N.E. Brigand

Has any corps played the spoons? (That's a great source for cool videos of old music clips in a variety of genres, by the way.)

Some people definitely use the word "costume" with that intent. But this thread started with the Cadets themselves doing so.

It just feels so bizarre to me that we're nearing the end of the "season".

Most years, the Saturday of the Allentown event is also the day of the Open Class competition in Avon Lake, which is the closest show to where I live (20 minutes), so that's where I would have probably been this evening.

I wonder: did corps directors decide that "recognizable" just doesn't matter very much? That brand loyalty was never strong enough to put much money in the corps pockets?

It's quite liketly that people think is cool today will later seem like a ridiculous fad. We'll see, maybe.

Depending on how one treats 2011, this is the tally, right? 9.5 - Cadets championships using traditional uniform 0.5 - Cadets championships not using traditional uniform

Velvet Knights' gag with "All Night Long" was reused 22 years later by Cavaliers in their Machine show.

Ironically, Googling the name "Ike Johnson" reveals we can't talk about that person here.

"Ugh. What is it with men and The Godfather?" "The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom."

If you have a funny dog video featuring succubi and incubi, I don't think we want to see it.

-dogs? -frog? -ring? -etin? -horn?

Hint: Randy Newman and Peter Gabriel.

Blue Devils are famous for designing their shows to the sheets and maximizing their scores, but the implication of what you note is that in 1996 and 1996 wasted some effort on guard, no?

I remember one of my college roommates, who attended an all-boys high school, saying that his school's band opted not to compete because they didn't have a guard and knew they'd be penalized for it -- at that time, men were rarely seen in high school guards -- but then, as now, I think in many, perhaps most, marching band circuits, the color guard score was not counted toward the overall score, although visual and general effect judges certainly take the guard into account. In BOA, I don't believe guard even has its own judge, but a band with a weak guard, or no guard, will certainly get a lower score.

As I've mentioned a number of times, in 1988 and 1989, when I was a junior and senior in high school, the Garfield Cadets / Cadets of Bergen County stayed overnight at our school and rehearsed there the next day while our band rehearsed nearby. I have no idea who was running Cadets' rehearsals on those occasions, and I'm not sure which of the two years it was, but I distinctly remember our director saying to us, after he watched some of Cadets' rehearsal during one of our breaks, "If I yelled at you the way he yelled at them, I'd be fired the same day."

It sure would, but it might be hard to prove, and people are often afraid to stand up for themselves, or they legitimately are worried about hurting the organization in question. In this case, suppose Mandarins had fired this program coordinator after the 2017 season, and word got out that the reason they did it was because the former drum major reported him, but next year without his genuine design talent, they dropped from 13th to 18th or something like that. I feel it's pretty likely that there would be Mandarins' supporters complaining that it was the drum major who wrecked their chances at making Finals by not keeping quiet. Grotesque? Absolutely. But there are plenty of people out there who will blame the victim, particularly when punishing the wrongdoer risks hurting the status of the organization.

Not excusing their decision, at all, but I suspect the thinking was: we're enjoying competitive success and now on the cusp of making Finals for the first time in our history, and we believe that's due to the contributions of our program coordinator, and we can't risk that just because he said some mean things to some members. It's wrong, but quite conceivable. It's a little bit like some experiences being shared over the past two months regarding EDI issues. For instance, someone I know, a woman of color, who works for a non-profit, described to me how a board member at her organization made a number of racist remarks, but she didn't speak up (until the company recently put out statements explicitly condemning that kind of behavior and welcoming feedback from employees who might have experienced it) because she knew this board member has given millions to the company, so she felt that if she said something, the company would ignore her or maybe even let her go rather than risk losing a huge funding source.

I voted yes, although maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

And From the Pressbox now has also made this correction.

Some very interesting results in those Prelims recaps. Kudos to the Defenders, who were the fourth group to perform but finished in 18th place, beating 26 other corps.

Thank you. Fixed. It's wrong on the 1980 scores page at From the Pressbox, although the 1980 recaps download at From the Pressbox has it correct. I see that Troopers would have been in 13th place, but they had a larger penalty (0.7 for them; 0.2 for Blue Stars). In Prelims, all but one corps in the top twelve (the only exception being Phantom Regiment) and all but three corps in the top seventeen had penalties. In Finals, the only two corps not to be penalized were 27th Regiment and Santa Clara Vanguard. If not for a 0.2 penalty, Bridgemen would have tied 27th for the silver medal.

And if you go back to 1993, they've been in 12th place on 4 occasions.

Sounds like the inverse of that Old English proverb I quoted a few times recently: drum corps shows its participants what they can achieve.

This is the year that Cavaliers introduced the diamond cutter, isn't it?