Hup234

And why is that, I wonder, that it's still being called what it isn't? Nostalgia for a vanished past, maybe like that of a bereaved wife who just can't discard her deceased husband's belongings? Or did the self-appointed powers that be just never get around to putting the coup de grace to the honored old name itself after changing just about everything else that they could change about it .... kind of like Delta Dawn with her faded rose of days gone by, and like Lola at the Copacabana who still sits there so refined?

The following was originally posted on a DCI forum: BOBSMYTH, DCP Veteran - Posts: 998 - Joined: 18-August 05 From Chicago wrote: "Drum Corps died in 1971. They had T-shirts made and everything." Bob Former Marching Member - a long time ago. Fan - ever since. I'm surprised and gratified that some still remember this message-t-shirt from thirty-nine years ago. It was black with white lettering and had an illustration of a clown dancing on an upright gravestone marked with the classic "R.I.P." inscription. The lettering, as I recall, read "Drum Corps Died - 1971". The creator and talented artist was Bill Bastian of Kenosha WI who was a lead soprano for the just-disbanded OLHR Queensmen. Bill was between jobs at the time and ran off a quantity of these t-shirts to turn a buck off the then-widepread dismay over the newly non-traditional shows that the powers-that-then-were had been promoting as "total programs", i.e. a clown capering about on the field during the Madison Scouts competitive offering and, what was it again, Alice in Wonderland with the Cavaliers? (Some years ago, Bill had said he had no recall of doing those shirts.) Who still has one of those prophetic t-shirts, and could we see a photo of it? Thanks.

Mirrors? They need mirrors up in the grandstands to make them look like the pre-DCI standing-room-only days some of us remember.

Thirty-five years from now, the kids on the field today will have only memories as there won't be a current activity then to be critical about. Count the numbers. Do the math. Look around you. That said: We who marched back then have a name: we are alumni. You and the others here who like to joke and dismiss us as inconsequential - and our opinions as irrelevant - make my point: your activity today cares nothing for its formative history or those who were there. Every other competitive activity except yours holds its pioneers and their experienced opinions in esteem and respect. Your opinions aren't unique here, but they're very telling about what your activity has become and what's in store.

I actually thought the "What's color pre?" folks were all going for bittersweet sarcasm asking what color pre was, like you might joke about "What's a Plymouth?" or "Who's Al Gore?" or the song "Daddy, What's A Tree?" ..... but they really didn't know the term. Think any other competitive activity dismisses its history, even relatively recent history, as quickly as this one does? And you know what the philosopher said about condemning history ...

Indeed. As was the American Legion's Uniformed Groups Congress. And after that was when the now-unleashed artistes came into D&BC strong, their ####-the-cost/lights-on-Broadway dreams no longer suppressed by silly, archaic rules moderated by veterans groups who bristled at any tune other than "You're In the Army Now" (or so the effete, pedantic New Wave staffers/leaders had been claiming in order to win their arguments for drastic change in D&BC.) So the '70s and '80s rolled on, and as the corps began to die for lack of nourishment from within and without, the newly-spandexed New Wavers dismissed that as the age-old 'survival-of-the-fittest'. Except that the total numbers of participants was also shrinking. Many corps couldn't keep up with the artistes' sophisticated new de riguer equipment mandates and Nouveau Riche uniforms and marching trends; and they began to disappear in wholesale lots. Fewer corps meant fewer contests and farther distances to travel to the remaining contests, and greater costs, and a resultant strain on a shrinking total membership, the recruitment of which was now directed towards attracting only trained talent .... just like Broadway. Still, all the dazzling show offerings from the top remaining units blinded everyone to the underlying, worsening rot from the bottom up, and the DCI leadership continued on its merry way with hardly a thought to the hundreds of corps with their thousands of members who were gone forever. Occasionally there'd be token nods of regret over DCI's disappearing underclass. But DCI did nothing about changing the root causes of the terminal decay. After all, weren't those finals so spectacular each year? It's nearly over for all but the big boys now. Oh, I believe something will continue on, but just what is anyone's guess. Maybe some VFW or American Legion post or PAL or Boys & Girls Club or church somewhere - unaware or more likely uncaring over all your current mess - will pass out some G bugles and cheap drums to the neighborhood kids so they can march in the local parades playing "You're In The Army Now". And then someone in the next town over will say "Hey, we can do that, too!", and pass out bugles to their neighborhood kids, and .....

