jbeatty89
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Posts posted by jbeatty89
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After seeing some bits of Crossmen, Troopers and Blue Knights on YouTube I think it's fair to say that Crossmen and BK will be in the same cluster of corps this year.. My guess is the Troopers will probably be behind both of them when all is said and done. Very anxious to see what the Colts, SOA and Blue Stars have in store for this year. The fight to get into finals is sure to be exciting again!
James Beatty
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One more thing to consider. In 1996 Crossmen only had half the drill learned at the first show in the third week of June. We were still picking up members till mid-July. From the looks of it things are falling into place fairly early this season.
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It was a YouTube clip in early June. Pretty difficult to get any sort of "read". Personally I'm pretty excited to see them this summer. Love the new uniforms and looking forward this seeing this show cleaned up at the end of July. Good luck this summer Crossmen! Work hard and pay no attention to the critics. Those who can't do, judge.
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I like the new uniforms and the show. There are going to be some great moments once it's cleaned up a bit. I Really love the high energy opener.
James Beatty
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Ok I've thought a lot about this from another thread, so I thought I would see what you thought? Is it tougher to make finals now or in the past 70s, 80s, 90s.... I can't help but wonder where my beloved 97 and 98 BKnights would've placed nowadays.... Realistic- no and I know the equipment advantages of now, but competitively drum corps now may be the most competitive ever!!
Wes P
Speaking from my perspective as a member in the 90's I think it is far more difficult to make finals now than it was then. I look at what 15-10 placement corps are achieving now vs. then and it truly is no comparison in my mind. I think overall the music difficulty hasn't really changed much(With maybe a few exceptions) but visually the design of these shows and the demands on the performers is absolutely incredible. I find the shows were maybe slightly more entertaining for me personally back when I marched. But I am definitely more impressed with the things I see these corps doing now.
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As a Raleigh, NC native, I've gotta go with Tarheel Sun! Always surprised with how they could go on after big name guns like BD and Cadets and still manage a standing O! Miss em!!!!!
They seriously came out of nowhere. I can't remember the year maybe 97 or 98 but they played a bunch of Stan Kenton stuff. I remember seeing them practicing on a nearby field and couldn't believe the the sound that came from that hornline.
James Beatty
Spectrum 92-93
Patriots 94-95
Crossmen 96+97
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Oh yeah one more, somebody will probably railroad me for this but 'Round Midnight by the Bluecoats in 1993.
James Beatty
Spectrum 92-93
Patriots 94-95
Crossmen 96+98
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I really think BD House Of The Rising Sun 2002, and When A Man Loves A Woman in 92, were much better than the original versions.
Also, Crossmen doing First Circle 98 is just slightly better than Metheny version. But both versions are great.
I could not possibly agree more with When a Man Loves a Woman BD 92
I'll add to the list:
everything the the Glassmen played by the Moody Blues in 1994
Appalachan Morning Crossmen 1992
Puma aka the Rainforest Crossmen 1992
Clair de Lune Phantom Regiment 1994(Originally written for piano, it is a way better drumcorps ballad)
Earth Song Crossmen 2012
Even though I marched 98 Crossmen I'm not sure I agree about First Cirle being better than the source, I do think that it's probably the best version of any Metheny tune ever put on a drumcorps field. That song was totally meant for a drumcorps to play.
James Beatty
Spectrum 92-93
Patriots 94-95
Crossmen 96+98
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I'm not sure if this would qualify as iconic, but I always think of iconic drum corps tunes as ones I have never seen performed as part of the show but still part of their repetroire. I think mostly because many of them were played before my time. So with this working definition I will nominate Cadillac of the Skies- Cadets. They played it for victory concerts in the mid to late 90's and was always one of my favorites to hear live.
James Beatty
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So… Crossmen are going to win? They're the corps doing the West Coast swing this year.
It wasn't that long ago when they were the best corps to never win a championship... But might take a few years to get to that point again.
James
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I like Crossmen back in finals!!!
I long for the days where Crossmen are knocking on the doors of top 6. Hopefully a return to finals this year!
James Beatty
Crossmen 1996, 1998
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I recall Boston went down to a pre show to play for Pat Metheny and he had them play for the crowd as a warm up to his show? Of course this was the year they played his music.
This really happened and you saw it? Or just something you heard from some guy, who's sister was in the pit the year after it happened?
James Beatty
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Bishop Kearney of the mid-90s (they performed a Sybil show where girls were actually cutting off their own hair and diving through windows, and a Pollock show with paint splattered across the floor so haphazardly that you couldn't help but wonder if a member was going to get hurt).
Those were the first two shows that came to my mind. They were out there, but that guard was amazing in the 90's. Almost hard to believe it was a high school guard. They had a crew whose job it was to clean any errant paint that made it's way off of the plastic they had under the floor.
