MetalTones2012

I don't think anyone has figured out what's next, but shows are now becoming increasingly similar to the idea that BD created. Crown's show this year, while decidedly Crown in style, is a step towards BD's abstract nature in my opinion. The Cadets, who are next in the pack at the moment, are also doing that but more in the way Star of Indiana did in 93 (and not just because they're playing Barber, it's how they're playing it that matters). We'll see who innovates next, but the others are at least catching up.

I want to see Coastal Surge make their debut this summer, so I went on DCI.org and found this schedule: June 25th - Kalamazoo, MI June 26th - Pittsburgh, PA June 28th - Jackson, NJ Of course it is not my place to question a corps' strategy and it will definitely be a fun and successful summer for all, but why go all the way out to Kalamazoo and only do three shows? They're from South Carolina and could easily do a strictly mid-Atlantic/northeast tour for probably a little less and get more shows. I'm just curious, perhaps someone from Coastal Surge can give some insight into this decision.

http://micromarching.com/ This is about as close as you're gonna get. Unfortunately I can't think of a single other way this would work as a video game.

Why not just have a junior division of DCA? Seems like the logical way to go. Nowadays DCA isn't just about being all-age, it's about the weekend-only format that DCI has pretty much abandoned. There's no reason why junior corps can't capitalize on that while being separate from the all-age corps to make everyone happy.

From looking at the schedules, it looks like none of the Open Class corps from southern California are traveling out of their state this year. Is there any more info or corrections on that? It would be sad to find out that Gold isn't returning to Indy after their tremendous success last year, or that Impulse isn't trying again. The schedule does say that Thunder is going to Denver though.

I think the Spartans were selling theirs. Don't know if they still are.

Like almost anybody on here I marched in several different drum corps over the years, but out of all of them only one had anywhere close to a "perfect" situation. When I say these corps were imperfect I mean things that seem little, like old/broken equipment or too much dependence on member fees. All of the corps were stable and had fantastic management, it was more of a matter of long-term stability. If one small thing went wrong they would go inactive. Only one corps I marched with didn't run that risk, and even they had other issues. My point in saying that is that it's hard to run a drum corps, even if you do everything right. Genesis, Music City, and other recently starting corps would be lying if they said their success wasn't at least 80% based on luck. I know nothing about The Guardians' management and (with all due respect) I know better than to look on here for accurate information, but whether this guy knows what he is doing or not he has a long road ahead of him. That being said, I noticed a difference in recent start-up corps that have succeeded (even if only for one or two seasons) and corps that never made it to the field. When Genesis and Music City came out, they started having camps before I even knew they existed. Obviously planning for these corps had been going on for a long time beforehand, but they never told a soul that didn't absolutely need to know what was going on. They only started making announcements after they had already begun recruiting for their well-prepared first seasons. Magic of Mobile, Imperial Sound, and now The Guardians were all advertising themselves before they even had a plan. Sure they had ideas on how to meet their goals, but they barely started implementing them if they even did at all before everybody knew who they were. So my advice to someone who wants to start a corps, besides using common sense and doing research, is to assume your corps will not make it to the field. Do not build hype until you're 100% sure there is something to hype about. At the most, focus all of your efforts on recruiting members and staff after you've worked out definitive deals on equipment, a budget, sponsors, rehearsal sites, etc. And also, experience is nice but if you don't have it find someone that does. There's nothing wrong with founding a corps and putting someone else in charge of it. It's happened before and will happen many more times.

They're done. The administration put out an announcement that they were planning to bring the corps out again under a new name, but no announcements since then. Since camps have already started for all World Class corps, it's safe to assume they're not coming back.

Jersey Surf. They were LOUD last year.

I'm not saying that Forbidden Regiment is a bad name at all, in fact I kind of like it. But now that I've seen this description, I think The Guardians would have been better.

That's a real shame, it looked like they were doing well. At least they didn't just disappear off the face of the earth without an explanation or controversy like some other corps have.