Your anger is understood. Sounds like my anger in 1971 when the Midwest Combine started up within the [then] more-winning corps and almost exactly the same elitist principles. The difference is that nobody seemed angry about that then. Instead, the rest of the then-many corps - which the Midwest Combine not-so-secretly called "crap corps" - joined them in the new anti-VFW/anti-AL Drum Corps International, the George Orwellian "All D&BC are equal now" organization. And everybody forgot who/what started DCI and assumed (we know that word well, don't we?) that they meant what they preached. (I'd said all that here in not so many words ten years ago to whomever would listen; it was met with yawns. The few responses were angry; it seems I'd somehow denigrated their heroes, you see.)

Excuse me, but I was just on my way over to Jamaica Plain and tripped over that bit of blue-sky idealism there. I don't know your group's specific policies, but my definition of "all" as in "the collective good of all" is all. Taking the time and effort to teach rookies, green walk-ins, I'm talking neighborhood kids without the money or resources to have the turnkey talents that make life easy, giving that segment of the population a chance at having a lifelong experience instead of just seeking out pretrained band kids all the time, does your group still do that? Back in my pre-Lindsay-Lohan day, all the many, many corps we had took in anyone who wanted to belong. And if by chance we got lucky and some experienced kid walked in, we didn't charge him a couple hundred bucks, for the crying out loud, to have him sit down and audition. Today it is what it is, but youth-centered for all, it's not.

All this anger and indignance over the Orwellian concept that "all D&BC are equal but some D&BC are more equal." None of this is new, you know, and D&BC could have used some of this anger and indignance back in 1970 when the first rumblings of elitism were raised in our then-ecumenical D&BC family. Drum corps was really on a roll then. Oh, we might have looked over our shoulders at the new Midwest Combine to see what all the fuss was about within that bunch of upstart malcontents. Still, we didn't worry about it much, although we heard that the MC considered all the rest of us non-invited bourgeoisie "crap corps". Hey, the rest of the D&BC in America were all basically happy at the time, with upwards of 500 D&BC competing every week and recruitment at an all-time high. Little did we know at the time in our happy ignorance. Today D&BC is at its lowest ebb, and the only solutions that its leaders can think of -- beside adding woodwinds and vocals -- is to fracture the remainders of the activity once again. I'm reminded of Pete Seeger's song of being "knee-deep in the Big Muddy and the Big Fool says to push on." Maybe soon "G-7" will also be what DCI exclaims when counting what's still left on its membership roster: "Gee! Seven??"

A fallen flag, unfortunately. Forty years ago this Labor Day weekend the Boys of '76 were Top-Ten DCA finalists.

There was a comparison brought up between football and D&BC. Good simile, because football and D&BC once were very similar in their macho appeal to the young, with fantasy battles being portrayed on a field of honor. Football, basically unchanged, still does appeal, and is more popular now than before ... while D&BC has purposely gone the route of feminizing its packaging in every respect. The latest goofy trend is to be pedantic; the instructional staffs have become "teachers" and the members "students", and the seeming goal is to provide an "educational experience" to all those many youths out there clamoring to spend their summers being educated.

There was a comparison brought up between football and D&BC. Good simile, because football and D&BC once were very similar in their macho appeal to the young, with fantasy battles being portrayed on a field of honor. Football, basically unchanged, still does appeal, and is more popular now than before ... while D&BC has purposely gone the route of feminizing its packaging in every respect. The latest goofy trend is to be pedantic; the instructional staffs have become "teachers" and the members "students", and the seeming goal is to provide an "educational experience" to all those many youths out there clamoring to spend their summers being educated.

