - and believe me, they do play well - Color Guard is in the 30's somewhere size wise and simply fantastic... front percussion is quite good while the battery will hold their own with most... They indeed, will be very close if not at the maximum allowed size of 128.

    Equipment - including electronics - is being provided by a major DCI corps and will all be top shelf...

    I'm excited - hope everyone else is too

    One other interesting fact... if you saw the pics I posted on facebook... this is no junior corps coming as an all aged corps... I predict they will have the highest average age in competition and probably the most experience to go with it. As they say - BRILLIANT!!!

    • Like 2

    Guess Who?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted

    couple of points (answers?)

    Yes this was all before the Combine and then, DCI... I can tell you that there were MANY phone calls between DCI people and Vince Bruni in the early 70's culminating with Pesceone resting at Vince's camp in the Thousand Islands after Ithaca in 1974. DCI avoided much controversy and saved much anguish by learning from DCA's history.

    As for Lefty and Cos... they could live as friends but when it came to competition on the drum corps field, they were both ruthless... I don't think "trust" was ever a factor - especially after the '72 crisis - nope... won't go there... All of us on here know what happened... Interestingly enough - especially considering what's often said by his distractors - those of us CLOSE to Vince Bruni begged him to give up the leadership of DCA. He was so danged honest that it was seriously hurting Crusaders. He was making decisions that hurt his own corps because he thought they were right for DCA. I for one, worried more about Cru than the general interests of DCA and had several arguments with him about it. I hope that I had something to do with his decisions and the emergence of Mickey Petrone as someone with the gonads to handle the thankless job.

    As for the legion and VFW, if from 1955 to 1963, they had worked together - Drum Corps as we know it might be much different today. Those of us in the activity wanted 3 things...

    1. one set of rules for all shows (frankly, it really didn't matter which rules as long as they were all the same)

    2. For the veterans organization to recognize that the WWII vets who ran them were getting too old to march and soften the membership rules accordingly

    3. Give the corps some say in the selection of who will judge them. Sponsors selecting judges was the biggest control they had over the corps and corps would select what shows to go to based on who they knew the sponsor would choose to judge them. Tony Schlecta maintained control of VFW with an iron fist and often determined the winner by who was chosen to judge. The legion did the same thing but it was more by committee and behind closed doors...

    Those 3 things were so obvious and really fairly simple to do and would have left the veterans organizations clearly still in charge - isn't hindsight great?

    • Like 3

    Guess Who?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted

    The last few historical posts are - for the most part - accurate, but considering who we are on here... that's no surprise... after all - we lived it...

    To clarify, the first meeting to form DCA was in the fall of 1963 in Scranton. In 1964, several shows were given DCA Sanction, but I don't think it was many. There were more in 65 and of course the first championship was held that year in CT with Bucs winning. The schism between corps which was basically between Lefty Meyer and Jim Costello became obvious...

    After the '65 Championship, Doc Sebastianelli arranged for - believe it or not - the American Legion to moderate a meeting which decided the direction of DCA for the next 50 years. From that meeting came the agreement which brought Caballeros to select DCA shows in '66 and brought both Caballeros and Brigadiers to the '66 championship in Bridgeport. Part of the master plan was to find a "neutral" person to run DCA who would not show favoritism to either NY or Cabs. The only person both Cos and Lefty could agree on was Vince Bruni. He was elected President for the 67 season and many years thereafter. Ironically, even though he was a major part of all the compromises, mostly because of the late September date, Vince did not bring Crusaders to Bridgeport in '66... However they would join Cabs in a full DCA schedule in '67. When all this happened, I was bouncing from Crusaders to Brigadiers, so my first championship was '66 with Brigs. I returned to Crusaders for the '72 season.

    It remains one of the ironic historical oddities of drum corps that the Association pretty much formed to take control of the activity away from the American Legion (and to a lessor degree, The VFW) was literally saved from a beginning wrought in controversy and distrust by senior officials of the American Legion who negotiated a truce that allowed DCA to not only survive but grow and prosper.

    • Like 1

    Guess Who?

    in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Historical Forum

    Posted

    lol she can flog away...

    didn't realize we were back to the old rules and only stop in every few days... sorry... Guelph has a heck of a history and was even important in the early days of DCA

    Commanders Andy? Orange sash? Ya think??? ORANGE satin blouses that couldn't be missed anywhere... they were an early merger corps that worked for a couple of years and they consequently had one of the largest horn lines of the time...

    • Like 1
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