Scerpella
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Posts posted by Scerpella
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New York, New York from On the Town was the Scout's opener in 1977.
Yep. Bridgemen played it as well although not as their opener.
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Jim Brady from the Bridgemen 1977-1978. He played Land of Make Believe, Spanish Dreams, & Harlem Nocturne solo's . The guy was unbelievable!!!!
He marched with the Saints from edison n.j before coming to the Bridgemen.
George Lavelle
Bridgemen 79-83
He was in a class by himself in 77-78.
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Some folks in the corps are known to be commando every time they are in their kilt. Personally I did it in 2005 in Minnesota when the temperature was about 102. I cannot remember a more unpleasant feeling. Consequently I have not gone commando since. In fact, I typically wear some sort of compression shorts such as Under Armour. With everything on the Kilties uniform swinging and swaying, I decided I would control those things that I was able control.
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THis is a great phot because it shows Scouts in early 73 before they went to the Aussies. I can recognize two of the snare drummers here, Craig Matthews and Laki Theo who I marched with in 77-78.
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It was just called "DCI Champions." I have that one too. But it was Anaheim 72, SCV 73, Madison 75 and BD 76, since those were the first titles for each. It came out before the 79 season. Awesome. First time I heard Slaughter I plotzed. Unreal.
It was blue with silver block print on it.
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1973 DCI Whitewater - Santa Clara Vanguard and St Andrews Bridgemen
Young Persons Guide...completely blew my mind and St Andrews triple tonguing was new/old school beauty.
Argonne Rebels were third, Blue Stars 4th most listened to, Stockton Commodores 5th
Argonnes hornline played the hardest book of all and they never stopped playing for 13 minutes. Blue Stars had the best overall horn sound, something they continued to have until the 80's. Commodores were my guilty pleasure because they stole the Mariners schtick completely and did it better than Mariners ever could. Same uniforms same tunes.
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1965 VFW Nationals in Chicago. McCormick Place. The Who's Who of junior corps, with that mighty 65 Chicago Royal Airs corps winning the show. If you got an 89 back in those days, you were off the map!
1 Royal Airs 89.500
2 Cavaliers 87.800
3 Kilties 84.200
4 Troopers 82.700
5 Des Plaines Vanguard 82.500
6 Boston Crusaders 81.500
7 Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights 81.450
8 St. Joseph's of Batavia 80.850
9 Garfield Cadets 79.750
10 Skokie Imperials 77.250
11 Saint Kevin's Emerald Knights 77.100
12 St. Mary's Cardinals 75.450
13 Magnificent Yankees 70.850
14 Madison Scouts 69.700
15 PAL Cadets (CT)
4 out of the top 5 from within one hour of Chicago! 7 of the top 15 from within 2 hours!
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Set aside the emotional and musical differences many of us have with some of the changes in drum corps the last few years. Financially, massive loads of props not only cost $ to produce but they have to be hauled around, increasing the transportation and fuel budgets. The same for runaway pits. Xylophones and marimbas are expensive, electronics are expensive and heavy. Bringing the maximum member limit back down to 125/128 reduces the number of buses needed. Going to a regional system reduces travel. Changes in all of these areas would reduce costs substantially and (I believe) you still end up with a quality show on the field. We are also looking into ways to reduce instrument costs through rent to own programs as opposed to purchasing sets of horns or drums. Many of these ideas will be discussed at our inaugural meeting in Philly. BUT interest in the Midwest is very important to me, a kid from Kansas. If you can't be in Philly Nov 13th I'd like to have more meetings elsewhere, this is just the start.
There is no way to determine conclusively why people stopped coming but my observation is that as every new and expensive rule change hit, changes that as usual rewarded the top groups who pushed for these changes, more and more corps started dropping off the map. Every move DCI and the top corps made supposedly to revitalize the activity had the opposite effect. The activity became unrecognizable to the legions of legacy fans, small markets stopped being able to support shows which in turn choked off the flow of interested young kids into the activity. If you are interested in marching a top 12 DCI corps today, you are likely a college student, you are more likely to be in the performing arts and you have the wherewithall to pay a few thousand dollars while earning none for the better part of the year. You have to be willing and able to travel great distances since most DCI corps are "All Star" groups and the fact you come from the community the group is supposed to be from means nothing.
