Jim Nevermann

Back in the day, any drummer or drumline caught using drum stands --particularly corps-- would have been laughed out of the parking lot.

The Racine Scouts first did it when they wore conventional Scout uniforms years earlier, which would make that the early 1960s.

Quad bass... as in FOUR bass drums carried by one person? In 1967 the Boston Crusaders drumline, under Jerry Shelmer [sp?], opened the Pandora's Box with their iconic, wildly innovative double bass set afterwhich, for many years, corps and marching band drumlines followed suit. Triple bass sets were not uncommon either. In fact, the NY Kingston Indians and Canada's Toronto Optimists marched FOUR SETS of triple bass! But do you know for certain if anyone ever marched a *four* bass set, if even for a few shows or practices? I'd have absolutely sworn that I saw a corps do so in 1972... yet no one else seems to remember. I have a jpeg photo of four basses horizontally mounted on a wheeled carrier a few years ago, but that doesn't count.

They did indeed. I can only dimly imagine what they were like to pick-up... let alone carry at practice!

Ummm... biddle-et-whats? Please explain.

It did, indeed. Many thanks!

Please do! In the intervening decades, I've yet to hear from anyone who marched with CA. No... wait... there was one guy who later marched with PR, but that was years ago. And I still don't know what their uniform was like, who taught what there, nor who ran them. I know CA was a merger of the Scarlet Lancers and Phantoms [both of who I marched with] but little else.

But the Hawthorne Caballeros Alumni line, however, uses them to splendid effect! http://www.flickr.com/photos/avatar1/1343349628/ Unfortunately, living north and west of Seattle, I'm just a little too far away to march with them!

Aha! Do you remember which hand was in back, how the stick was held, and for how long you played that way? Oh c'mon... it happened only 32 seasons ago! Having seen the Hurc's do it at that DCA Finals, five years later I used what little I could recall of the move [which was only that I'd seen it once: nothing else] with my first HS line in 1980, for 8 counts in their drum solo. But it was almost impossible to reconstruct what I barely remembered in the first place.

After my second season in corps, I came back absolutely dazzled by the top corps at Nationals, particularly the Cavie's who won it... only to find myself [once again] in my HS band that just sort of made pictures on the field for each song and changed their show for every halftime. ACK!!! The contrast between corps and band drove me 100% absolutely nuts! *Nothing* that the marching band did could remotely compare to the incredible precision, the jaw-dropping creativity, and the utter coolness of DRUM CORPS... all of which I was so very, very lucky to have become a part. The year: 1966 [not a typo]!

The last jr corps I marched in, the Bellevue WA Sentinels, was announced once as the Senties. And the lettering style --a type of script-- on our buses, truck, and corps jackets was such that the "S" looked very much like a "P" or "L"... so we were more than once called the Pentinels or Lentinels. Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

It is/was indeed. After the initial success of their Timp-Toms [which, originally, were permanently connected together] Ludwig came out with a really versatile metal 'rail' type of rack, on which you could mount --and quickly remove-- not only the Timp-Toms [shown in the photo] but also the bongo/timbale cluster that jonnyboy mentioned, AND the bongo/conga cluster you see the right side of. In fact, Ludwig quickly thereafter came out with three different sizes of Timp-Toms: tenor, baritone, and bass... all of which are shown in the middle photo in the link below [New York's CMCC 'Warriors']. The top photo shows not only the bass triples, but also the later smaller-yet Ludwig tenors which replaced their 14", 16", 18" tenors. See them in http://www.rudimentaldrumming.com/oldphotos2.htm

Oh certainly. I was in the Wichita 'Phantoms' when the Sabre's first marched in 1967. You?

Scarlet Lancers, Phantoms, Continental Ambassadors... any of you out there?

The late 1970s 'Connecticut Hurricanes' sr corps did a move in one of their drum solos where the snares all turned 90 degrees and, for perhaps 16 counts, each played with one stick on their own drum and the other stick on the drum in back. It was really neat. I've eMailed around over the years, but no one seems to remember exactly which year it was, nor what they were playing during the sequence. I don't know if Ray Ludee was still teaching the line then or not.

A question for use in the WayBack Machine. You may remember that Ludwig designed and sold the first multi-shell tenors [Timp Toms: 14", 16", 20" x 12" deep] starting in early 1968. But you may not remember that they also sold Timp Tom 'doubles': probably 18", 20". I saw/heard two sets: the Racine Scouts and Seattle Imperials, though I know that other corps used them too. But what I don't know was when, if at all, Ludwig actively marketed those double Timp Toms. Unlike their ads for the triples, I never saw anything in print about the doubles: no photos, no nothing. It seemed odd to me, because Ludwig always had an ad blitz on ANY of their new marching drums back then, certainly in their quarterly "Ludwig Drummer" info-mercial magazine and more so in "Drum Corps News". Yet there wasn't so much as one blurb about their double timp-toms. Slingerland's "me too" hasty follow-up "Timp Tone Toms" had print ads of double and triple basses [single head, *wood* rim bass drums]. But there was nothing in print from Ludwig about their doubles... which is surprising because the triples were wildly popular. How obscure a question is this?

Add to the list: Racine's New Day and New Dawn, Enid OK's Legionettes, CA's Senioritas, Media PA's Fawns, and OH's Eagle-ettes. All gone, now... all gone. :(

I was a charter member of the Scarlet Lancers [1965] and the Phantoms [1967]. Both corps eventually merged [when?] and became the Continental Ambassadors. I have photos of the first two corps, of course... but after 40 some years I still don't know what the merged corps' uniform/s looked like, who instructed, etc. :( HELP!