Robert Kirby

It was absolutely true. Check out NanciD's excellent site Historic Drum Corps Publications and you will read some mind-blowing things. Show reviews which criticize senior corps as being "good for a junior corps," followed by indignant letters to the editor denying any such thing. And yeah, this is pre-DCI, in some cases even pre-DCA. Robert

That's interesting. May one ask why? I've heard that asserted with reference to the mass of marching band members, as Tom Brace does in which immediately follows yours, but I never heard any of my fellow marching band members state that their reluctance to join a drum corps was a result of the key of the instrument. Robert

According to the article preserved here there were, back in the day, as many as 75 corps in Quebec alone, not to mention Ontario and the West. Robert

Kansas City Star. Name and sponsor all-in-one. Someone mentioned a third valve? How would one play such a thing? I mean, one hand for the piston, one for the rotor... Robert

I hear what everyone has said about how En Garde should have stuck to their guns, said "Up yours,DCI," helped form DCA-West etc. But... It sounds as if the conversation went something like this. "You're welcome to remain an all-age corps." "Excellent! We will, thanks." "Of course, we may find it necessary to re-evaluate the suitability of all-age corps at our shows. Beginning at the show three and a half months from now. Will you inform Renegades and SoCal Drem, or shall we?" If this is the case, did En Gare really have any choice? Robert

Soooooooooo close. Sunrisers are in good shape. They are in fact reigning Class A champs. Your general point is taken, though. However.... Can we agree that it is more sad when a junior corps goes crash than it is wen a senior corps goes crash? Don't you think so? Robert

The application of video effcts to stills is, for me, the worst of all possible worlds. I find either motion or stills preferable. I quite like BSS, so the music was fine by me. Best wishes for the coming year. Robert

I'm ..... conflicted about this. In my former job I was a personnel wonk, specifically a labor and employee relations specialist. So on the one hand, my default reaction is that personnel matters are not publicized. On the other hand, are DCI judges are DCI employees? If you caught me unaware and asked "DCI judges; employees or self-employed," I would have thought they are self-employed. One might call this a distinction without a difference but in my mind it is kosher for DCI to make public that it has decided for X cause not to renew the contracts of Joe Dokes, Mary Roe and John Doe to provide judging services, even if it is not okay to make public that they have decided for X cause to terminate employees Joe Dokes, Mary Roe and John Doe. Maybe not wise, but okay. On the third pseudopod, maybe it would be wise. DCI seems to be an organization described in Sec. 501( c )(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. As such, it is in part publicly funded, in effect. The directors of DCI hold their seats by virtue of their place as representatives of other partly publicly funded organizations. In such organizations, one frequently hears phrases like "We must not just be fair, we must be seen to be fair," or "We must avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing" or other expressions amounting to the same thing. I guess I would lean toward making the info public in this case, but unless and until Pioneer make a complaint, it's moot. And OT for this thread anyway. Robert p.s. Why would one write software that interprets "paren c paren" as the copyright symbol by default? Grrrr!

Friends, Romans, corpsmen, lend me your aurs! You have been too limited in your thinking. You can't see the forest for the wood! We must exercise our creative excellence, 'coz it's ALL ABOUT THE KIDS*. Brethren and sistren, I give you the EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) and the EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument). "LIVE from Indianapolis, Indiana, it's the 2014 DCI Summer Music Games, presented by AKAI!" SIGH Robert *The few with the cash to get into the few remaining corps. p. s. Is it mere coincidence tat you can't spell evil without an EVI? I think not!

I meant to post this when I first observed it, but first one thing and then another interfered. Did anyone else notice Scott Boerma's UM marching band at their bowl game. "Ladies and gentlemen, Springtime for Hitler!" Absolutely stunnin'. Robert

Some snior corps needs to do "Barnum" at Barnum! Robert

Saw two of them at the marching band contest hosted this year by the high school from which I graduated. Alongside a band with more than one-fourth of its members in the pit, a band with nine guard, three battery percussion and six pit percussion etc. I loved marching band when I was in it, but even then I thought a bass guitar in marching band was stupid. I still do. Robert

Whites? Plastron Inquiring minds want to know! Robert

Holy Moses!! Not one, but TWO corps with 13.4 in penalties. Now THAT makes it seem like thirty-odd years. Can you imagine those tapes? "Group tic, sops... and Frenchies... and mellos, flugles, baris and contras. And flags... and rifles... and national colors. Group tic, DM. Yeah, I know the DM is only one person, but his voice, hands and feet are all out of phase with each other. Group tic, staff... and audience... and the other judges." Yow. Robert

We used plain cotton gloves in my high-school band and junior corps days. Now I'm a leather glove wearin' contra in all-age corps, and it does make a difference. Robert