If DCNA can turn back the clock just a couple ticks it might reverse that trend. By that I mean, smaller pits, no amps or synths and rules that dont penalize groups for not having those things. Its hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube I realize, but since almost no one knows what drum corps is in the real world, they wont miss the Amps and synths and stuff.
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So how is that DCI's fault? Corps choose to compete where they wish. If DCM was not providing the experience that those corps wanted, it's not DCI's fault that they chose not to compete there.
Seriously?
DCI destroyed the competing circuits, DCM being the last one to go down. Then DCI tried to steal the DeKalb venue and weekend from DCM. Face facts, DCI has gotten everyhting its gone after and now its broken. The guys who did it admit it. The problem is the same that its been from the beginning. Instead of being an independent organization charged with always putting the good of the activity over the good of a few drum corps, DCI has been pushed in directions by the most powerful Directors that have always benefitted the largest and most well funded, much of the time to the negative effect of everyone else. Every change typically benefits the top 4 corps disproportionately then everyone else has to adjust. Its been all about building job and career security for a handful of people. Consider this: If DCI were a publically traded company how long ago do you think the shareholders would have deposed the DCI BODs of the last 20 years ?
Now this new circuit comes along which embodies many of the ideals people like Scott Stewart have been talking about for decades. My belief is that money remains the largest barrier to entry and operation to new enterprises. This new organization should concentrate on building organizations that dont need endowments just to get off the ground. Rules should reflect this commitment to theis simplified model. DCNA should represent at least in a small way, a step back to simpler times.
And DCNA folks don't think for one moment that if you start cutting into DCI's cake they arent going to go after you too.
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No one wants to see them? Really?
In a thread dedicating to wanting to see drum corps?
Wait, you mean there were no opposing viewpoints in the opposite thread?
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Thing is, the thousands of fans who have left didn't announce it on an internet forum, they just stopped coming. So if it makes people feel good to proclaim their loyalty to this broken activity, go for it. Considering the lesser number of shows, corps and fans who simply vanished without fanfare, you are in the great minority.
There is a great speech by Danny DeVito as Larry the Liquidator in the movie called "Other Peoples Money". This is a little piece of it.
We're dead, all right. We're just not broke. And do you know the surest way to go broke? Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market. Down the tubes. Slow but sure. You know, at one time there must have been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best ####### buggy whip you ever saw. Now, how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company?Its not a perfect analogy obviously. The shrinking market in drum corps case is caused by one disastrous decision after another made by the people who make changes year after year in the activity, mainly to prolong and guarantee their own careers. Now like the buggy whip manufacturers, we have the best darned marching musical units you ever saw. Except no one wants to see them.
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Here's the other pic I promised. This is the premiere of the Premiers, at a spring standstill in the Milwaukee PAC:
Evening with the Corps was usually at the Pabst Theater or the Milwaukee Auditorium, never in the PAC (Performing Arts Center) to my knowledge.
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1975 the controversial year where Muchachos were DQed, as Madison's drum solo "Dueling Banjos" begins you hear a very clear "HAAAWWWTHOOOORNE!". Apaprently this stuff was going on all night, not only Scouts performance.
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Whats ironic about this discussion as it descends into the usual characterization of legacy fans as whinosaurs and anachronistic, is the fact that by every objective measure of the success of an enterprise drum corps, doing exactly what the "drum corps is wonderful" (DCIW) crowd wants it to do, is failing miserably, so much so that the leading lights of the activity representing all the cutting edge art these folks like to swoon over, have pronounced drum corps so broken that the current configuration that they created must be scrapped for an entirely new model, one that allows the activity to becoming virtually identical to marching band.
Also forgotten in these ridiculous strawmen thrown up by the DCIW crowd that somehow old fans want to retrograde the activity back into the days of VFW and V-R horns, is that their position can be as easily mischaracterized as wanting stages, tape loops, narration, woodwinds etc etc on the field.
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whining little brats who hate on corps religiously
sheezus give it a rest Lance. We get it, no one may have anything but a positive opinion of corps!
