Overhype

"Tom Sawyer" by Rush would fit perfectly with SCV's theme this year, and it kicks some serious b#tt, musically speaking. My favorite passage starts at about 2:25...

Here are the Freelancers in the 1984 movie, "Chattanooga Choo Choo." They first appear at about 21:21 and keep popping up for a while.

Once and for all, "Nocoats" is ONE WORD!!!

They yell "FREEBIRD!," the Lynyrd Skynyrd song they start playing right afterwards. Then they make a wing formation.

I discovered "B!tches Brew" recently and like it a lot! It reminds me of something that would have been at home in the BD 2013 show (Rite of Spring). I don't think an entire show of BB would work, but some of it in context of other music could be pretty awesome. I'd especially like to see BD do it!

I believe curvelinear drill was one of the most significant performance innovations, and I believe it was the Garfield Cadets that brought that in the early 1980s. I believe there had been some asymetrical drill in marching bands and pre-DCI, so I'm not sure how innovative that truly was for DCI. As far as off the field, I believe the national tour in the 70s was a major innovation. I believe Jim Jones of the Troopers was among the first to develop that. Though rock bands, other types of performers, and sports teams have probably toured nationally in busses, I don't know that touring with such a large group of performers and equipment had been done on such a scale. Sleeping on gym floors, etc. I can't think of any significant innovation in performance since Garfield in the 1980s. Many of the more recent evolution in DCI has already been done by other types of performing groups, so I would not consider that to be true innovation. While there have been many unique effects and props over all the years of DCI, at the moment, I can't think of many that became commonplace throughout the activity.

CROWN SHOULD HAVE WON!!! Oops. Sorry. Wrong room.

Well, there HAS to be a way we can ensure that Crown wins championships. Average the last three shows. Maybe average the entire season. Give BD an automatic -2 point handicap... better make it -3 just to be safe. Play a Dr. Beat real close to BD during warmup every night. Make BD go on first. Let the air out of their tires. Send Scott Johnson to Fort Mill. Whatever it takes, make it happen. That is my "modest" proposal. </sarcasm>

Anybody have the prelim, semi and finals scores for 1988? I'd be very curious to know how those would shake out. (I'm aware of corpsreps.com, but I don't believe they have scores other than finals.) I'd be curious about the years when there were ties and placement flips from night to night too.

Tickets sold. Mods, feel free to delete.

I wonder if "The Power of 10" is in any way a reference to the Cadets' 10 DCI championships.

The Blue Devils go to eleven...

My choices for champion are based more on my favorite overall program than by who I think was the most technically excellent. And I personally place much more weight on music than visual. 1983 BD - Though I love Garfield too and would not have complained at all about a tie. 1985 Suncoast Sound (Florida Suite) - Suncoast's music more than made up for any visual book they were lacking. 1987 SCV (like Russian music box come to life) 1988 BD (Jazz. Death to the blind draw!) 1989 Phantom (New World) 1993 Star (Barber & Bartok) 1995 BD (Carpe Noctem - edgy and dark for its time) 1996 Garfield (Beef!) 1997 SCV (Fog City Sketches) 1998 BD (Romeo & Maria, or whatever) 2003 Cavaliers (Spin Cycle) 2004 BD (choo-choo-trains) 2005 Phantom (Rhapsody) 2011 BD (A House Is Not A Home) 2013 Garfield (Barber) 2014 Bluecoats (Tilt)

1985 Cavaliers - "Also Sprach Zarathustra" I remember there being many crash cymbal players (red cymbals). I believe they were guard members, but they could have been other percussionists.

Some modern arrangers tend to arrange the snot out of their source material. They take out all repeats. They add 32nd note runs as countermelodies that wind up sounding like a poor man's "Flight of the Bumblebee" (gotta get credit for that 'demand'). Chop and bop, and completely change the vibe of the original piece. So by the time the piece has been "arranged," it may be recognizeable, but will probably lack the character of the original. This obviously isn't the case with all corps/band arrangements (BD 1988). But with genres like rock/pop, which rely so heavily on tones and ambience of electric instruments and effects, much is lost when translated to a large brass ensemble. I mean, imagine a U2 band/corps show without Edge's amplification and effects. Unless you have an electric guitar and/or other electronics, the music is probably going to sound more like a Sousa march than U2.