Hey, we could have used all this anger and fear back in 1971 when the strutting Midwest Combine elitists hijacked the activity with their unforgettable phrase "Crap Corps", their term for any D&BC that wasn't to be in their handpicked royal court. What finally got everyone suddenly aware that your activity is in a death spiral? It certainly wasn't anything I've been saying here as an outsider over the years. Check it all out. (No shortage either of people reminding me that my doomsday scenarios here were less than welcome. Which I understand, really. It's why people whistle past graveyards.) What follows should all have been said in 1971, and it wasn't, and the bills have now come due: "The idea that there is now the elite of the elite is at best frustrating and at worst probably the end of the community of drum corps. Making the top 12 is tough as it is, paying for making the top 12 even tougher, and committing to the top 12 when you have to face things like college education costs, family support issues - - almost beyond bearable. It almost seems like an afront to those who are trying to keep the activity, the corps, and the community involved in this lovely activity. Now you already have the top 12 set in place and the rest get no support from DCI to keep the activity even remotely accessible ... What the non "elite" are doing to keep this activity open and functioning for all ages and levels is amazing. I include in this thought all the alumni groups and all other aspects. They should be praised and supported and lifted whenever possible ... I fear DCI has done nothing but create an elitist team - that if you are good enough to make, and rich enough to be able to pay for and not planning on going to college or get a job .... DCI could be an organization that does something positive and supportive for ALL branches and levels of the activity - - but they aren't ..."

Thank you for the reply. I propose that DCI's policies of permitting and even encouraging costly instrumentations and other experimentations that effectively excluded all the financially-tenuous corps from any hopes of being anywhere nearly as competitive as the better-situated units led to their premature demise and resultant cost spirals for the surviving units that attempted to compete in ever-fewer and more-distant contests. But we will at least agree that the DCI predecessor Midwest Combine was based on unapologetic elitism with its membership-by-invitation-only policies.

Right on. We really could have used you in 1971, belisarius, when the Midwest Combine was hatched (ironically enough in a lavatory), a movement that was not only based upon elitism, it openly celebrated it. With you and me and a few other Paul Reveres seeing through the smoke at what was really behind the curtain back then, maybe there'd still be nearly 1,000 drum corps on the fields and streets all over America each summer weekend.

Indeed. :-) And thanks for proving my suspicions, Mello, about most people here jumping to reply after reading maybe six words of the previous post. Then again, we realize it's a fast-moving world out there where irony is increasingly an endangered species. ("GAAH! RUN! Hup234's resorting to IRONY! What's next ... SARCASM? Nooooo .... (choke)...") Ahem. Now then, you other busy and/or short-attention-span types may wish to pass the following up, as it may demand linear thinking ... It's too late now to save the system. It's nearly over. Maybe ten years ago it could still have been turned around. I posted on RAMD then a lengthy strategy to save D&BC. It was quietly ignored, and nobody even got angry at my presumptiousness. Today, though, you remaining hardcore loyalists do get angry when we I-told-you-so outsiders post our thoughts. That tells me you're finally catching on, and that now you're running scared. Understandable. Yep, the Mod Squad that worked to change D&BC around so that it's totally unrecognizable from its roots has won its point. But look around ... what have they won, really? Where are all the corps, the members, the audiences, the shows, the fans? The Mod Squad and their progeny hijacked the activity in 1971 and laughed at the past while they tried to reinvent the wheel. (And I don't even blame them for trying ... I just blame those sheep who let them run on unchallenged.) Sure, the activity continued on for some decades under their rule, but only because of the momentum that had been built up during the Golden Age. But the engine's finally out of gas now and it shows, and like Pete Seeger says, you're "knee-deep in the Big Muddy, and the Big Fool says to push on." I also like the words of Edward R. Murrow, when he'd sign off with "Good night, and good luck."

Don't worry about losing the older fans. They're long gone. Oh, they gave DCI a chance for about ten years but finally vanished in the 1980s after the Mod Squad succeeded into changing D&BC to the "Bolshoi Ballet Meets Ingmar Bergman".Of course They don't *want* to lose ticket sales, but They have always known what's best anyway, and all the little 'theys' let them get by with their ultimate goals anyways as they gazed with sighing admiration upon the lofty Theys who set policy, so let's forget all that tradition stuff with color-presentations and concert numbers and start-at-the-left/finish-at-the-right genuine Beginnings and Endings that those old poops at the VFW/AL who started and nourished the D&BC movement invented, those silly old fuddy-duddies who were still fighting WWII and who didn't matter anymore because, hey, "We're gonna do Total Programs now!" (Remember those 1971 Midwest Combine buzzwords?) "What's that you're saying, old-timer? Ninety-five percent of America's D&BCs have folded? Ah, but look at the QUALITY of what's left! You just don't get it, Gramps. Now get lost because we're in charge and we're cool and you're not, and ... hey, where'd everybody go? It's 2020. Guy walks into a bar (maybe at a VFW post) and asks the bartender "Hey, who won DCI Nationals this year?" Bartender says "nobody". Za-boom!