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For 2011 I would like all corps to hit the field in June at precisely the same level with the same chance at a championship, until of course they prove otherwise. Unfortunately Drum Corps today spots certain corps 5 points just for being who they are. To be sure certain corps are probably actually docked 5 points as well. Into every top corps score is built in the secret "best design team" and "best everything else that has nothing to do with tonights performance" award.
All that matters is what 150 or so performers do for that 11 minutes. Everything else should not be part of any score.
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Not to derail the thread but....
Staff member Gary and I were referring to was in the pressbox right behind the lower deck crowd. IIRC some of the yells were done in the middle of phrases. And when I looked the guy was at the front of the pressbox which meant the crowd got to hear the encouragement a lot better than the corps did. Hell at one time he drowned out a softer passage.....
Jeesh..... and I'll probably be in the same hotel as the Hurcs again next year.
Oh yeah.... the ONLY coffee was at the OTHER side of the stadium...... and hot chocolcate was behind the end zone. Can't be in your seat to cheer if you're trudging to one or the other...
I have wracked my brain for a long time and I still don't know what IIRC is an acronym for. Please enlighten me.
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Sweeney Todd show complete with throat slitting.
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Nothing like going out on a date when you're 25 and impressing the ladies by saying, "Yeah I spend my summer marching and playing my horn ... I'm gone for over 2 months". Not so hot unless she's a band geek or ex drum corps person themselves. Know what I'm sayin?
Seriously! I mean how extended an adolescence do todays young people need?
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I meant the person in question was not with Madison in 1974.
Yes, but we all knew about it. This kind of borrowing was not altogether uncommon back then. Look on any corps bus back then and there were all sorts of purloined contraband such as street signs etc on them in more or less plain view. That said, many of us were a bit chagrined that such an important keepsake was not in SCV hands and it was with much relief that I heard the flag came back to Santa Clara.
I didnt know that Phillip had been swiped. I thought that wiser folks in the Madison camp realized how politically incorrect and possibly offensive a bi racial lawn jockey could be, even back in the 70's. It did appear at the MSARP performance in 2006 however.
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I don't know if it really matters all that much. The quality goes in before the uniform goes on.
Maybe you can start a thread about that, this one asks folks what uniform(s) made a lasting impression on them.
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DCI 1976? Trying to find a group pic of my old corps The Royal Coachmen. Anyone have an idea?
I dont think any company took photos like now do. I'm pretty sure that there were guys like Moe Knox and Art Luebke on the sidelines for DCW and such.
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For me as a member of a lesser corps, one that was past its great days of the 60's, the uniform that made an immediate impression me was Madison in 1973 when they added the Aussies. I was at a show in Milwaukee, the Big V show I think and Madison came by. I had no idea at first who they were because I was used the to boy scout hats. When they went by with those felt Aussies looking somehow both tough and super cool I was so smitten and jealous at the same time with the look and the music they were now playing that the seed was planted for me which took four years to finally sprout.
The 2010 corps wore uniforms very close to that although every guy had long hair in the 70's, one of the few unis that looked good with longer hair.
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Yes, the Corps that took it finally gave it back. Shall I leave them nameless?
Or will one of them come forward to answer for their "crime" ...hmmmm? 
Ummm we have no recollection of that Senator
Madison 2011 Rep
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted · Edited by Scerpella
New York, New York was chosen in 1977 to keep up the momentum of Rhapsody and Slaughter from 75 and 76. They were similar tunes with the same grand kind of broadway theme. I recall show coordinator Dave Richards and Scott Stewart talking about the NY Skyliners when they announced it. So its not all that surprising to me that once again NY, NY follows Slaughter and RIB.
The problem in 1977 was a huge exodus of veterans following the troubled 2 show 1976 (many of whom came back in 1978) The large amount of rookie hornplayers acquitted themselves well but the icing on the top (3-4 upper part lead sops) was missing. It WAS a great show beating everyone at least once in 77 except the the juggernaut Blue Devils. I still beleive the drumline in 77 compares favorably to many today. 2nd at DCI that year. This years Scouts will build on a great 2010 with an equally great group. I look forward to seeing this production.
The remaining part of the 77 show was all from Kenton's West Side Story. Considering 2005 I doubt they would reprise any of WSS.