Being heavily into my Scottish ancestry, I also loved the Kilts as young dude, and still love them today. Their look, their music, their traditions and everything. In 1981 my junior corps, the Golden Knights of Southgate, Kentucky, was suffering its death throes, doing a season of parades and exhibitions. Our "tour" consisted of a trip to Chicag-Io-Wisconsin for July 4th weekend. At some point in that weekend I saw the Kilts and became even more of a fan. So the next year, being without a corps, I considered going to Racine. I think it's probably good I didn't. When Kilts folded after that year I would almost certainly have gone to Pride of Cincinnati, my remaining local corps, for their remaining two years. I wonder who would have run the risk of letting me march my age-out year with them? California Dons, Avant Garde, Illiana Lancers, the list goes on and on!! I would probably still be in therapy for killing off four corps in five years. Robert

One of my fellow old-timers veterans is going to have to throw me a life-line here... Sometime between '77 and '83. Scouts or Cavies, or maybe 27? Rifles do a toss, lay on the ground, and the horns march over the rifle line and beneath the free-falling spinning rifles. Robert

Okay, I'll bite. What is the significance of July 17, 1984. Robert

Earlier in the fall, folks were hinting about possible new corps in California, Canada and Massachusetts. So, we have seen chatter in this forum about En Garde, Pembroke Imperials and Kingston Grenadiers. Are these the corps people had in mind, or are other projects yet to be announced. The DCI event announcement page for the Lawrence, MA show says that we can expect to see the Crusaders All-Age Boston, MA. Is this a typo for Rochester Cru, or are Boston Cru Alumni/Senior going to make a competitive appearance or more Bored Midwestern corps fans with inquiring minds want to know! Robert

Steve and Chris, Thanks for the good wishes. I don't know whether it was the good vibes or what, but we had four new cats come out for the horn line on Sunday. I'm new with this corps, so I don't know all the percussion folks yet, but I think we had someone in that section I hadn't seen before. So it looks like we're growing again, though there's always room for more folks. Robert

Gimme my 60 Hz hum, baby! Robert

Not speaking for the OP, just for me... It bothers me because the way an individual or an organization uses language says something about that individual or organization. For good or for ill. When a drum corps refers to "students" and to "graduates" it seems pretentious, overblown. Rather like a film, television episode or book being described in advertisements as the greatest ever. It is so wildly improbable that it discredits the product. Mind you, it is equally improbable that a film, television episode or book is the worst ever, but such a claim is viewed as humorous, so one doesn't mind. I care about drum corps, so I don't want it to look ridiculous. It seems to me that when a corps uses "faculty" and "graduate" they come across as self-important, and to use them is just begging to be made fun of. Many people make fun of kindergarten and grammar school "graduation exercises," and to a certain degree so do I. So much so that I felt compelled to put them in quotations. My friends in the UK even ridicule our high school graduations. I suppose that I view traditional educational establishments, and even accredited non-traditional establishments, as having a gravitas in their courses of study which entitles them to use these terms with a straight face. Drum corps lack this. I don't wish to be misunderstood: drum corps can offer a tremendous experience, and perhaps even a great education in certain narrowly focused performing arts. It just isn't a broad academic experience from which one could seriously use the term graduate. Contrast this with Joe Bob's Dog Obedience School. Who cares if they call it a school and hand out puppy diplomas. Or the time honored use of the term "professor" to denote the piano player in certain entertainment establishments. These clearly aren't self-important apings of the academic use of graduation. It is for his same reason that alumni does not provoke the same response. Alumna, alumnae, alumni and alumnus each have their place. USAmericans have turned them all into "alum, plural alums," thereby taking away the weight af the term, even when it is used as alumni and not in its shortened form. It seems to me that the use of the other academic terms in drum corps is self-important and pretentious in a way that the use of alum or even alumni is not. Maybe Interlochen uses "faculty" instead of "instructors" because it actually is an accredited school as well as a summer camp. They do sometimes refer to "campers" when they mean those attending summer camp, so they seem to have a sense of balance about everything. To me it seems that a change from "member" to "student", from "instructor" to "faculty-member", from "age-out" or "reach adulthood" to "graduate" just reeks of a desire to be taken seriously, of trying too hard to establish one's bona fides. I guess that what Mike sees as an "admirable effort to attract scholastic musicians and make the activity more attractive to band directors," seems more like wanna-being to me. Somewhat akin to the phenomenon of every third martial arts instructor being a Grandmaster. In the words of a great singer, who's zoomin who. Finally, it was far more important to me that I was a member of the Golden Knights of Southgate Kentucky than it was to be a contra student at the Golden Knights. This difference in emphasis, it seems to me, could be beneficial to the members of today's corps. Robert, GK 1981, Te season that never was