We could have used you in the early 1970s, Granny, back when the 500-something corps we had in America then were either drinking the Midwest Combine clique's fresh new Kool-Aid, or worse, thinking the MC wouldn't ever have any influence on them.

HOLD THE DATE… AND PLAN YOUR TRIP TO CHICAGO FOR THE ALL-CHICAGO AREA (1940s THRU 1970s) DRUM CORPS PICNIC ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2010. As a result of many discussions with our drum corps friends, this distribution is going out to various drum corps alumni (Royal Airs, Cavaliers, Norwood Park Imperials, Vanguards, Viscounts, Madison Scouts, Kilties, Chi-Angels/Cougars/Spartans, Giles Yellow Jackets, Nisei, Grenadiers, Lamont Scouts, Queensmen and Mariners). (If we inadvertently omitted anyone, please let us know.) For some time now, it has been discussed that we have a picnic for all corps in the area. This is now going to be a reality. We have been in contact with numerous people from several corps and have received positive feedback. We have just secured a picnic grove which is centrally located in Barrington Lakes, Illinois. This is a new facility with a shelter large enough to accommodate 100+ people. This beautiful facility on the Fox River is kept very clean, has modern indoor bathroom facilities, many electrical outlets, BBQ grills and a fireplace. There will be no fee to anyone for the picnic. This will be a family-style picnic; bring your own food and drinks. (Liquor ... in plastic or aluminum containers … IS allowed on the premises). Children, grandchildren, etc. will be welcome. There will be organized games for kids and adults, and possible entertainment. Reminders forthcoming with further information (exact location, time, etc.). If you should have any questions, please contact the representative who distributed this e-mail. Drum corps-ally yours, J. Adrianne and Ken “Mouse” 847-395-8160 Adigirl48@sbcglobal.net kflig@sbcglobal.net

Actually, the longtime nucleus of D&BC - untrained youths who were recruited, mentored and nurtured by more-experienced members - were told they weren't wanted, that only experienced players could apply. Less players, fewer corps - fewer corps, fewer contests - fewer contests, lessened public interest - lessened public interest, fewer corps -- and the beat goes on. Or, more accurately, that's why the beat doesn't go on.

'Many', you say? The word 'many' when discussing D&BC is far more appropriate for talking about the Golden Age than it is for talking of the activity as it is now.

Yes, okay, those names/units still exist, but you know exactly what I'm saying and I'll stand by my comment.

Excellent. RA is the very last remnant of genuine competitive drum corps in the once-glorious Midwest, the last flame that burns brightly among the dead husks of an otherwise lost and wasted heritage. May the years to come bring vitality and inspiration. Godspeed.

This activity, unlike most other enterprises, never learned from its failures (or from its successes, either.) D&BC was immensely successful and popular in the late 1960s, but the seeds of elitism were being sown by a few then-influential and outspoken (read:self-appointed) leaders in the more prominent corps. Whether it was all about instructors/salesmen hawking expensive equipment --- tymps, marimbas, bells, xylophones, and goofy fads like flapjacks, double-bubbles, spinning drums, one-head percussion, oddball bugles and other short-lived junk that few smaller corps even wanted or could afford but were pressured to buy "to stay competitive", or whether it was just an effort to grandstand ("look what WE have!"), nobody from the 'great silent majority' tried to stop it. The slow death intensified when the Midwest Combine was formed in the early '70s, with its closed-off invitational-only policies, elitism became the accepted norm, and again nobody spoke out from the still-strong mainstream. The failures intensified when the 'artistes' infiltrated the activity about that same time. And those in the beginning-to-dwindle activity kept silent. And now with total membership and participation at its all-time low, those still left continue on the same course, still awaiting further developments. When I look back over the decades on all this, I can't help thinking about the parable of the boiling frog.

You need to ask Golden Age alumni what's missing today, but of course that will not happen. What's missing --- besides all the drum corps --- is the fire and brimstone and hell-for-leather in-your-face spirit of those days. You know --- the stuff that made D&BC the kind of thing kids wanted to join.