DLMillard

In 2015, actress and Musician Janina Gavankar had a vision. She heard a song and could re-imagine it. She loves drum corps and came up with an idea to turn the song she heard on its head. Behind the Scenes for "Don't Look Down": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUkgqtt4j6Q Finished Product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AETjNfRPhPI I think it's brilliant. Your thoughts?

Great article, thanks for the link, Linda P. The Edmonton Journal always did have good coverage on what we were up to, and where. I had to dry my eyes a bit after reading this though.

Is there any way this old drummer girl can her hands on that dvd, Linda?

In 1977, Peter Sutcliffe "The Yorkshire Ripper" was continuing his killing spree in Yorkshire England which had started in 1976. My Mom was very concerned that he hadn't been caught by the time we went to Europe, and the whole month of July was spent touring England. And Elvis died in August '77.

Those are some stats, Linda. The schedule of a rock group! Do any of your stats indicate how many autographs we signed along the way? That 24 hour ferry from England to Ireland (was it?) is still remembered by my stomach. Ugh.

We had several corps. locally in the 70's and AAG was the only one I ever wanted to be in, and had the privelege of marching with. SCV has always had a place in my heart too, though.

The orange Vistalite snare on the bottom right looks familiar. I'm so glad we didn't have the stripes though. Were they lighter in weight, my shoulder didn't think so. Wish we had the harnesses they have now.

In 1975, my first year in the Alberta Girls 'B' we traveled to a town called Olds, Alberta for a rodeo one weekend. It was our first public performance, I'll say it was in May. We did our drill in the mud, muck and horse buns of the rodeo area. The worst show in the history of our corp, I'm sure. Our french horn soloist was also a first year and very nervous. She hit every wrong note in the book. Thankfully there weren't too many in the stands but many of our parents had traveled there to see us. My Mom teased me about Olds for many years after. It was a disaster.

This morning I was listening to some of our show from 1977, specifically Miserlou/Hava Nagila and our percussion solo 'Clear As The Driven Snow.' Mike Duffy's arrangement of Miserlou/Hava is brilliant, stunning, etc. I know he and the entire hornline worked tirelessly on it. What a hornline we had! On my recording from August '77 it sounds amazing. Mike Whitney's arrangement on Clear As The Driven Snow...what can I say? Mike, if you're ever around here and read this Thank You and kudos for putting it together. LindaP had the only recording of Clear As The Driven Snow that I know of, and thankfully I have a copy on cd (thank you LindaP.) The basses, tymps and tenors were/are sensational. Oh, and what about that bad-### snare line huh? I guess the older I get the more I listen in wonder at the things we accomplished. Not only did I love to play that music, I love listening to it/us now.

I live in Montreal, bring it on!!! It would be fantastic to see in this magnificent city.

Nice pic, LindaP. I remember learning from The Master and Ralph and Sam Kays. AAG had the best instructors in them, Mike Whitney and Mike Duffy. I don't think we realized how fortunate we were at the time, though. hehehe

Merci beaucoup, Linda. You have some incredible pictures. I've been enjoying all the pictures of all the corps in this thread.

Thanks for verifying that Linda, I remember the parade. With all of us I think we were about a block long, just a sea of white coming down the street. I didn't know we ran out of uniforms though, that's amazing isn't it? I also remember Debbie G was there, I hadn't seen her for a few years but it was my 'job' to teach her the snare parts for the music for the Extravanganza. Don't remember how long we got to practice for it though, a few days anyway. Debbie G was so good, I'd play a few bars, she'd play it right back with me, cleanly, note for note. Our 'A' and 'B' drumline combined was awesome. The whole show was good considering some of us hadn't been around for a while. That picture you posted is kind of sad for me to see. It's the only picture I've seen of my last performance. I was 19. I wish there had been vcr's in those days to have been able to tape it when it played on tv. Can't imagine doing the fall down now though...I'd never get back up! Hahahaha. What's also kind of sad is all the history in that building including us being able to perform there, and that it will probably be vacant or demolished one day soon when the new arena is built. I always loved 'Northland's Coliseum/aka Skyreach Centre/aka Rexall Place.' It was new in this picture. Time has flown.

Thank you byline, looks great. I've tried with the programs I have and just can't do the job you do! And uh...Happy birthday to you as well.

And another one from somewhere in England - 1977

I've been taking time to go through all the pages of this thread, (maybe half way through so far) it's amazing and as someone mentioned this IS the history of drum corp., right here. Excellent pictures and comments, thank you everyone. I have a couple more from my days with AAG, this one is from a standstill show at Fairmont Hot Springs in British Columbia Canada - 1976 (again, my apologies for the quality.)

Linda, I left after '77 tour however I'm sure it was 1978 when everyone who could play were called together for the K Days parade and band extravaganza which was held at the Edmonton Northlands Coliseum, is that correct? (That's why my signature says 1978, because I did play for that.) We did our show from '77 for the competition at Northlands and we did the fall down at the end. If I'm not mistaken we placed 6th in the competition, but our drumline tied for 1st place with the 1st Canadian Regiment. I recorded that on cassette tape from the tv when it was shown a week later, and still have the tape. Is the picture you posted of the fall down courtesy of Mike Duffy on page 104 from that show in Edmonton? The floor looks like the floor at the Coliseum, and it looks like a judge standing there.

Thanks for the pics of '75 Linda, yes it had rained on and off during the parade and that performance if I recall correctly. Our DM was Kim B. That's true Ron Cain was there, Sam Kays and Ralph Hardimon were our percussion instructors. Our tour didn't start off so well though...ask anyone if they remember Olds, Alberta that weekend in June? I may have had one recording of a show in 1975, if so it's long gone and I don't know of anyone who has one. Now I got the music cd's in 2006 but didn't know there was a picture cd or I would have made sure to get that too. Do you know where that parade pic was taken? We did so many parades that summer in little towns, but it seems that with us going West and the A's going East we had the country covered that summer! lol

AAG 'B' 1975. We picked up 2 trophies at the Vancouver PNE parade, then did a show at the PNE grounds. This pic is when we were playing '2001 A Space Odyssey.'

I think the way you did it is pretty close to the original print, byline.

Pass a 'hi' to Debbie G when you see her please, Linda. Sorry I wasn't there for the rehearsal with SCV in '74, that was a little before my time in the 'A' corp. Look at the difference in posture with the harnesses. Amazing. The snare drummers' uniforms had cuts sliced in them at the side for the hook to come out, so our harnesses were under our unforms. But the tenors had to wear the harnesses on top of the uniforms, unfortunately.

Looks good, byline. Getting help from friends is always nice.

I don't think this topic has been discussed yet. We played many tunes in our days in Drum Corp. Which ones did you absolutely love to play? For colour guard members, which ones did you love the routine for? For drum majors, which ones did you love to hear? In 1975 my faves were Black Saddle, El Conquistador, 2001 A Space Odyssey and our street beat. (I can't remember what else we played that year.) In '76 - Oye Como Va, Send In the Clowns, Hava Nagila and our percussion routine The Clock solo In '77 - The Wiz, Killing Me Softly/Feelings, Miserlou/Hava Nagila, Send In the Clowns, A Fifth of Beethoven ('disco' version) and our percussion routine - the Doobie Brothers 'Clear As the Driven Snow.'

Colour guard at the Eiffel Tower show in Paris (again my apologies for the color quality, it's from the negative.) I loved it when they wore the orange uniforms in contrast to our whites, and I loved our color guard. I had this pic blown up poster sized, framed and hung on the wall as well.

Faster than you can say 'horns...UP!'