To the OP and others. What do you consider "alternative rock?" Could you name some bands as examples? I'm now in my mid-40s. Seemed to me, in the early 90s, that alternative rock was not really a musical genre, but a way of trying to separate then-current "rock" music from hair bands, new wave, and "classic rock" that came before. "Alternative" always seemed to be an ironic nomer, considering how immensely popular it was. It was really the mainstream at that point. But I guess they had to call it something. When I think of alternative, I first think of the Smiths and Morrissey. Sort of post-new wave music. I think differently of the flannel-wearing Nirvana and Pearl Jam; they seem more like post-hair band rock. In any event, a rose is a rose...

I don't see any particular problem with programming alternative rock (or any other modern genre), since corps arrangements of rock music usually bear little resemblance to the originals. I mean, sure you can tell what tune the corps is playing. But, for example, listening to BD 1990 play "Tommy" is nothing like listening to The Who. Go and listen to Peter Schilling's version of "Major Tom," then listen to Crown 2014. (Go ahead. I'll wait.) It is even close to being a similar listening experience? Did anyone really get a Pink Floyd vibe from Colts 2014? My point is that a good arranger will be able to orchestrate the snot out of any piece of music, and drum-corpify it. The tunes might be easily recognizable, or it might not (Bluecoats 1992). But in the end, a drum corps version of Green Day, Pearl Jam, the Smiths, or Nirvana (or whatever you consider "alt") is going to come off more like college marching band than as alternative rock. That is, unless, rock instrumentation is used, at which point we have to ask whether it's drum corps anymore. So yeah, go ahead and play whatever you want.

POTO has already been maxed out. I would not want a repeat, as it would likely be pale in comparison. The only retro should I would be interested in would be for corps to use retro instrumentation.

While I like modern shows just fine, I have to say that, if there was a contest of local corps like this playing tunes on G bugles, I would totally go.

Very interesting. I wonder how much dead time there was between shows back in those days.

Oh, I'm not saying that those things I listed ("jazz running, rocking back and forth, bouncing on trampolines, hanging upside down, squatting, lunging, gyrating, blindfolded, laying on the ground, fingering someone else's instrument, etc.") are not great effects in the opinions of fans and judges. I am saying that standing and playing (I call it visual tacet) and "park and bark" can also be highly effective. BD gets criticized by some fans virtually every year for standing still while playing and not moving as much or as fast as such-and-such other corps. Whether it's true or not, it is (to paraphrase you) the opinions of the judges who considered BD among the top handful in competition over the years. It's my opinion too. Presuming it is true that BD does move less, slower and has an easier book than other corps, it is somewhat surprising that other corps don't follow suit in an attempt to be more competitive, especially given how successful BD has been with their team's design approach over many years. Faster, harder and constant motion is not necessarily better.

I'll take this a step further and say that qualities like "challenging" and "simultaneous responsibility" are WAY overrated. Just because a show is difficult does not mean that it is entertaining or of effective design. Sometimes, it can be quite effective to just stand there and play well. And just because you can perform well while (for example) jazz running, rocking back and forth, bouncing on trampolines, hanging upside down, squatting, lunging, gyrating, blindfolded, laying on the ground, fingering someone else's instrument, etc. does not necessarily mean that you should.

Theoretically speaking, it doesn't make much sense to me that, in a "build up" system like we have, there is a maximum score. A max made sense in the "tick" system; a score of 100 actually meant perfection. Our current system puts judges in a position of effectively painting themselves into a corner, especially late in the season. I also believe it forces early season judges to artificially score all corps lower so that they have more room to improve over the season. I don't have a better model to propose. Hmm...

One uniform trend this year seemed to be the gradient colors, where one color gradually blends into the next. I don't know why it would be a trend, unless the same designer and/or company produced them. I don't think it's very effective, especially from up high.

No kidding. Brandon is 16 now. So how many more years of eligibility does he have? 5? I know he has received a lot of notoriety over the last few years. But really, how uncommon is it to have 16 year olds in the Blue Devils, in any section?