bass5

And to note, as an 05-06 member who just got back, it kinda hurts (a lot) to read these comments... so I'll stop now. To the 05, 06 member, please do not take these ramblings on this site as the feelings of drum corps fans and/or The Scouts alumni. I marched in the Alumni Corps on Friday night and it was an honor to be representing the Madison Scouts again but YOU are the Madsion Scouts now. The biggest honor was meeting the current Scouts, putting our arms around each other and singing never walk. I feel the best thing to come out of the alumni corps for me is the close tie I feel again with the current Madsion Scouts. It is our responsibility to ensure that the Scouts carry on so in 20 or 30 years maybe you can relive the past like we did. Its a shame that the Bridgemen, Anahiem, and 27th are all gone now and their alumni corps are all they have. We have the best of both worlds because we saw you guys carrying on the great legacy of the Madison Scouts while we were able to put out an "old school" product for everyone. The Scouts are heading in the right direction brother, the talent level and athleticism of you guys astounded me. You got better each time I saw you this year and you put on your finest show of the year on Sat. night. Thats what life is all about, do your best always and you can and will always hold your head up high. I hope you're able to come back and march with the Scouts again next year and help continue their journey back to the top. Thank you and all my other young brothers for a great year. A special hey to my new "immediate family" members from the bass drum line. It was great meeting you all.

1975 1988 1995 For no other reason than I'm a Scout alumni and these are my favorite Scout shows.

In the Eau Claire Boys I had LaMont (Cubby) Paige as my first director. He was the horn instuctor, director and equipment truck driver. As an ex-marine he taught us young boys how to be men. In the Eau Claire Sundowners it was Gene Bartingale. Like Cubby Paige I would trust my life to this man. In the Scouts I had 2 DCI hall of famers Bill Howard and Scott Stewart as director & "assistant director". Both very much legends in the drum corps world. By the way Scott did EVERYTHING as an "assistant". When I was a poor college kid in Madison, Scott had a sponser pay my dues when I couldn't. Believe me I was not a star player that they needed. $160.00 was a lot of money in the 70's when I was living "day to day" as a student. Being brought up by a single mom (my father passed away when I was 3 yrs. old) the first 3 of these men were like fathers to me and Scott, being only a year older than me, was a like another big brother. to all 4

Believe me everyone. We are all so pumped up for this. It'll be 30 years for me since I performed for a DCI crowd. I believe it was one of the cymbal players yesteday that said he's more pumped than Barry Bonds after a visit to BALCO. We will not dissapoint!

I remember in 1976 somewhere in California on the first tour with Scouts 1976 disaster show and having the Kingsman pass by us in retreat. I remember looking over at Guerno and he had this big sh## eating grin on his face. I think everyone felt that way seeing Anaheim back in uniform and on the field again. I mean how cool is it to see Anaheims guard march in front of you and salute you! We should've all done one of these

Roark, Hopefully you'll be in Madison so we can have a beer at the Stadium bar (wear your groucho glasses so I recognize you). One thing the typ. players from your era said when they strapped on a bass drum at the first alumni camp was "man these things are way heavier than the tympanis were". Of course there is no one is in the bass drum line that carried a BIG tymp. If I remember we marched parades while you guys played tag football with the Kilties tymps Mike

There is a father/son duo marching in the 2006 Scouts Alumni Corps. The father (now 80) marched in the original 1938 Madison Scouts (he would eventually become the drum major) The son marched in the Scouts drum line from 1973 -1976.

I couldn't agree more. "Class and character" and "Top 5 Elite" though to some are not synonymous. There are some of the "elite" corps now with reputations of lacking in both class and character. I guess the definition of "elite" is the real question.

I was at Madison's show a couple weeks ago and the ushers stopped everyone coming in during a performance and wait until the corps preforming was finished. Shouldn't that be standard procedere at all shows. I've certainly been to a lot of shows where it wasn't. On a side note the usher in front of me was former Scout director and DCI hall of fame member Bill Howard.

According to the site the Sun Prarie Video should be up in the next day or two.

Madison Scouts 1976 - the entire "first show" was a disaster. Just think how good Madison would've been that year, I don't think it would've been so easy for the Blue Devils that year (although they were VERY good) if Madison had a good show to start with. I don't remember the exact show but Madison 1976, Bass drummer #4 dropped his stick TWICE in one show (.02 in penalties for the younger crowd) and Madison lost the show by .01!

Zorro Rangers - Rosedale, MD

Madison Scouts

I guess you'll have to define conservative, i.e "old time conservative" who believes in balanced budgets, smaller not larger government, government staying out of peoples lives, bedrooms, and women's health care, the bill of rights, the Geneva Convention OR the current "conservative" government??

Eau Claire Scouts in the 50's Became the Eau Claire Boys in 1959 then added girls in 1970 and became the Sundowners.

Just wanted to thank you personlly for pinning my Shoulder chords. I'm the guy playing the big bass drum. After the "death march" to the field saturday night (as the bass drummers refered to it) I wondered if I'd make it through but when we hit the field and heard the crowd I was 30 years younger again and back in Philadelphia. The adrenalin was incredible. Camp Randall is going to be beyond anyting I imagined I'd get out of this project. And to all my brothers "HOW @$**/#%@ FUN WAS THAT!!!

I'll go with two years, 1969 for all the reasons mentioned previously and because it was my first Nationals (ECB was toward the bottom of the 88 corps). Thats where I discovered how great a drum corps could be and I was hooked for life. 1975 because we won every show and showed everyone that in your face drum corps CAN win. Its hard to explain how incredibally fun that year was.