The girl who actually cut her hair in the Sybil show was a dedicated member.
James Beatty
Crossmen 1996, 1998
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Yeah, Xmen had a small group too - that was the year that YEA stepped in to save the corps. That was a pretty good show for them too - the opening drum feature was definitely a statement of intent. (But those uniform jackets... oy.)
Mike
Actually we had 125 that year. Smaller hornline but the drumline was full and the guard was huge.
James Beatty
Crossmen Contra; 1996, 1998
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I think that same year, the Crossmen had something like 45 or 46 brass? Definitely less than 50. And they finished 7th or 8th. But they had a strong drumline and color guard to pick up the slack IIRC.
The mid 90s were a tough time for hornlines. Even the best ones weren't all that great.
We had a very interesting winter in 1996. I remember one camp around April or May wondering where the hell the hornline was. We had around 25 people show up. I never understood why we had such a tough time recruiting horn players. The drumline always had huge numbers show up at the first few camps. But for the record we had more than 50 horns, but only by one, and two were plugs who didn't play the book.
James Beatty
Crossmen Contra; 1996, 1998
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Both were initially known for their great brass and there are some common staff who marched/taught STAR who moved to CROWN. Overall CROWN clearly has
their own identity. It could be argued that their are similarities between CADETS and CROWN also. There is/was a very large contingency of ex-Cadets members/staff teaching Crown for a few years.
Along those same lines it's sort of unbelievable how many of the staff rotated through the Crossmen in the mid to late 90's. Every section minus the guard staff has several people who either wrote for, taught, or marched Crossmen 1994-1999. Probably a good reason they were 6th-10th place those years.
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I still waiting to hear who the percussion arranger and Colorguard caption head are.
Here is the Colorguard Caption Head.
http://www.crossmen.org/guard-caption-head
I wonder why so secretive with the Percussion Arranger. Is it Mark Thurston?
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Big names coming for the 40th to fill in the blanks.
http://www.crossmen.org/caption-head-announcements
Doesn't look much different than last year. Other than Brass Caption Head.
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I can understand some of Ray's point. As a member of Tarheel Sun, Al DiCroce wrote our brass book and BK's in 1999. We felt like red-headed step children when Al spent most of his time with BK and left us, with all due respect to Al, to fester with a turd all season. We obviously weren't on the level of BK that season, but we probably wouldn't have dropped as suddenly at the end as we did if our designer/caption-head was there for us. .
I'm not worried about Chuck playing favorites or diminishing his quality for the sake of the color of the uniform as he said. Merely bringing up my perspective as a member. All the best!
Is it really necessary for the arranger to be around for the entire tour? I don't really know Chuck's style but the years I marched in Crossmen I don't recall the arrangers being around as much as the rest of the other brass staff. In 1996 Jay Bocook was not around, period, other than maybe a few hours. Michael Klesch was around in 1997 and 1998 but he was also the Caption Head.
Chuck is a good arranger(Colts 93 was awesome!). He gets paid to write good arrangements. If his arrangements sucked he would eventually not get hired to write. I think people take the competitive aspect way too far. Yes, I understand it drives the activity to an extent, but when is all said and done scores and placements mean nothing. If you didn't learn this as a marching member than you had a different experience than I did.
Jason obviously knows how to make a brass line sound great and it is sad to see him go. I hope they can find the sweet spot with the staff this year. One thing is for sure I really enjoyed the last two years from the Crossmen more than I have since 2001.
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These are just years they made finals:
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Pulled this info from the archives; hopefully it's accurate.
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Drill writers for Crossmen:
John Miliauskas: '92 and '93
Eric Kitchenman: '89, '90, '91, '96, '97
Ed Devlin: 2000, 2001, 2012
D. Pemberton: 2002, 2003, 2004 (2008 13th)
Kevin Ford: '94
Jasen DeGroff: '95
Jeff Sacktig: '98
Leon May: '99
Tony Smith: 1980
Vinnie Monticelli: '81, '82
Ralph Pace: '77, '78, '84
The 1997 program actually had three drill writers:
Eric Kitchenman: Birdland
Marc Sylvester: You Are My Sunshine
Jeff Sacktig: Niner-Two
Eric was the program coordinator and the guy who went on tour, but the other two were around for spring training. That was back when the Crossmen shared everything with the Cadets including drill writers.
James Beatty
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L'insolite
Dutch Boy
Academie Musicale
Kiwanis Kavaliers
Les Etoiles
Ventures
Cardinals
It's really a shame that Canadian corps are almost completely gone. They used to be such a large part of Div II/III.
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2014 Predictions!
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERAOAVVBOYc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MYhdxi6LDg
I take cash too!
James