Oh where do I start on this. Well first of all, Shadow of the Colossus is often overlooked. It has some of the best music in video game history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtgaQA8FTao And then of course there's The Legend of Zelda, which people have been wanting in a drum corps show for years. With each game that comes out the library of great songs from this series grows significantly larger and more varied. And then how about these? This game came out pretty much under the radar last year but has some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard anywhere, much less in a video game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNR-wsFAfiU&feature=relmfu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BvWPzAg8Ig&feature=relmfu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xweRl4LZlmo&feature=relmfu

In terms of the lighting, a band that I worked with tried something similar with a prop that was supposed to light up. Instead we ended up covering it in multiple-colored reflective tape (which worked just as well, if not better). The prop was supposed to run on two D batteries and the lights would have been bought from a hardware store. It's not terribly expensive depending on the scale, but there are cheaper alternatives (such as the reflective tape) and would probably never be worth the effort. As for fog, it's been done before. Watch Empire Statesmen (yes, DCA) from last year.

My God, at least post the Surf part! That's a really selfish reason to leave an entire forum in suspense.

And I thought last year was good! Can't wait for this one!

A large portion of Jersey Surf's membership has for a long time been made up of kids from Virginia and a few other southeastern states, but as far as I know there is no official satellite operation there. All the camps are still held in New Jersey and the members just make the long trek north every month.

In my entire drum corps career I have never had stage fright, even at shows where I do screw up. But anywhere else, like if I'm speaking publicly or performing on stage, it hits me pretty hard. I think (at least for me) the difference is the team aspect. On the field I have 149 other people who look exactly like me getting my back, so the pressure is significantly alleviated.

I felt this way my rookie year. I kept my mouth shut during the season and finished it, but I respectfully said what was on my mind in a casual conversation later and still got screamed at for not being loyal to my corps. It's a wonder how I marched two more seasons with them before I realized it wasn't the right place for me. That being said, unless you have a historically crowd-pleasing show that gets people wanting your autograph and pictures the experience is pretty much the same regardless of the music you're playing. If it's not about entertainment, it's about the competitive placement. With the way judging works a show does not have to be entertaining to place well or not.

Wow, I can't believe I've been granted the honor of correcting Michael Boo on drum corps history. This must be my lucky day. Taipei Yuehfu lost in finals by 0.15, this is true. However in GRAND Finals, they still lost and by a larger margin. I don't know anything about the penalty, but it's doubtful that they made the same mistake two nights in a row so on at least one of those nights their loss was due to the fact that the corps who won (the Raiders, by the way) simply out-performed them. Still a fantastic show though, it definitely won in audience appeal. But on the main topic of this article, I've been seeing a lot from Patria on Facebook and YouTube. Since they're connected to the United States by a landmass and don't have to fly (and they're from Mexico which isn't far at all), I think it could be a definite possibility to see them in Indy or at DCA in the near future.

A guy who delivered my pizza a few months ago marched Caballeros. He recognized an Academy shirt I was wearing.

I know a lot of junior corps have corps necklaces to represent their membership or the number of years they marched, but do any DCA corps have something like that? I don't know of any myself, so I was wondering.

It was synched to a MIDI recording from the pit, which is why they were able to use a pBone later on. They tried actually playing it with a trumpet but were threatened with a penalty, so the answer is no playing on the podium is not allowed. Yet.

This is a strange direction for them. But if it gets their competitive success up to the same standards as their organizational and recruiting success, I'm all for it.

Jersey Surf puts a tremendous amount of effort into local recruitment. They sponsor the TOB New Jersey State Championships and the TOB All-Star Band, and set up booths at a ton of other major marching band shows in the area. Yet still, a large portion of their membership comes from outside of the area. You could probably fill a whole bus with their kids from Virginia alone (which is still close enough to drive from, but keep in mind that New Jersey is part of two of the nation's largest metro areas). Part of the problem here is that there are SO MANY local corps recruiting the same way and it gets competitive. The Cadets have a booth at pretty much every USBands show, plus you have the Raiders and the best of DCA. Surf has been able to fill their corps just fine by taking in kids from the south and The Cadets will never have a recruiting problem, but for the rest of them it's a bit of a struggle.

The Cadets have had religious undertones in their shows for a while, it was just more obvious this year. Every time I listen to the 2007 show the "athlete of God" statement makes me turn my head, and then there were some more references in 2008's narration. Don't forget that their roots in Garfield's Church of the Most Holy Name still run pretty deep, even though the corps membership itself is non-sectarian. On a somewhat unrelated note, I've always wondered if a Jewish-themed show might offend Palestinians.