"Mom of Madison Scout" sounds like you're a very proud parent! I hope you'll be able to see your son march this summer (I'm assuming he's a current Scout). My mother was never able to see me in a show when I marched with the scouts years ago but she's 82 now and she'll be at Camp Randall on Aug. 11th to see me march in the Madison Scout Alumni corps. Its one of the many reasons I decided to march in the Alumni Corps.

When I first joined drum corps I was 11 years old and my best friend was in the Eau Claire Boys (anyone remember us?) so I signed up. I could "stay in step" so instead of putting me in the "prep corps" I marched next to some big tall guy that carried the American Flag in the "big corps". I marched in Eau Claire through high school. I started working and in 1974 (when I was 19 yrs. old) I saw Madison at a show in Milwaukee and said to myself "why am I sitting at a desk all day?" I tried out for Madison's drum line the next winter. I had no idea I would end up marchimg with one of the best drum corps IMHO to ever march. I am now marching in the Madison Scouts Alumni Corps because I can relive a great part of my past! I figure if they do it again in 10 or 20 years I'll be too old to carry a drum, I'll probaby go full circle and guard the American Flag.

The whole concept that more money = better product = better musicians = better drum corps does not sit well with me. Money tends to corrupt rather than benefit most activities in this country. If DCI went corporate do you really think it would benefit from it. Like sports, tickets would get so expensive that only the wealthy would go see the shows - or would they put bleachers on the back of the field for the "lower class"? I believe drum corps is slowly becoming an activity for the well to do and this concept would make it more so. How many of you out there that marched 20 years ago (or 30 to 40 years ago like myself) would have been able to afford modern drums corps? I marched with "out of staters" as we called them but most were poorer than the locals. This may be a HUGE misconception on my part but drum corps just doesn't seem to be the youth activity it was back in the day as far as bringing kids off the street and turning them into musicians and responsible young adults. Maybe its just all the money goes into the top drum corps and the small corps suffer. I'm new to DCP so this has probably been discussed previously but I thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in.

"A blog is NOT a public forum" Since when? If its available to the public, and you're as high profile as he is (should he be capitalized?), is IS public. He's just another powerful person used to having things his way and feels intimidation in this form will work, not unlike most people in politics.

I've been reading things on here for awhile so I thought I'd say a few things. First of I'd like to say hi to old friends (brothers) I see on here that I marched with back in the day (Roark, Guerno, Pearsony) and all those I'm marching with now in the 2006 Scouts Alumni corps. Second off I started marching 40 years ago and I love drum corps but I feel people get way too carried away with loving this corps and hating this corps, boycotting DCI etc. My god 1000's of people in the world are starving to death and dying of aids, soldiers and innocent people getting killed in Iraq and Afganistan every day. Just put things in perspective! Drum Corps is one of the best, if not THE best, youth activities in this country. It shaped who I am as a man and a person and taught me how to work at something as hard as you can and the rewards from both winning and loosing as it has for countless people sounding off on DCP on a regular basis. I do have some of the same negative feelings about the drum corps product today as I read about on DCP i.e. most shows are pretty vanilla and some belong in the State Fair circuit with "Up With People" BUT I will always support the young men in women marching and the staffs and design teams who work with them. They're all giving their best to this activity with countless hours of sweat and toil. Sit back and enjoy. If you don't like a corps don't belittle them, do what I do, go have a beer while they're on. Lighten up a bit and support the corps you DO like in any way you can (then double it) instead of getting so worked up about a corps you don't like. There are plenty of problems in the world where you can funnel that energy. By the way for those scouts alumni jumping all over Sal & his staff because you don't like the 2006 product. Keep it in the family, go talk to Sal or the design team directly if you're man enough but DO NOT TEAR DOWN THE SCOUTS IN PUBLIC!!! If you wouldn't berate you're blood family on a public forum don't berate the the great family we are members of either. There's my 2 cents. Hey everyone come see the Scouts Alumni Corps on Aug. 9th @ Memorial H.S. in Madison or @ Prelims Aug. 11th. We may have a lot of geezers like me but you may be surprised at the quality of the product. We've all been working our collective butts off. I'll be the oldest marching drumline member carrying the biggest bass drum.

This is the first time I have ever chimed in to a DCP forum but after reading prodigital's rant I had to say something. First of all I too am an alumni of the Scouts having marched in the drum line in 1975 and 1976. As most old drum corps fans know the Scouts staff in 1976 made some of the worst decisions in Madison drum corps (if not all of drum corps) history. I do not believe there was one man in the Scouts who thought "the design team should be fired for killing the Madison Scouts"!! The staff and design team are Madison Scouts as much as the marching members, its one big team working for the same goal to be the best corps and best people and group of brothers they can be. In '76 we pulled together as a team (staff and members) and worked harder IMHO than any drum corps of the day and almost pulled another win out of it. The Blue Devils were just better. I saw the Scouts last week in Madison and I thought their show was O.K. but could be better. I also think todays drum corps in general is O.K. and could be better. Most importantly on this subject I think Sal (the man who brought the Scouts guard into the modern era 30 years ago) and his design team and staff are doing everything in their power to bring the Scouts back to the top. As a side note I hope to see all the "old school" drum corps fans in the stands to check out the Scouts Alumni Corps on Aug. 9th & 11th in Madison. After 30 years I'll be strapping on the bass drum again.